MIXED NEWS IN ADULT VIDEO MARKET
“X-rated videos are the hottest thing in sales and rentals for small video outlets, a new survey says.”
Or, would you believe. . . .?
“Adult video’s role in (video) stores continues to decline.”
These quotes appeared this week in USA Today and Billboard, respectively, and if they seem to conflict, consider this:
They’re from stories on the same video-store survey.
So who’s right? Both, in a way.
The survey, in which the Video Software Dealers Assn. (VSDA) polled 800 of its 7,500 member stores, came up with two sets of figures regarding sales and rentals of X-rated tapes:
--By the end of 1986 (the cutoff time for the survey), 77% of the responding stores carried X-rated videos, down from 82.9% in 1985.
--In those stores that did still carry X-rated tapes, hard-core’s share of video sales rose from 10% to 12.7%.
USA Today may have had the best nose for titillating news (its story carried the headline “A Hot Market for X-rated Videos,” while Billboard merely proclaimed “VSDA Reports 1986 Gains”), but the sets of figures on “adult” tapes were just two among many.
Other findings:
--The video software business is still booming. An impressive 95.4% of Video Software Dealers Assn. stores that responded said their income had increased between 1985 and 1986.
--The boom wasn’t hurt by the continued fall of rental fees, which averaged $2.66 in 1985 and $2.40 in 1986.
--Music video, once considered a potentially hot item for video stores, is a big flop. Its share of video-store revenues dropped from 4.7% in 1985 to 1.7% in 1986. Why buy video music when it’s on MTV, consumers seem to be saying.
--As in the previous year, the dominant categories were comedy (a 17.9% share in 1986), action/adventure (17.8%), drama (13.5%), horror (10.7%) and children’s (9.5%). The revenue share of each, however, slipped slightly from 1985.
--Categories showing share increases were sports (1.8% to 2.5%) and foreign film (1% to 1.3%). And a new category was created for “classic” films, which accounted for 2.9% of revenues.
--This won’t be news for owners of Beta-format VCRs: Only 6.5% of the video stores’ stock consisted of Beta tapes in 1986, compared with 14.6% in 1985.
--Finally, an upbeat note: The number of tapes stocked by each store rose from an average of 1,968 to 2,417.
In related news, there will be a new Traci Lords tape on the video-store shelves July 28. And, though Lords is one of the biggest stars in the sex-film industry, “Traci I Love You” will be the only available video featuring her--at least for a while.
Lords appeared in dozens of X-rated videos before “Traci I Love You,” but they were all pulled off video-store shelves last July because it was found that the actress was under 18 when she made them. The new video, being released by Chatsworth-based Caballero, is the first that Lords made since turning 18.
The weekly trade magazine Video Insider reported the impending release in its latest issue and quoted Al Bloom, Caballero’s president, as saying his company’s attorney would send a letter verifying Lords’ age to video distributors.
“I can honestly say that more diligence went into researching the age of the performers in this film than any other film in the history of the adult industry,” Bloom asserted.
