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Video killed the centerfold
>> Skin mags are so readily, you'd never guess the industry was in decline. It is. by DOMINIQUE RITTER
The slow but steady changes at Sexe Cité are hardly unique. The fact is that skin mags just aren't what they used to be--and the transformation goes beyond silicon breasts and collagen lips. Since the introduction of the VCR in the early '80s, printed porn has been on the wane. And although there is certainly no shortage of T&A at the local dep, there has been a quiet yet profound change to the world of porn media. "When I was a kid in college, if you wanted to see a naked woman you turned to Playboy or Penthouse," Bob Rattner, Penthouse's vice-president and director of marketing, told the Mirror. Such is no longer the case: since 1980, Penthouse's circulation has fallen from 4 million to 1 million, while Playboy has plummeted from 10 million to 3 million.
But the proliferation of specialty skin mags is also part of an attempt to bolster printed porn against video and the Internet, which now account for the majority of porn sales. A trip to your local video-rental store (with the exception of Blockbuster, which could be called Pornbuster for its refusal to stock anything XXX-rated) will open you up to the wonderful world of Babe Watch. These days, people with $5 to spend on porn will most likely rent a flick or visit their favourite Web site. "What's happening is that the skin mag business used to be the foundation of distribution companies," said Ron Sellwood, the distribution manager for the Canadian Magazine Publishers Association. "But skin mags as a part of that whole business is eroding." Skin mags used to make up about 25 per cent of Canadian magazine distribution revenue, says Sellwood, but they now account for closer to five per cent of total sales. Montreal's largest press distributor, Benjamin News, could not provide sales figures prior to 1994. However, over the last five years, porn sales have accounted for an average of only 3.5 per cent of its total sales. Sex shops, on the other hand, which have been stocking a myriad of porn mags for much longer, are a better barometer for measuring the decline in the business. Walk into any sex shop and bear witness to the inundation of Assy videos, CD-ROMs and computer games. Ten years ago, says Sexe Cité owner Alain St-Jacques, his business was all about girly mags; now his best sellers are Andrew Blake soft-core porn flicks. "It's evolution. It's the evolution of the market," St-Jacques says. Sidebar: From classics to cutting edge
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At Boutique Sexe Cité, the porn-mag covergirl is no longer queen and the strapping centerfolds of Beastly Boys are losing face. For a number of years now, magazine sales at the downtown sex shop have been falling and currently stand at 50 per cent of what they were a decade ago. The spotlight over the likes of Hot Snatch Starlets has been dimming.
Back in the 1970s there wasn't as broad a selection in terms of naked people on the shelves of the local newsstand. The introduction of hundreds of new, specialty skin mag titles (called "sophisticate" in industry parlance) no doubt has contributed significantly to the downward spiral in Playboy and Penthouse readership.