The money shot: How the porn business resurrected the studio system

This thesis will examine the industrial organization of the video pornography industry, primarily housed in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles. More specifically, I will focus on pornography (originally on film, now primarily on video) from 1990 to 2001, investigate how the business works, and how it makes money. It is my belief that the crucial ingredient in the success of the porn business is its adoption of an industrial model based on the Studio System that dominated Hollywood until the late 1960s. Through historical and industrial analysis, I will demonstrate the strong similarities between the Hollywood film industry and the pornography industry, as well as how their respective paths diverged. Vivid Video will be analyzed as a case study of a pornography studio.