As with audio CDs, so with porn on DVD. According to The New York Times:
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.
Part of the problem is, it seems, oversupply: "The barrier to get into the industry is so low: you need a video camera and a couple of people who will have sex," says Fishbein. The "the new spate of low-budget filmmakers" is helping to increase the number of X-rated DVD releases to more than 1,000 a month.
The NYT doesn't do the maths, but 12,000 movies making $3.62 billion still comes to around $300,000 per movie. On average. Maybe the bulk of that goes to rental stores, but if production costs are minimal, that's probably enough to tempt plenty of people to have a go.
Also, is this stuff vetted or rated? Assuming a porn DVD lasts for two hours, you'd need to have 12 people spend 8 hours a day watching it for five days a week, with no holidays or sick days.
