‘Frontline’ Examines Porn Industry

Midway through his hourlong report on the U.S. pornography business tonight (9 p.m., KCET), “Frontline” correspondent Peter J. Boyer declares, “This is the golden age of porn.”

By that time, viewers will not be surprised at the observation. Boyer and producer-director Michael Kirk have presented their case in compelling and disturbing fashion, reporting not merely that it’s a multibillion-dollar business but also that there are at least 200,000 commercial porn sites on the World Wide Web and that major companies such as AT&T;, General Motors and Hilton Hotels Corp. have become “corporate collaborators” in distributing sexually explicit videos.

“The mainstream companies help legitimize what we’re doing,” says Bill Asher, president of Van Nuys-based Vivid Entertainment Group, an adult film company.

“Frontline” does an excellent job explaining how this situation arose, citing the boom in technology, a lack of enforcement of obscenity laws by the Clinton administration and, not least, public demand for the product.

The program suggests that the “golden age” could be in for some tarnishing as that product grows ever more kinky (you get a strong smattering here of how far it’s going), virtually daring law enforcement to take producers to court to test where the lines of decency are drawn.