Adult Video Revenue Is Put at $4.2 Billion a Year

Outpacing the overall video market, sales and rentals of adult videos have increased 100% in the last five years, according to a survey by trade publication Adult Video News.

The magazine--which polled video retailers across the country for the survey--estimates the current annual revenue of adult titles at $4.2 billion, which is higher than most estimates and would account for more than 25% of all video revenue. As a percentage of the overall video business, however, adult titles are estimated to have fallen off slightly from their high in 1995.

Jeffrey H. Douglas, executive director of the industry’s trade organization Free Speech Coalition, says the figures reflect several factors that make the adult video business very profitable. The average cost of an adult video rental is about $1 higher than the average $2.76 rental, for example.

Douglas said adult titles are widely acknowledged to have driven video in its infancy: Seventy percent of VCR buyers in the first three years during which the devices were on the market said that being able to view adult movies at home was a primary reason they bought a VCR.

There are no firm statistics on what percentage of the 28,000 video specialty retailers nationwide carry adult movies (which can be rated X, NC-17 or classified as “hard R”). Many retailers rely on X-rated videos to compete with the big chains. Discount retailers like Wal-Mart and Kmart don’t carry adult videos and have largely taken away the profitability of selling family-oriented titles.

Even chains like Blockbuster, which originally marketed themselves as not carrying adult movies, have drifted toward carrying soft-core titles they classify as “screwball” or “wild” comedies, Douglas said.

The survey found that more than 70% of adult videos are rented by men, 19% are rented by male-female couples and 2% are rented by women.