secrets

Secret Formula for Cinemax ‘After Dark’ Success Revealed

The L.A. Times today lovingly turns the spotlight onto the soft-core porn industry. Why? Because, when every other entertainment industry is collapsing, just sticking around is an achievement. In recent years, “Hollywood’s most stable business” has been boosted by on-demand: “On Cinemax, erotic films and shows — what it calls “After Dark” content — make up just 8% of the channel’s over-the-air schedule. But when it comes to VOD, nearly 20% of Cinemax’s inventory is devoted to erotic entertainment, and 15% of the channel’s overall on-demand orders are for “After Dark” programs.” The “soft erotics” are still dependable content, the Times theorizes, because they offer a gentler complement to all that really dirty stuff you can find on the Internet. Also: “The films usually attempt to have coherent storylines.”

More important: Were you aware that there is literally a formula for these? It’s not clear whether Marc Greenberg, founder of industry titans MRG Entertainment, realized what he was doing when he let this tidbit fly; while longtime industry watchers may have always known this to be the case, it’s certainly startling new information for the population at large. Okay, here goes: “You’re going to see sex in the first minute and you’re going to see sex every seven or eight minutes after that.” Aspiring soft-erotic auteurs, take note.

Soft-core porn still hot stuff on cable TV [LAT]

Secret Formula for Cinemax ‘After Dark’ Success Revealed