Transcript: The Porn Bellwether

OnlyFans reveals where Hollywood's business model is headed

This is Rob Long with Martini Shot for The Ankler.

The best way to understand the entertainment business in 2023 is to tell you about a murder in 1978. The second best way is to talk about what happened to the music business.

Let’s start with the murder. It’s a better opener, as everyone in show business will tell you.

The victim I’m talking about is Bob Crane, the star of TV's Hogan's Heroes, who was found murdered in an Arizona motel on June 29th, 1978, almost exactly 50 years ago.

Among his personal effects found at the crime scene were several hundred pounds of video equipment. Crane had state-of-the-art equipment for the time: a huge video camera, a heavy playback tape machine (roughly the size of four microwave ovens stacked together), and enough lights to form a small production company.

Because Bob Crane was a porn freak. Not just the watching kind but the making kind, too. And back then, being that kind of a porn freak wasn't for the casual hobbyist. The airline overweight luggage charges alone were suitable barriers to entry, and the enormous cost of what was essentially professional television equipment managed to keep the riff-raff out. 

Or in, depending on your feelings about pornography.

All of that changed, of course, with the introduction of the VCR and a camcorder the size of a plump quail. And then came editing software, laptop computers, iPhones, you know what happened next.

Thirty years ago, poor Bob Crane had to schlep back-breaking crates all over the country to satisfy his creepy hobby; now it all fits conveniently in your pocket.

This wasn't a coincidence. New technology relies on “early adopters” to pay more for ground-breaking equipment. Audiophiles subsidized the introduction of the compact disc with their single-minded pursuit of perfect sound reproduction.  Computer geeks brought us the BlackBerry and the smartphone. 

And Bob Crane gave us the VCR and Final Cut Pro and iMovie on your phone.  He lugged all that stuff so that we could stream a movie on the iPad to keep the kids quiet on the road trip.