Online Porn Hurts Adult "Zines"

After 35 Year Al Goldstein Has Stopped Publishing
Screw Mag and Filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.

NEW YORK Nov. 9 (AP)- After 35 years in the business of titillating and offending, pornographer Al Goldstein says his magazine can't compete anymore. The audience is just as large, he says, but the Internet has transformed the product and its delivery.

Just over a month ago, Goldstein stopped publishing Screw magazine and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, giving him a chance to cut costs, relaunch the magazine and refocus attention on his Web site.

Similar pressures are seen throughout the adult publishing field. Bob Guccione's General Media Inc., for instance, has also filed for Chapter 11 protection, although the company's trademark Penthouse magazine continues publishing while the company restructures.

Goldstein said circulation woes throughout the field show "we are an anachronism; we are dinosaurs; we are elephants going to the bone cemetery to die.... The delivery system has changed, and we have to change with it if we want to survive."

Founded in 1968, Screw was successful in its early years. Its mix of scatological editorials, Goldstein rants against politicians and celebrities, pornographic pictures and tongue-and-cheek articles sold as many as 140,000 copies a week. But the advertising brought millions. However, by last year, sales had dipped to around 30,000.

Purveyors of adult fare must expand beyond traditional publishing methods to survive, said Samir Husni, head of the magazine program at the University of Mississippi's journalism school.

"The magazine may remain the cornerstone for the name brand, but in the future, the real money will be made elsewhere," Husni said. Hundreds of new adult Web sites launch every month, he said, compared to 30 new sex magazines all of last year.

Hustler Magazine publisher Larry Flynt, who says his company has succeeded in the new marketplace, agrees that magazines are a dying breed.

Flynt said his company began to diversify over a decade ago, and now has a presence on the Internet and in the adult movie industry.

Even an industry stalwart like Playboy, which has remained profitable, has seen growing success from its online business while magazine revenues have lagged.

While the more widely known adult magazines may always have an audience, Husni said, fringe publications will have trouble surviving.

excerpted from:
Online Porn Hurts Adult "Zines"
Associated Press 11-9-03