Page 39 - AVN June 2015

They were taking six of our titles a month, with
exclusive worldwide broadcast. And over the course
of that relationship we had grown from like ten
movies a month to twenty-four, but the six had never
moved. We were a size thirteen foot fit into a size six
shoe.
They had rights to anything that falls under the
broadcast umbrella, so it was transactional VOD,
subscription VOD, IPTV, linear broadcast channels
and pay-per-view.
What about Roku or other streaming set-top boxes?
The only place we’re on those is through people like
AEBN, who take the time to build the infrastructure
for that. OTT is the lingo for that type of delivery;
over the top. But with the exception of Roku,
everybody in the U.S. pretty much has a no-adult
policy—Apple TV, ChromeCast, people like that—
while Roku has a more-adult-friendly policy. AEBN
and SugarDVD have developed Roku channels.
Overseas, the OTT world is actually a lot more
inclusive of adult, so we’re actually talking to a few
OTT hardware brands about including Evil Angel.
After we did that Hustler deal, which I think
was 2005, over time all these rights issues started
coming up; one thing now means something else,
and contracts that didn’t use to conflict now sort of
conflict because all of these words have been blurred
together. In reality it’s a server on one end and a
consumer device on the other and just a bunch of
ones and zeros being sent. Some cable companies
don’t even have traditional cable boxes anymore but
these hybrid streaming boxes. How long before the
Roku and a cable box are fundamentally the same
thing. The blurring of it becomes substantial, which
is another reason we want to control it on our own so
that we don’t have to worry about dancing around all
these things, so we said that in the spring/summer of
2013 we would make a go of that, and … we did it.
Is this just the beginning of the growth you anticipate
having over the coming years?
Absolutely. Our penetration in the U.S. is currently
about 110 million cable accounts, which means it still
has a long way to go.
Is the management of that process all in-house?
Everything.
Did it take a lot of work and resources to do all of this?
We were really lucky that there were a number of
experienced people who were out of work at that
moment, and we snapped up a number of them;
people who worked in the adult broadcast space.
Within about 12 months we had our first domestic
cable launch, and by summer 2015 we are going
to have our content in about 70 million homes
worldwide. For it being only two years since we made
that decision, I think it’s an impressive achievement.
The technical was not that burdensome. Obviously,
we had to add some new stuff and hire some new
staff, but it has been really time consuming more than
anything else. I had someone tell me a year and a
half ago that we would never succeed at this, that we
would never be able to launch a major cable company,
and I saw him recently and said—not, I told you so,
but more, well, here we are, we did it. And he said,
“Well, I meant if you didn’t have enough money and
patience.”
If there are two things that John has, it is money
and patience. So here we are, and yes, we are certainly
building it for the long term.
In terms of where your content is seen, does it make sense
for Evil Angel content to be on all available platforms as well
as on your own cable and broadcast networks?
No. We probably turn down more deals than any
adult company in the world, because we are very
selective where we go. I’m not saying I don’t want to
be in front of everybody all the time, but we try to
price ourselves in a premium way. …
So I think we always try, when we are doing deals
on any type of platform, to make sure that we are
delivering high-quality content. We put a little more
care into editing the broadcast versions of our movies
than our competitors do, because they’re our movies,
not just something we licensed to edit as fast as we
could. Our No. 1 rule is not to rush. Sure, people need
to be productive but if it takes an extra 45 minutes to
get a shot edited correctly, what’s the problem?
TVOD?
It’s all subsets of VOD. Most of the money comes
from TVOD, Transactional VOD, which is paying for
a movie or scene; whether the whole thing or per-
minute, it’s transactional for everything you consume.
Then there’s SVOD, which is by subscription, like
Netflix, you pay a monthly fee and get access to a
bunch of stuff. And then there are variations on these
as well.
We are everything. The nice thing is that because
we are the worldwide distributor of all these movies,
with a couple of carve-outs here and there, we can
license the rights for anything. It doesn’t matter if
certain places only have SVOD but not TVOD. We can
do either and deliver our content to anyone.
Like Willie Sutton, we will go wherever the money
is at any given time. If the money today is with
platform A and tomorrow with platform B, we will
evolve accordingly.
What about virtual worlds and porn? Does any of that
interest Evil Angel?
It would be obtuse of me to predict how it will go
or to say we do or don’t want to be there, but for
us it’s about adoption. I think every day brings new
consumer trends. If we look around and see that
consumer adoption is happening there, we may not
go out on a limb and spend millions of dollars to be
early adopters ... but at the point it becomes seriously
popular, we’re on board. We make and sell adult
sexually oriented content. If people want to watch it
inside their spoon while they’re eating dinner, we’ll
figure out a way to get it there.
How many directors do you have now?
18 at present, I believe. There are a few directors who
are defunct who we still distribute.
Are you looking to add more?
John is always looking for talented people to make
good porn. John, Gamma and I are always talking
about what is the right size for the company?
Gamma is a part of that sort of discussion?
Yes, we are very close. I talk to them every day;
John and I are in Montreal several times a year; they
come down here several times a year. It is definitely
a symbiotic relationship at this point, and there is
not a lot of excluding the other party from important
decisions. Because they are such a significant part
of our business, and we are such a significant part
of their business. We are very collaborative, a great
relationship.
Do you continue to be challenged personally at Evil Angel,
and are you content with where you are in your career?
I am exactly where I want to be. I get to do a lot of
things here, and I genuinely have fun here every day.
Before I go, there is one thing I wanted to ask you about, and
it’s a tough one. I wanted to ask about the transition after
Christian Mann passed away. Is there a legacy he left behind
that you can share?
Christian was here about five to six years, and I
would say that his legacy is overwhelming, including
with the corporate culture here, which is so much
better than when I got here. I have never been
part of an adult company where every employee is
engaged in the long-term success of the company and
genuinely cares about it, and he was responsible for a
lot of that. With these initiatives we’ve been talking
about, I miss him the most when we accomplish
something that we had talked about doing years ago,
deals that we started working on. I want to text him,
and a few times I’ve texted Melissa [Mann’s widow].
That’s what really gets me; we started off on the ship
together but he wasn’t able to get to the other side.
We’re here! We made it. I worked side-by-side with
him for five and a half years, and he really was the
only professional mentor I’ve had personally, but I
learned so much from him, including stuff I didn’t
even know I wanted to learn. My job now. Literally,
hour to hour, I do something I would not have done
that way were it not for Christian. We sometimes
butted heads, but he gave me a vast tool box that
I use to this day. As far as the company goes, we
retired the general manager position in Christian’s
honor. Evil Angel will never have another GM.
That seems like a fitting place to end. Thanks for your time. It
was very generous.
Thank you.
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