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Concurrent with the growth in adult video is a decline in the number of adult movie theaters. <br />The Adult Film Association of America recently estimated that the number of adult movie <br />theaters across the United States had declined from 800 in 1979 to about 50 in 1990.` The <br />estimate appears low considering the number of adult movie theaters located in New York <br />City alone. <br />The growth in the adult video sales and rentals segment of the adult industry is directly <br />related to the increasing availability of inexpensively produced triple -X videocassettes that <br />have flooded the market in recent years. Adult video producers have cut costs dramatically <br />by shooting on videotape rather than film, shooting for fewer days; cutting the length of <br />scripts, using cheaper sets, and slashing production budgets. Performerssalaries, even for top <br />stars, have dropped steadily from more than $1,000/day five years ago to as low as $100/day. <br />Adult Video News estimates that in 1983, eight percent of the releases were shot on <br />videotape., with the balance shot on film. Last year, 97 percent of the relP;se's were shot on <br />videotape. The Adult Video Association contends that cost cutting by producers' of adult <br />home videos has caused the price of a triple -X videocassette to plunge from $100 a few years <br />ago to as low as $5 today.'S <br />Despite criticism that the latest entrepreneurs in the sex industry are delivering' an inferior <br />product, demand for their products appears to remain strong. One Los Angeles -based <br />company, Evil Angel Productions, is typical of the latest producers of cheap adult videos. The <br />company grossed $34,000 in 1990 when it produced and released eight tapes. In .1993, the <br />company grossed $1 million by -shooting, manufacturing and distributing a new hard-core <br />videotape every three weeks .31 Sales for another Hollywood -based price -cutter, Video <br />Exclusives, rose from $3 million in 1981 .to $30 million in 1991. Other hard-core video <br />producers in Hollywood, where about 50 of the nation's 60 or so manufacturers of hard-core <br />videotapes are located, report similar growth.37 <br />Despite these successes, some in the industry believe that the market for these products has <br />peaked and that the novelty of pornography will simply wear off over time. Triple -X videos are <br />still a billion -dollar business, says Gene Ross, an editor at Adult Video News, but the business <br />34 John Needham, "Gone With the Sin: Closure of Adult Theater in Santa Ana Reflects Trend Credited To - <br />Or Blamed On - The Videocassette Revolution," Los Angeles Times, August 14, 1990, p. E-1. <br />35 John Johnson, "Demand Is Strong, But Police Crackdowns and A Saturated Market Spell Trouble for One <br />of L.A.'s Biggest Businesses," Los Anseles Times, February 17, 1991, p. 8.I <br />�� "Despite U.S. Campaign, A Boom in Pornography," The New, York Times, 'Ju4, 1993, p. A-20. <br />}1 Johnson, p. 8. <br />16 E VER00115 <br />