AVN AWARDS adopts “ad for award” mentality

The AVN awards were last night in Las Vegas, I got a call from my buddy who attended and he told me the news as they announced the winner…..

Another year where we obviously have the best DVD release and another year without an AVN award for best classic release.

What can I say? First of all, I am sorry to John Amero, Suzy Mandel, Benson Hurst and my entire team. Secondly, I congratulate those who have received an AVN award for 2010. It might feel amazing for some of you and others might not care much as they have shelves full of the awards from years past.

I would like to call out AVN and Paul Fishbein, the companies president. I would like him to explain to me and the fans the exact curriculum for winning an AVN award. I am almost at a loss for words, but I can tell you that this year was a crystal clear litmus test for us, as we clearly had the best DVD package of 2010 with our Platinum Elite Collection of Blonde Ambition, but instead the award went to VCX, for a dull and bare bones release of a Cal Vista film ,with no extras and absolutely nothing redeeming to speak of. Does anyone see a trend here….VCX advertised with AVN in 2010, and Video-X-Pix did not.

Ironically, it is sort of de javu, as last year  in 2009 our 2 Platinum Elite Collections( Maraschino Cherry and the 3 disc set of Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle) were also overlooked by AVN and the award was to VCX for a film that had won awards already and had nothing in comparison to our nominations of 2009. What is funny is that we did advertise last year with AVN and we did pay for a booth at the 2009 AVN show, I guess our booth was not big enough?

By rewarding the nominees based on advertising as opposed to actual product/accomplishment is absolutely disgusting. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves. Your actions penalize those who may not have the funds to advertise with you, but actually do more for the preservation of classic adult content than all the other companies put together.

For 2 years in a row AVN and it’s “voters” have ignored our Platinum Elite Collections and overlooked them for AVN awards by rewarding less deserving films or studios ( basically anyone who advertised).

An irony to this whole sad situation is that our first year in selling DVD’s we spent tens of thousands of dollars in ads with AVN and our product was cheaper and not top notch, now we have no funds to advertise but we spare no expense on our high end collections, but get very little to no recognition from AVN. It does not help our sales, it sends the wrong message, and it is pointless. How does that help the world of classic adult entertainment?

I have been encouraged to express my feelings and I would love to have a podcast with Paul Fishbein and any other members of the voting staff, so we can find out how and why these educated voters and critics came to this conclusion? Did they even vote? Do they just want free screeners?

Paul, my old man was in the adult industry when you were still in High School, and he was one of the first guys to advertise with AVN back in the day, he stood up for his rights and became a major vidoe mogul at a young age in the mid to late 70’s, and not just in the adult world. In a way he was responsible for the video revolution in the early 80’s and changed the way mainstream films were distributed. I always remember him rewarding and giving incentives all the time and it was based on earning, if you sold the most, you won the award, it was clear cut. It made his customers and distributors work harder and they were rewarded for that. Unfortunately, I don’t have his brain or his ability and that is something that I deal with on a daily basis and that is my problem. But one thing I know, is that you are doing the wrong thing with your rigged AVN awards. For me, it is not just a trophy, as with the approach I take to classic film preservation, it means so much to so many people, and it effects so many. Your companies biased decision making on giving out AVN awards is shameful and disgusting.  But I actually thought that this year, with the addition of actual non-AVN voters that we would finally get our due, but I was wrong. Moving ahead, I will be an open advocate to AVN’s unfair and bribery like tactics.We have played by your rules for almost 7 years and it has done nothing for us, absolutely nothing.

I am happy to say that this blog has developed a nice little following of some of the more intellectual film fans, film archivists, critics, bloggers and web masters… they help me get the word out…….. If any of you would like to send me an e-mail, I would be more than happy to chat with you, in order to help expose this situation a bit more…  Any press is good press, let’s have a fun debate and it might be entertaining. Please link to this story. Thank you.