ADULT HDTV ON DIRECTV
Not sure how to end your Super Bowl soiree this Sunday night? Well, DIRECTV may have an interesting party idea for owners of High-Definition TVs.
Shortly after the game, the satellite TV service will kick off its first offering of adult movies in HDTV, TVPredictions.com has learned. The films, which will come from Playboy and the Spice channel, will be available on DIRECTV’s Pay-Per-View channel from midnight to 6 a.m. ET.
Following Super Bowl Sunday, DIRECTV’s adult HDTV lineup will air every Thursday through Sunday from midnight to 6 a.m. ET. Robert Mercer, a DIRECTV spokesman, said the adult fare will be sold in three hour blocks for $14.99 per block.
And just when you thought Western civilization could improve itself no more!
Many industry experts have speculated that HDTV could be a new revenue driver for the adult industry. The format’s incredible picture is so life-like that it’s been compared to looking through a window, which could heighten the sensation of watching an adult film.
Making voyeurism more voyeuristic! Progress, indeed.
Seriously, this is likely to help make HDTV more popular. Most people agree that the ability to watch “adult” movies at home was a major factor in popularizing the VCR. And sites with similar content were, for years, virtually the only profitable ones on the Internet.
Alas, there is a down side to most advances, and this one is no different:
Playboy TV president Jim English sounded a note of caution last summer when asked if adult films would fare well on HDTV.
“A lot of the girls are not that pretty. You can only do so much with hair and make-up,” English said in an interview with TVPredictions.com. “HDTV is perfect for National Geographic and the National Football League where you don’t expect people to be pretty. But adult films are all about the close-up. With surgeries and implants, I don’t know if you want to see everything in HDTV.”
Indeed, I’m rather sure I do not.
If you’ve ever seen The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in HD, you’d certainly understand the drawbacks to HD porn. you can see every stroke of makeup, every crag and pockmark in Leno’s hideous face.
I think if HD porn becomes popular, it will involve either new makeup techniques, or some kind of digital airbrushing.
This reminds me of the switch from silent movies to “talkies.” The old silent movie stars didn’t have voices to go with their personas, and so many of them disappeared. I suspect HDTV will have a similar effect on other “vanity” areas of television (MTV, perhaps?).
Har! I’m imagining Hillary running for President in 2008 — how much market penetration will HDTV have by then, I wonder?