Adelphia & Porn

$antorum Watch

Adelphia & Porn

Letter to the Editor

Advice hard to swallow

First, fast food is vilified as an anathema that is hastening an entire generation's foray into the travails of diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity. Then it is boldly announced that fast-food giants have set up their deep fryers in the desert and are hawking their hamburgers to our fighting men and women stationed in Iraq.

I suppose America's youth can be forgiven for any confusion, as they are told to forgo the guilty pleasures of the fattening fare and head instead to the cafeteria vending machines that spout orange juice and granola bars. Never mind the images of weary warriors fueling up at drive-through windows dispensing tacos, curly fries and other artery-clogging cuisine.

Even hospitals, to the consternation of many, have golden arches set up within walking distance of their cardiac units.

Such hypocrisy is becoming as American as a triple decker with all the trimmings.

I guess that is why we have politicians, including our president and our very own Sen. Rick Santorum, preaching "moral values" while accepting contributions from Adelphia Communications, the first cable provider to offer hard-core adult films on pay-per-view to its subscribers.

The lesson is that wherever there is a buck to be made, it pays to loosen one's belt, and one's values, just enough to fatten one's wallet.

"Kids," we preach, "Do as we say, not as we do."

If we do not lead by example, they will ingest many more unwholesome menu items, whether from a restaurant or from the TV listings, before they swallow that stale crumb of advice.

Vince Morabito, Scranton

Scranton Times Tribune, Feb 10, 2005

Cable Companies Provide Porn While Funding Politicians

Critics Say Politicians Morally Obligated to Refuse Donations

While its previous owners considered adult entertainment "immoral," Adelphia Communications Corp., the country's fifth-largest cable television provider, last week became the first to offer hard-core adult films on pay-per-view to its subscribers.

"It's a very lucrative source of funds," said Dennis McAlpine, a media and entertainment industry analyst. "The cable companies and the satellite companies are programming agnostics in the sense that they don't care what the programming is. It's what the viewers want to see"...

Adelphia's programming decision is being applauded by the adult film industry.

"I think they made a really smart business decision," said Tim Connelly, publisher of Adult Video News, the trade journal of the adult entertainment industry. "So today Adelphia, tomorrow Wal-Mart."

While the corporations generate millions in profits from providing adult content, their political contributions are often given to those elected, in no small part, because of their stance on "moral values"...

Adelphia has given $166,000 to Republican committees, $17,000 to conservative Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa., and $12,000 to Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., one of the most conservative members of the Senate.

"I always admired the fact that [previous Adelphia owner] John Rigas had the courage to stand up and say no to the adult porn industry, even when it may have cost him potential profits," Peterson told ABC News. "I am disappointed that the new leadership didn't have the courage to continue the policy of putting our young people ahead of their bottom line."

Santorum would not comment on Adelphia's decision.

"Maybe the Republicans will be a little more forthcoming about it now," said Connelly. "They certainly don't have any problem taking the money from it."

Conservative activist Donna Rice Hughes, president of the anti-porn group Enough Is Enough, calls these corporations "white-collar pornographers." She says politicians who espouse "family values" should refuse their donations.

"If their business practices, whatever they are, do not line up with the values of the politician, I think it's important to walk the talk," she said...

Pornography has never needed much promoting, but it does need distributors. Conservative activists say Adelphia's decision — and the rush of major America companies to profit from porn — is hypocrisy fueled by billions in corporate profits.

Amy Thomas and Bianca Slota contributed to this report.

By Jake Tapper and Avery Miller, ABC News, Feb 8, 2005

Once-Conservative Adelphia Adds Hard-Core Porn to Cable

Porn is suddenly sexy to a cable TV company once considered the industry prude.

Adelphia Communications Corp. has quietly become the nation's only leading cable operator to offer the most explicit category of hard-core porn. Come Friday, triple-X-rated programming will be available on cable for the first time in a major media market: Southern California.

"People want it, so we are trying to provide it," Adelphia spokeswoman Erica Stull said. "The more Xs, the more popular"...

The move is a radical departure for Adelphia, the largest cable provider in Southern California and the nation's fifth biggest. Five years ago, Adelphia stirred a local controversy by dropping Spice — a popular soft-porn channel — from newly acquired cable systems here because Adelphia founder John Rigas considered X-rated programming immoral.

Today, the 80-year-old Rigas and one of his sons are facing prison terms after being convicted last summer for looting the company and engaging in fraudulent accounting.

Adelphia, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2002, currently is on the block. During the last year, in an effort to bolster Adelphia's bottom line, the company's new management has begun offering softer porn in various areas of the country and, in recent months, has introduced the hardest-core programming in a few markets.

The ratings system was developed informally by the adult entertainment industry and has become an integral part of how pornographic movies are edited for specific audiences...

Some industry experts say explicit programming has helped satellite providers carve out a 20% share of the pay TV market.

"It's scary how much money is made on porn," said Tim Connelly, editor and publisher of Adult Video News, an industry trade magazine that estimates that when strip clubs, magazines, the Internet, TV and DVDs are included, porn is a $10-billion industry. "That's more than Hollywood makes at the box office. And it just grows and grows and grows. It's mainstream now."

Despite an outcry among some religious organizations, parent groups and political figures over the coarsening content coming into homes, the "indecency" backlash could lead to even more graphic programming on subscription services.

"The conservative groups that want to clean up the airwaves have forced people looking for racier stuff to pay for it," said Bill Asher, co-chairman of Van Nuys-based Vivid Entertainment, the world's largest producer of adult programming. "It's given pay TV more authority to go further than before"...

In the bigger scheme, the partnership between Playboy and Adelphia in Southern California is a small step in a more ambitious plan to lure viewers away from the Internet and make television their primary destination for porn.

Playboy is gearing up to supply a variety of programs on demand that will keep subscribers running up the bill. One goal: to increase the seven-minute viewing time historically clocked by the average person who orders an adult pay-per-view movie.

Said Playboy's Griffiths: "We would love for people to sample more of our programming."

By Sallie Hofmeister, Los Angeles Times, Feb 2, 2005

Note from Santorum Watch editor: Adelphia has given $8,900 to Santorum since 1998, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

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