A Pair of Homegrown Porn Magnates in Montreal

Craig Silverman writes in the Toronto Globe and Mail about a pair of porn magnates.

“As he hoovers his way through a pack of cigarettes, McAlear explains how he went from working stiff to porn king. He was a mechanical engineer at Bell Helicopter when he introduced his wife to porn fans worldwide. Carol Cox was a hit, so the McAlears shot more photos and started selling videos via mail order. In 1997, when the internet could finally handle credit-card processing, they introduced a monthly membership fee of $9.95 and began streaming videos—cutting-edge technology that was largely being driven by the porn industry.

All the while, McAlear was still holding down a day job. “We turned the pay site on in January, 1997,” he says. “By February we were doing over $30,000 in sales. In mid-March I quit Bell. I was losing money going to work.”

Carol “performed” four days a week to keep the content fresh and members happy. McAlear staffed up and added more sites. Some were built around a specific girl, like Carol’s site.

The company also threw special pay-per-view events—like the time 50 guys and 11 girls had sex on camera, while customers watched the orgy unfold live on their home PCs.

Leveraging technology to deliver better customer service and more interaction was key to McAlear’s success, and the success of the porn industry as a whole. “We introduced these things because the ability to interact with the girls is critical in a niche like ours,” says McAlear. “Now you can go in and talk to a girl and she’ll do things for you.”

Customers could also give Wild Rose instant feedback on what they liked and didn’t like. If someone sent McAlear an e-mail requesting, say, a space-sex fantasy replete with busty aliens and lonely astronauts, Wild Rose could have it onscreen in a few weeks. In a regular feature called Casting Couch, avid fans in the Montreal area could even step inside the studio to shoot a scene with Carol Cox.