Hot Rod Productions

[Jacques]

Hot Rod Productions went into voluntary liquidation in July.

Hot Rod's Chris Ratcliff said: "There are so many products in the market and the shops are not selling in volume. When we saw a decline in sales in Soho, we knew the writing was on the wall."

The difficulties of British censorship and restrictions on distribution were also cited as contributing factors.

[Alex L]

Jacques wrote:

>Hot Rod Productions went into voluntary liquidation in July.


All rights to their titles now taken over by Simply, I believe.

[Jacques]

Alex L wrote:

> All rights to their titles now taken over by Simply, I believe.


Yup Load Enterprises aka Simply The Best

[Trumpton]

Symptomatic of the current state of the British industry?

[one eyed jack]

Symptomatic of the business internationally I'd say

[Trumpton]

However, many parts of the world don't have the same degree of censorship we have in the UK.

[one eyed jack]

Censorship may be a contributing factor but only marginally so.

[Trumpton]

one eyed jack wrote:

> Censorship may be a contributing factor but only marginally so.

True.

But other contributing factors are; the product produced, the price offered and the overall economic recession.

[one eyed jack]

Trimpton wrote:
But other contributing factors are; the product produced, the price offered and the overall economic recession.

True...But then taking all that into consideration, why did Hot Rod of all companies go under? They had a good strong catalogue of well produced product

[DanG]

Many years ago, I was in the business of distributing R18s just like Hot Rod, but nowhere near on the same scale. As soon as I realised that R18 mail order was not going to be legalised, I sold on my remaining rights and got the fuck out.

If you're just licensing product from overseas, then customers will more than likely opt to get an original uncensored version from abroad with all the DVD extras included rather than a trimmed down, truncated or outright censored UK R18 version. Digital Playground's 'Pirates', anyone? (and as a previous poster has already mentioned, sometimes the price is more favourable too).

Also, in a license-only operation such as Hot Rod, you have limited options. You don't own the copyright to the content, therefore you can't use it for websites, VOD, Softcore TV, mobile content etc...the original copyright holder will be doing this. All you have left to sell is finished units, be they DVD or VHS. That's it.

Now take into account the market in the UK. I quickly realised that unless you own a chain of licensed sex shops, then licensing product is a mug's game. First off, you have no price leverage whatsoever. If a certain store chain doesn't like your unit price, you have two options: 1) Cut your price to what they want to pay or 2) Try and recoup your expenditure (licence, certification, duplication, sleeve design and printing, any editing, storage, delivery, etc.) by selling to the handful of independent stores in the UK. You don't have to be a maths genius to figure out that it's not going to happen.

The larger store chains also licence titles from abroad, which means that they are your direct competitors. Now, when push comes to shove, do you think they are going to move one of their titles which is already paid for, and thus yields a bigger profit, in favour of one yours? No...and if I were in the same position I wouldn't do it either. Unless you're the 'Kelloggs' of UK porn, they'll stick with their own stuff (which isn't exactly inferior either...we're talking Private, Evil Empire, Hustler, etc. here, after all).

Lest we forget, these store chains don't sell these titles exclusively to their stores, like a Supermarket's own brand goods...they also sell them to other stores as well, meaning yet more competition for the independent licensor/distributor. A store chain knows it can run up a certain number of copies of a title and be guaranteed to shift them across their network and beyond...an independent distributor could be left sitting on 1000 DVDs which they can't shift for more than a pittance.

Unless R18 mail order is legalised, then you can forget about being an independent distributor. The marketplace is a de facto monopoly, and unless you either a) own a licenced shop or b) produce your own content and own the copyright to your products, then you have no 'Plan B' to fall back on when the big store chains decide not to take your latest offering (or at least, not for anything approaching a fair price).

Then you have to factor in piracy, both online and hard copy. FACT didn't want anything to do with me, unsurprisingly. But that's a discussion for another time.

VOD and Internet are legitimate competitors that are slowly grabbing a bigger piece of the pie, but unless you own the rights to the content (which an independent distributor does not), then you can't exploit them. Some folks don't want to have stacks of DVDs around the house, some want to pick and choose which scenes they want...that's just the way business is going. DVD is slowly dying, and the web is now the place to be. In the future, I think the DVD (or HD-DVD or whatever) hard copy format will be reserved for the bigger budget multiple-disc stuff with all the trimmings. Interchangeable and ultimately disposable gonzo stuff is better suited to VOD, I feel. Time will tell, I guess...maybe 'Download To Own/Burn' will bang another nail in the coffin?

At the end of the day, the sad fact is that the business model Hot Rod were following is unsustainable in the UK market in the long term, and it caught up with them. I bet ********** is currently sporting a grin you couldn't remove with a rotary sander...