Page 55 - AVN November 2015

SUNNY
RODGERS
Toy Stories
GLENN
KING
Audio/Visual
GLENN KING is a producer and
director specializing in femdom
material.
“I started with Playboy Radio
five years ago or so,” King recalled.
“They said they were looking
for free content, so they needed
somebody who could put on a show
that was its own sponsor. I said I
would love to do a show for Mean
Bitches, my website. I’ll put on my
kind of girls—sexually aggressive
women and female domination—
SUNNY RODGERS is marketing director
at Doc Johnson and co-hosts Ask the Doc
on Playboy Radio with Chad Braverman.
“On the Doc Johnson website we
have a page called Ask The Doc, where
people would write in with questions.
Some of them quite serious: ‘I have
erectile dysfunction’; ‘I’ve never dealt
with sex toys’; ‘I’ve never had anal
sex.’ Chad’s been in this industry for
20 years, I’ve been in for 15, and so we
together have enough viewpoint that we
started answering questions, and Playboy
approached us about doing it for their
radio channel.
“On the show, the first segment is
Chad and I talking about what’s going
on at Doc Johnson, about life. We have
Doc’s Nurses, where people around the
company try new products. We also have
Sex Toy Hacks, where we talk about
things like putting a vibrating cock ring
on a 10-inch vibe to make it into your
own rabbit vibe. We have news and
current events that deal with sexuality or
and it’ll be what you’re looking for. It’ll
be a niche-type show, and it’ll not be
what you’re already doing. I was the
only male host they had, so I had to get
a female host. I found Aiden Starr, who
was the perfect choice because they didn’t
want the show to be about the dark side
of BDSM and Aiden is one of the hybrids
of the business, who can be both sexual
and dominant at the same time.”
To make the show more engaging,
King said, “We created contests for
them. Simple, stupid contests. Porn stars
are competitive; if you tell them you’re
playing tiddlywinks today and the prize
is a straw, they love it, especially when
they’re competing against each other.
We started doing games like Porn Star
Blackjack. We had them shoot each other
with nerf machine guns. It was all audio,
but we took pictures and I think we were
the first to take pictures during the show
and put them on Twitter.”
Next, King and Starr moved over to
Vivid Radio, along with Christy Canyon.
“I helped them start their new station
over at Vivid, and it was a great to bring
something from the ground floor up.
I’ve named the show a bunch of different
things over the years, but it’s the same
thing: I get at least three guests per
show and I have them competing in
stupid games and contests, and having
fun. When you listen, that’s what I want
everyone to feel like: They’re having
a party and I wish I was at this party
because they’re laughing and cheering.”
His next move was to a new medium:
pleasure products. The second segment
is always Ask The Doc, where people
call in. We have a phone line that’s open
24 hours a day and it’s live during our
show. The third segment and the fourth
segment are usually guests: We’ve had
authors, we’ve had porn stars, you name
it. We have a band coming on playing
live in the studio. Showtime has a series
about polyamory and we had the trio in
talking about polyamory and being on a
reality TV show. The final segment, we
have giveaways, we have people call in
and talk to our guest, and we talk about
what’s coming up the following week.
“We plan our shows a couple of
months in advance. Today we’re speaking
with Jamie McCartney, who did the Great
Wall of Vagina sculpture. He’s in London,
so we’re talking across the pond. In
October we’re going up to the vibrator
museum at Good Vibrations and we’re
going to interview Dr. Carol Queen about
her new book.
“We’re now up to 38 shows, and
Roku. “We’re calling ourselves a tri-cast.
We are the first production company to
put a show on connected devices, or Roku
television. Roku is like AppleTV but they
allow nudity and private channels. We’re
on the Maddy G TV Late Night Roku
channel. We’re getting 50,000 viewers per
show, aggregated. They put it up Friday
and people watch it over the weekend
on VOD. We’ve had 20 episodes, and
Episode 1 still gets another 5,000 people
per week. ...
“We’re also on TheKingNetwork.com,
my own website. People can watch it over
the Internet, and interact. ... It’s free and
anyone who has an Internet connection
can watch there.”
King is a true believer in how live
entertainment can serve as a vehicle
for promotion. “We run trailers for my
videos during my show and it definitely
generates customers for my website and
my DVDs. We also have advertisers.
This is very, very, very important to our
industry right now. My belief is that our
industry is going toward—a very high
percentage of our revenues are going
to start coming through advertising, if
we can prove to the advertisers that it’s
worth investing in. If I put out a scene
tomorrow, it’s going to wind up on the
pirate websites or the tube websites,
inevitably. 300,000 people are going to
see the scene. Ten years ago, if I went to
an advertiser for razor blades and said I
have a magazine that 300,000 people are
going to read, they would jump on it. We
need to be able to show advertisers—
they’re on iTunes, SoundCloud and
Playboy Radio. We’re starting to be
televised on Playboy TV. We’re live every
Friday from 11 to noon West Coast time
and it’s on iTunes and SoundCloud by 3
p.m. We’re going to be on IHeartRadio in
the next two to three weeks, and we’re
working on other venues.
“First and foremost, the show is
to make Doc Johnson a more visible
mainstream brand. Secondly, to make
sex, and pleasure products, and sexual
wellness, not a bad term. We want people
to feel that they can talk about it and it’s
not horrible and dirty, it’s healthy. Finally,
we want to help people. Want to make
sure that people think that sex is fun, and
that they’re enjoying their life. ...
“The show is very funny. It’s more
entertaining than we thought it was going
to be. It’s the second-highest rated show
on Playboy Radio. Laughter heals, and
we’re hoping that maybe through making
people laugh we can help them along the
way.”
through shows like mine, or through
product placement in our DVDs that get
pirated—that people will act on it. We
have Adam & Eve as a sponsor of the
show. We don’t get paid a flat fee; we
get paid by whatever it is we sell of the
product. We get a promo code, and they
have a very good deal where the customer
gets 50 percent off the most expensive
item in their order and free shipping.
Adam & Eve is seeing that a lot of people
are using my promo code and it works.
“As far as radio is concerned, I think
we’ve just scratched the surface. In the
old days, radio was a controlled medium.
I was terrified of losing my job at Playboy,
because where else could you go at the
time? When I parted ways with Vivid,
that was when connected devices were
just opening up. You can get your own
Roku channel pretty cheap right now,
about $1,000 plus bandwidth. Whether
it’s a Roku channel or an Internet
website, anyone can set up a station these
days. Radio, in its limiting way, is dead.
Multimedia interaction is alive and going
crazy right now. People aren’t necessarily
wiling to pay for porn, but they certainly
are willing to pay for getting personal and
interactive with porn stars. The future of
the multimedia business is going to get
more exciting. ... From where we were 10
years ago, where you had limited choices,
we’ve come a tremendous amount. The
audience is expanding and as advertisers
start to jump on board, that’s going to
create more opportunities for growth. It’s
only going to get better.”
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