Porn Sales Declining, Blame the Internet

After years of essentially steady increases, sales and rentals of pornographic videos were $3.62 billion in 2006, down from $4.28 billion in 2005, according to estimates by AVN, an industry trade publication. If the situation does not change, the overall $13 billion sex-related entertainment market may shrink this year, said Paul Fishbein, president of AVN Media Network, the magazine’s publisher. The industry’s online revenue is substantial but is not growing quickly enough to make up for the drop in video income.

Quick and easy amateur porn is driving out professionals and even established amateur productions. In many ways this is a replay of the videotape revolution, just as porn movies were turning more professional a flood of cheap and quick tapes cut profits of expensive productions.