The UK how far is it behind the US?

[Shandy McAndy]

Apart from Pussy Cash, which as far as I can see isnt really UK based anyway, how far are we behind the US, is ther really any big mega programs in the UK?

This isnt a put down, we hope to be there one day, but it seems the yanks are yearts ahead of us. :onguard:

In terms of programs sites and untill b&b webmaster forums!

[dvtimes]

To be honest, US sites do get promoted better in the USA, well porn does full stop, by the media.

If you do porn in the UK, your no better than a child killer. But in the USA the media seems to promote them.

An example being suesidegirls, which has been on usa tv (in a positive way) a lot.

Just look how the uk press is treating that killing in the usa. The latest report on uk tv, they said that he seemed respectfull, but did porn. They made him sound like he was a drug seller.

Also USA sites seem to promote 99% of usa sites. An example is xbiz.com which seems to only deal with the usa, and just treat the uk as a joke.

If you chat to people in the UK they will have heard of USA porn stars, far more than UK ones.

Its not a case of being behind, its a case of how the UK treats porn.

[Rosie]

Horrifically, I find myself largely agreeing with DVTimes on that.

[SGS]

To be honest, US sites do get promoted better in the USA, well porn does full stop, by the media.

If you do porn in the UK, your no better than a child killer. But in the USA the media seems to promote them.

An example being suesidegirls, which has been on usa tv (in a positive way) a lot.

Just look how the uk press is treating that killing in the usa. The latest report on uk tv, they said that he seemed respectfull, but did porn. They made him sound like he was a drug seller.

Also USA sites seem to promote 99% of usa sites. An example is xbiz.com which seems to only deal with the usa, and just treat the uk as a joke.

If you chat to people in the UK they will have heard of USA porn stars, far more than UK ones.

Its not a case of being behind, its a case of how the UK treats porn.

Good points but UK sites don't just target UK traffic. We have a huge number of US affiliates that make a lot of sales for us daily and they don't care if we are UK or US so long as they make money.

If you want to see the real reason that the UK is behind you just need to look at the UK DVD industry where some of the UKs best producers have been wasting their time for years.

[xcite-tv]

Oh my god ...me too...

And a further point is, the US porn stars are just that, STARS.

In the UK some of the best known girls are also escorts (being polite) and you can get a BJ off them on some crappy bukkaki site for nothing..

Its just too downmarket in this country generally and its down to attitude mostly

BUT: Do we really want huge programmes in this country...one of the reasons our site among a few others will do well is because its not part of some corporate looking organisation with 100s of sites with the same old bought in content.
Also if there was a multi million pound company in this country with loads of sites it would get hounded by the press and left wing media

I think things will change and these bigger progs will be seen for what they are

[NumptyNuts]

Also USA sites seem to promote 99% of usa sites. An example is xbiz.com which seems to only deal with the usa, and just treat the uk as a joke.

More people live in the US compared to the UK

Higher pecentage of people in the US have internet and are not affraid to use it.

In the US you dont get any erotic / semi erotic entertainment on TV

As for programmes ther are some pretty big ones in the UK or that are owned by UK companies, Dollars for Babes, Neptond Cash are two that spring to mind.

In the US sell telco in a different way which we are starting to follow here in the UK ie packaging phone/cable & internet together.

[SGS]

You need to remember that there a quite a few companies/programs turning over several million a year here in the UK and have been doing so for many years. They just don't make a fuss.

[Guest]

If you want to see the real reason that the UK is behind you just need to look at the UK DVD industry where some of the UKs best producers have been wasting their time for years.
I'm not really that familiar with the adult DVD scene, but it seems to me that the law on sale of R18 is the problem. You can only legally sell R18 material via licensed sex shops and most of those seem to be the Private chain, so they abuse their monopoly and charge ridiculous amounts like £40 for a DVD. I would be a mug to pay that amount when I could order something just as good for a quarter of the price from somewhere like Action DVD.

[JT]

In some ways I would rather be doing porn over here, than there. There are so many right wing religious nutters over there. Its only a matter of time before they start bumping off pornographers

[Mattyboy]

DVDs
BBFC fee: £1200 approx
Authoring: £700
Duplication/printing: £1200 approx per 1000 units
Turnaround time: 4-8 weeks
Sell on to trade: £4-6 per unit. (shop owner can sell for up to £40!)
Mainly Uk market customers

Website
Server fees: dependent on traffic
Turnaround time: overnight is easily possible
Worldwide customers

I know which one i'll be sticking with :)

[SGS]

DVDs
BBFC fee: £1200 approx
Authoring: £700
Duplication/printing: £1200 approx per 1000 units
Turnaround time: 4-8 weeks
Sell on to trade: £4-6 per unit. (shop owner can sell for up to £40!)
Mainly Uk market customers

Website
Server fees: dependent on traffic
Turnaround time: overnight is easily possible
Worldwide customers

I know which one i'll be sticking with :)

Sell to trade: more like £2

We make DVDs but would never dream of selling one. Business is business.

[dvtimes]

Sell to trade: more like £2

We make DVDs but would never dream of selling one. Business is business.

Also there are only a few sex shops that can sell the DVD's. I suspect by now around 200.

I bet most would not buy many DVD's from you unless you were well known.

So sell say 20 at £2 = £40

And by no of sex shops, say 200 * £40 = £8000

But just getting the discs to the shop will cost you p&p, plus your going to travel to the shops to sell the discs. So minus petrol.

And not only can the shops sell them for £40 (though if there are a few shops in an area, then the costs are cheaper). The shop can buy the discs back off customers for £5, then sell them about second hand for £20 (I have seen this done a lot).

The you have the pirats who sell openly in newspapers, who can easily copy yourdvd and sell it for £10.

[dvtimes]

DVDs
BBFC fee: £1200 approx
Authoring: £700
Duplication/printing: £1200 approx per 1000 units
Turnaround time: 4-8 weeks
Sell on to trade: £4-6 per unit. (shop owner can sell for up to £40!)
Mainly Uk market customers

Website
Server fees: dependent on traffic
Turnaround time: overnight is easily possible
Worldwide customers

I know which one i'll be sticking with :)

Plus thats if it all goes through ok. They may play silly devils and make you cut bits out.

Last time I looked, the also want you to send in the cover of the dvd too.

Its down to the no of dvd's you can sell in the UK.

And Ibet a lot of dvd's sold in the uk, are not made in the uk.

A lot of people who I know who buy porn, do not buy uk porn, as (a) they think its not as good (low budget), and (b) they think its soft core.

[dvtimes]

In some ways I would rather be doing porn over here, than there. There are so many right wing religious nutters over there. Its only a matter of time before they start bumping off pornographers

The problem with the UK is that many still think porn is illigall.

Also untill the last few years, porn was not legal, and as such by definition only criminals did porn (and if you did porn, it was a crime, and thus makes you a criminal). Due to this, many still belive porn is done ONLY by criminals.

I think often those who are involved with porn, forget or do not realise that those not involved with porn have a warped view on it.

Porn is one of those things that if your involved with itt, you have much to learn, and will learn more each day. But those who have nothing to do with porn, know everything about it. By this I mean, Iwould never to up to a sergion, and say I could do his job as I have watched ER the night before, but yet everybody not involved with porn, knows everything about it.

But then again, 'porn' to me is a made up word. In truth its meanigless. To one person porn is full on sex, to another its a girl standing on a grape.

The money is irrelavent. You can make millions in this business, but your not going to get respect. To the public 'we' are scum. If you cannot handle that fact, then your in the wrong business.

[Guest]

To the public 'we' are scum.
I'm not sure that's entirely true. People always seem more fascinated than anything else when I tell them I 'run a porn site'. I think perhaps it's the case that the kind of people who would wish to label us as scum are merely the people who shout the loudest.

[NumptyNuts]

not thought of using a company to handle all of this? You just drop ship to them.

Just a thought I know some peeps who do it this way and seems to work OK.

[dvtimes]

In some ways I would rather be doing porn over here, than there. There are so many right wing religious nutters over there. Its only a matter of time before they start bumping off pornographers

To be honest, its not the right wing/conservatives that seem to be a problem, as when it comes to porn they seem liberal.

Its more he left wing new labour (ban everything) that seem to be the ones who are more anti porn.

Yes they legalised it, but only so much as making somthing legal almost impossible to sell.

By making porn legall but only alowing licenced sex shops to sell the dvd's, means that only the big firms can sell in the uk. Small firms find it expensive.

The situation now seems to be, if you legaly make a film and try to sell it legally in the uk, you are stuffed.

But if you pirate films, then your going to make a profit.

[dvtimes]

Apart from Pussy Cash, which as far as I can see isnt really UK based anyway, how far are we behind the US, is ther really any big mega programs in the UK?

This isnt a put down, we hope to be there one day, but it seems the yanks are yearts ahead of us. :onguard:

In terms of programs sites and untill b&b webmaster forums!

But without going off the topic too much (as we seem to have a bit), I refer back to the above statment.

We are behind in the fact that in the USA, its far easer to do porn in many ways, and still get respect in the street.

But at least in the last few years I have seen one or two decent sites (porn) from the UK (I will not name them) that look rather good.

But one thing Ihave said a lot, is that 'we' need to be presented better in the media. I do not think I have yet to watch a UK tv show on porn where people look good. Rather they are made to look like slime (often they do it themselves).

The USA media does at least give those in porn a more positive viewpoint.

[NumptyNuts]

I think another issue could be is that the UK has a way longer history so values which applied 300 years ago have stuck, the US is still a developing nation so their values are still being thrashed out.

[dvtimes]

I think another issue could be is that the UK has a way longer history so values which applied 300 years ago have stuck, the US is still a developing nation so their values are still being thrashed out.

Not realy.

Go back 100 years or so, drugs were legal. You could watch a hanging.

Protetution was fine.

Even porn was ok (of sorts).

I think the start of modern porn (as in films) changed things.

There was a lot of criminals involved with porn. And porn became more illigall in the UK. This has thus had the criminal conection.

Even now most people think porn is illigall. Most peole think r18 films are still soft porn.

While even though porn in the usa has had a big criminal conection, due to freedom of speech act, it was never realy made illigal (though its not realy legall, just not illigall). As such, people have always bought it.

Look at porn mags in the usa, they have been hard core for years.

As I write this, I have to be honest, and I am not sure if UK top shelf mags are now any stronger than open leg stuff. So if I do not know, how would I expect people to know r18 is now uncut hardcore.

But also we have this new labour attitude all over, as in we must be political correct. When you can be shot for blackboard, 'porn' is never going to be given a positive light.

Though the USA is 50% conservative and in parts very religiouse, it does still seem to have a relaxed media on porn. Though as we have seen, they went way over the top what miss Jacson showed her boob at the superbowl. After all we have had streakers showing all at sports events for years.

[NumptyNuts]

they went way over the top what miss Jacson showed her boob at the superbowl. After all we have had streakers showing all at sports events for years.


over the top, you kidding me, if that old slapper did that on cup final day I would sling her in the tower! We dont see the streakers now :(

100 years....I'm talking 1000's even the US can reach back a hundred years

[dvtimes]

over the top, you kidding me, if that old slapper did that on cup final day I would sling her in the tower! We dont see the streakers now :(

100 years....I'm talking 1000's even the US can reach back a hundred years

Yes, england has 1000's of years of history. But modern englands attidus go no futher than victorian period.

In fact if you look at WWII, it was a faily relaxed time. There was plenty of rumpy pumpy.

I am sure that many people in the UK are ungnowigly related to some us solder.

[NumptyNuts]

Yes, england has 1000's of years of history. But modern englands attidus go no futher than victorian period.

In fact if you look at WWII, it was a faily relaxed time. There was plenty of rumpy pumpy.

I am sure that many people in the UK are ungnowigly related to some us solder.


I think if WWIII happened there would be even more chance of rumpy pumpy happening everywhere we looked.

No yank in me mate, you have to go east to find my birth blood.

[SGS]

not thought of using a company to handle all of this? You just drop ship to them.

Just a thought I know some peeps who do it this way and seems to work OK.

For a few pennies and then have your content diluted and stolen? Not in a million years. We still make several 100 times more having them available for download only and as we have them so heavily watermarked we even make a lot of sales from the stolen and P2P traffic.

Our first DVD cost us around about £10,000 to produce from start to finish and it paid for itself 3 times over in the first month it was released for download and it has made money from every week since then too. DVDs are great to watch but I am a businessman not an enthusiast and to me DVDs are only any good for when you have run out of coffee coasters here in the office.

[xcite-tv]

DVDs
BBFC fee: £1200 approx
Authoring: £700
Duplication/printing: £1200 approx per 1000 units
Turnaround time: 4-8 weeks
Sell on to trade: £4-6 per unit. (shop owner can sell for up to £40!)
Mainly Uk market customers

Website
Server fees: dependent on traffic
Turnaround time: overnight is easily possible
Worldwide customers

I know which one i'll be sticking with :)

Absolutely agree apart from the fact that to sell on to trade your lucky to get £2 per unit

[Shandy McAndy]

we was thinking about releasing DVD's with all our own content, which would be totally new for us, but it doesnt sound such a good idea?

[xcite-tv]

we was thinking about releasing DVD's with all our own content, which would be totally new for us, but it doesnt sound such a good idea?

£2 per unit is a good price in todays market... they buy a few and copy thousands..... try arguing with some of the fuckers that own sex shops in this country when you find copys on their shelves.....You could try going down the 18 route and into the high street ....good luck

[aaron_sterlingcash]

I think there are some very valid points, I still think it boils down to attitude and size. We have 60 million people how many of them would be women and how many in our current cultural climate would would consider porn and if so how do they get into it??

In the US its different they head to hollywood, and the actual culture is different girls are more willing and the sponsors over there can fly girl internally for much less than say us booking girls from US or Europe plus with 350 million of them there is a bigger pool of girls.

As mentioned on the modeling agency thread its upto us to create a central location fresh in the public mind, even if they dont like it its there...so any girl thinking or wanting to do porn can go for info and then get into it with us as a collective.

Could pr to boost the image or porn do something, im sick of seeing porn the dark side n all that bullshit im sure between us we can create some positive pr for uk porn in general which would also have the benefit of making it more acceptable in a social sense. Im certainly willing who else is?

[aaron_sterlingcash]

Just another quick thought... sites like adultwork are growing there is a shift toward porn in the country as well as loads of girls comfortable with webcaming. Im sure if we branded a site well between us we would have a definatre advantage then and we can start to compete with the yanks.

[Guest]

As I write this, I have to be honest, and I am not sure if UK top shelf mags are now any stronger than open leg stuff. So if I do not know, how would I expect people to know r18 is now uncut hardcore.
Back in the mid-90s several magazines such as Whitehouse started pushing back the boundaries and incorporating hardcore content.

Aside from fetish magazines, I stopped buying them around that time so I don't know if the experiment continued, however many newsagents, particularly independent Asian-run outlets, have been stocking hardcore magazines like Private and Pirate for years now.

[SGS]

Back in the mid-90s several magazines such as Whitehouse started pushing back the boundaries and incorporating hardcore content.

That's a blast from the past. :)

We used to do a lot of work for DS back then. :)

[SGS]

we was thinking about releasing DVD's with all our own content, which would be totally new for us, but it doesnt sound such a good idea?

So long as it doesn’t take a lot of time and money give it a go? Just do some sums and weight up the same time and money spent on your sites online and work out where the better returns would come from first.

[Shandy McAndy]

So long as it doesn’t take a lot of time and money give it a go? Just do some sums and weight up the same time and money spent on your sites online and work out where the better returns would come from first.

Yep, definatly need to look at it, its just something weve talked about but not yet researched at all, but from what you guys say it doesnt sound great.

This was going to be an extra with content we have already shot

[SGS]

This was going to be an extra with content we have already shot

Sounds good. Should be on every gypo and pirates pasting table at every car boot sale up and down the country 2 days after release. :)

[dvtimes]

Yep, definatly need to look at it, its just something weve talked about but not yet researched at all, but from what you guys say it doesnt sound great.

This was going to be an extra with content we have already shot

Consider this:

It may be worth you doing the DVD even if you make a loss on the DVD.

Why.

Well you put out a DVD, it gets pirated.

Is this a bad thing?

Well your DVD is passed to thousands of people in the UK.

Think how many new customers this could bring to your site.

So your DVD could be in fact a good form of advertising.

[SGS]

Consider this:

It may be worth you doing the DVD even if you make a loss on the DVD.

Why.

Well you put out a DVD, it gets pirated.

Is this a bad thing?

Well your DVD is passed to thousands of people in the UK.

Think how many new customers this could bring to your site.

So your DVD could be in fact a good form of advertising.


Yes so long as you don't try to sell it through a distributer as they wont let you watermark the footage.

[dvtimes]

Yes so long as you don't try to sell it through a distributer as they wont let you watermark the footage.

True.

You can make good money with DVD's as I have helped out a few people to do this.

But do not forget, a poor DVD can do you harm too, as it will put people off your site.