January 22, 2001
Big companies now behind pornography
___NEW YORK--It's now easier to order pornography into your home than pizza, according to a recent article in the New York Times.
___And the purveyors of that pornography may be bigger and better-known companies than any of the pizza giants.
___The selling of sexual images now amounts to an industry with $10 billion in annual revenues, according to the Oct. 23 Times article, "Wall Street Meets Pornography."
___Most Americans would be surprised to learn who's making money off this booming business.
___For example, General Motors Corp. sells more graphic sex films than Larry Flynt, head of the Hustler empire, the Times reports. DirecTV, a General Motors subsidiary, sells $200 million worth of in-home pornography a year.
___Other corporate heavyweights turning a profit off pornography include AT&T, Time Warner, Marriott International, Hilton and Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, the Times notes.
___Most of these companies don't sell pornography directly but reap huge profits through the work of their subsidiary companies that do. "The major satellite and cable companies do very little marketing of their X-rated products, and they are not mentioned in annual reports except in the vaguest of euphemisms."
___Sexual content sold through hotel televisions generates more income for hotel chains than all the beer, wine, soft drinks and snacks sold from hotel room mini-bars, the paper reports. "Based on estimates by the hotel industry, at least half of all guests buy these adult movies, which means that pay-per-view sex from hotel room television may generate about $190 million a year in sales."
___Other findings of the Times:
___Americans buy or rent more than $4 billion a year worth of graphic sex videos from retail outlets and spend an additional $800 million a year on less-explicit sexual films.
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