| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Fredric L. Rice" |
| Date: |
03 Feb 2005 02:12:30 AM |
| Object: |
Oh man, Christian hypocricy |
This one's good: Typical fundy cultists are facing prison for massive
fraud and swindleing millions of innocent people but they think pornography
is "immoral." Stealing millions is okay by Jesus. Porn which hurts
no one, isn't okay.
-=-
Rigas, Adelphia's owner, is a big GOP financial supporter.
http://tinyurl.com/5bftp
--------------
Once-Conservative Adelphia Adds Hard-Core Porn to Cable
By Sallie Hofmeister, Times Staff Writer
http://tinyurl.com/624re
Porn is suddenly sexy to a cable TV company once considered the
industry prude.
Adelphia Communications Corp. has quietly become the nation's only
leading cable operator to offer the most explicit category of hard-core
porn. Come Friday, triple-X-rated programming will be available on
cable for the first time in a major media market: Southern California.
"People want it, so we are trying to provide it," Adelphia spokeswoman
Erica Stull said. "The more Xs, the more popular."
Stull stressed that the programming, supplied by Playboy Enterprises
Inc., would not be advertised and could be blocked to prevent children
from watching. It will be delivered through video-on-demand technology,
available now to about two-thirds of Adelphia's 1.2 million Southern
California subscribers.
The move is a radical departure for Adelphia, the largest cable
provider in Southern California and the nation's fifth biggest. Five
years ago, Adelphia stirred a local controversy by dropping Spice - a
popular soft-porn channel - from newly acquired cable systems here
because Adelphia founder John Rigas considered X-rated programming
immoral.
Today, the 80-year-old Rigas and one of his sons are facing prison
terms after being convicted last summer for looting the company and
engaging in fraudulent accounting.
Adelphia, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2002,
currently is on the block. During the last year, in an effort to
bolster Adelphia's bottom line, the company's new management has begun
offering softer porn in various areas of the country and, in recent
months, has introduced the hardest-core programming in a few markets.
The ratings system was developed informally by the adult entertainment
industry and has become an integral part of how pornographic movies are
edited for specific audiences.
Single-X-rated movies feature nudity, long-range or panoramic and
medium-range camera shots, simulated sex and sex between women.
Double-X-rated movies show intercourse, oral sex and close-up shots.
Triple-X-rated movies feature anal sex and visible ejaculation.
Cable executives said Adelphia's decision to air hard-core porn was
unlikely to scare bidders in the current auction. Some predicted that
if Adelphia subscribers flock to the new triple-X programs, other cable
operators could follow.
Greenwood Village, Colo.-based Adelphia joins a marketplace already
teeming with ways to procure hard-core sexual content.
The Internet has become a carnal cornucopia, with graphic images,
videos and cartoons. Satellite providers also have gotten in on the
act. EchoStar Communications Corp., the nation's second-ranked
satellite TV provider, has offered triple-X programming for several
years on its Dish Network. Satellite leader DirecTV Group Inc., owned
by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., peddles fare that falls just shy of
triple-X.
Some industry experts say explicit programming has helped satellite
providers carve out a 20% share of the pay TV market.
"It's scary how much money is made on porn," said Tim Connelly, editor
and publisher of Adult Video News, an industry trade magazine that
estimates that when strip clubs, magazines, the Internet, TV and DVDs
are included, porn is a $10-billion industry. "That's more than
Hollywood makes at the box office. And it just grows and grows and
grows. It's mainstream now."
Despite an outcry among some religious organizations, parent groups and
political figures over the coarsening content coming into homes, the
"indecency" backlash could lead to even more graphic programming on
subscription services.
"The conservative groups that want to clean up the airwaves have forced
people looking for racier stuff to pay for it," said Bill Asher,
co-chairman of Van Nuys-based Vivid Entertainment, the world's largest
producer of adult programming. "It's given pay TV more authority to go
further than before."
Insiders and analysts estimate that consumers spend more than $1
billion a year buying sexually graphic movies and other explicit fare
on TV through pay-per-view and video-on-demand services. (That's not
counting orders from hotel rooms, where 50% of all movies purchased are
from the adult category.)
The revenues have quadrupled since the late 1990s, when cable operators
first began moving beyond "soft" porn to embrace double-X fare.
Today, analysts say, adult programming gives cable and satellite
distributors their highest profit margins. Such suppliers of adult
programming as New Frontier Media Inc. and Playboy get from 5% to 15%
of the average $9 consumers pay for a movie, according to industry
sources. By comparison, distributors typically give Hollywood studios
half of the revenue on pay-per-view movies, which usually costs under
$5 per rental.
Although the prospect of more money is enticing, most cable TV
providers have been loath to move beyond double-X-rated movies for fear
of inciting the anger of investors, subscribers and local politicians
who regulate them. But Adelphia executives say that new digital
technology, which allows programs to be blocked, has given them more
comfort and cover in offering hard-core fare to subscribers.
Adelphia's new strategy also has opened new opportunities for Playboy,
which is providing triple-X programming to television for the first
time.
"We're all public companies that want to make a lot of money," said
James Griffiths, Playboy's top entertainment executive. "Playboy needs
to supply whatever programming our distributors need to be successful.
What do customers want? All you have to do is look at what's available
on the Internet."
Playboy, the Chicago-based company founded by Hugh Hefner, once was one
of the most conservative players in the world of adult entertainment.
Industry sources say Hefner's daughter Christie, who now runs Playboy,
was uncomfortable going harder core and was protective of the company's
carefully cultivated image as a gentleman's brand.
In the meantime, rivals began to chip away at Playboy's dominance.
Chief among them were Boulder, Colo.-based New Frontier and Vivid,
which produced harder-core fare for pay TV operators looking to keep
pace with Internet and satellite rivals. In 2001, to protect itself,
Playboy bought three channels owned by Vivid that aired the company's
double-X programming.
Industry sources said Larry Flynt also was attempting to become a force
in the triple-X world of television, offering distributors attractive
terms to carry his new HustlerTV. One adult industry veteran, however,
said Flynt had received a lukewarm reception in the cable industry
because of his notoriety for pushing the envelope.
In the bigger scheme, the partnership between Playboy and Adelphia in
Southern California is a small step in a more ambitious plan to lure
viewers away from the Internet and make television their primary
destination for porn.
Playboy is gearing up to supply a variety of programs on demand that
will keep subscribers running up the bill. One goal: to increase the
seven-minute viewing time historically clocked by the average person
who orders an adult pay-per-view movie.
Said Playboy's Griffiths: "We would love for people to sample more of
our programming."
---
Stop Elmer Fudd web site: http://www.ElmerFudd.US/
Covert text file server: http://www.notserver.com/
Scientology crooks: http://sf.irk.ru/www/ot3/otiii-gif.html
FRice Antiwar: http://www.skeptictank.org/antiwar.htm
FRice Tree Sit: http://www.skeptictank.org/treesit/treesit.htm
"The basis of your cockeyed political beliefs is some sort of damage to
your ability to remember anything but Clinton's *****." -- Carlos
.
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| User: "The other Donald" |
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| Title: Re: Oh man, Christian hypocricy |
03 Feb 2005 03:08:21 AM |
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"Fredric L. Rice" <FRice@SkepticTank.ORG> wrote in message
news:110326u389k80ae@corp.supernews.com...
This one's good: Typical fundy cultists are facing prison for massive
fraud and swindleing millions of innocent people but they think
pornography
is "immoral." Stealing millions is okay by Jesus. Porn which hurts
no one, isn't okay.
-=-
Rigas, Adelphia's owner, is a big GOP financial supporter.
http://tinyurl.com/5bftp
--------------
What you noted was the typical hypocrisy of the loudest 'protesters.' I, on
the other hand, found this portion to be the most ironic:
"Industry sources said Larry Flynt also was attempting to become a force in
the triple-X world of television, offering distributors attractive terms to
carry his new HustlerTV. One adult industry veteran, however, said Flynt had
received a lukewarm reception in the cable industry because of his notoriety
for pushing the envelope."
It was Flynt's "pushing of the envelope" that showed the entire country just
how deep our right of "freedom of speech" truly runs.
--
-Donald in Austin
AA #2104
Apatriot #22
Atheist FF/EMT
.....and ordained minister
Stork pin recipient: May 1, 2003 -Madelyn
.
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| User: "Komin" |
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| Title: Re: Oh man, Christian hypocricy |
03 Feb 2005 03:06:11 AM |
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pornography is good medecines for your mental health .
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| User: "Komin" |
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| Title: Re: Oh man, Christian hypocricy |
03 Feb 2005 03:01:31 AM |
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pornography stories are good medecines for your mental health .
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