Chris Steele knows better than anyone that porn consumers’ habits are changing along with technology.
“The trend in tech is not in one direction,” says the partner/director at Jet Set Men. “Some consumers prefer to watch porn on their smart phone or laptop computer, while others prefer to watch porn on their big screen HDTV. The trick is having the ability to provide a fully responsive product that can be viewed on any device or television regardless of advancements in technology. Even if all porn is shot on 4X cameras in the future, the end result will still need to be encoded in multiple formats in order to deliver the content to any device.”
Our goal was to develop a fully functional, 100 percent transparent, easy-to-read, financial reporting system for our broadcast partners and affiliates. -Chris Steele Partner/Director, Jet Set Men
Equipped with that knowledge — and knowing that a growing number of consumers are making significant investments in 70-inchplus “smart” high-definition televisions — Steele has led the charge to launch Jet Set On Demand, scheduled to go live in January 2014. The product brings porn directly to those HDTVs — while also maintaining a fully responsive experience of delivering the same content to any device a consumer desires, whether they want to watch on-demand movies or a premium, gay porn movie channel on their phone, computer or tablet.
“As people move away from DVD purchases, Jet Set On Demand offers a solution to continuing to keep a porn collection of high-quality, feature-length movies in your own virtual cloud library,” Steele says, adding that it is the first gay porn movie/IPTV broadcaster offering multiple channel options.
All the channels are fully responsive and play through Roku and Apple TV. The premium service also gives viewers the option to watch movies on demand for a seven-day rental period. If it’s a movie they want to own for a premium, the movie is added to their virtual cloud library and can be accessed anytime, anywhere from any device. “Most studios offer pay-per-minute platforms or video-on-demand options only, whereas Jet Set On Demand offers on-demand movies as well as fully functional gay porn movie channels that can be viewed 24/7 on any device. Viewers can purchase packages of multiple channels at discounted prices.”
Steele says that infrastructure website GoToFlix is making the platform available to any gay or straight studio that wants to create a broadcast channel. “The financial reporting generated by GoToFlix is 100 percent transparent. Every single transaction is properly reported in a simple transparent format. Having been in the industry for a number of years, we were frustrated by the lack of transparency from some third-party partners. Our goal was to develop a fully functional, 100 percent transparent, easy-to-read, financial reporting system for our broadcast partners and affiliates. GoToFlix meets our goals and exceeds our own expectations in terms of quality content delivery and transparent financial reporting.”
The site offers three types of memberships: viewer, broadcaster or affiliate. Anyone with content — whether they are a porn studio or mainstream producer — can sign up to become a broadcaster and program their own 24/7 IPTV channel with their content. Viewers can rent or buy, and also subscribe to one of the studio’s gay porn movie channels.
“We currently offer five premium, gay porn channels: Jet Set Men, Hard Heroes and CanAm Wrestling, CanAm Basic and Jet Set Promo,” says Steele. “We anticipate offering 30 to 40 channels within a year, with considerable interest from other studios in the industry. All movie channels broadcast hardcore gay porn 24 hours a day, seven days a week just like any other premium movie channel service you would find on satellite or cable TV. Viewers can pay one flat fee to subscribe to a channel or opt to subscribe to multiple channels for a discounted price.”
In addition to on-demand movies and movie channels, Jet Set On Demand will also offer pay-perview live events through its TV service. Viewers can purchase a ticket in advance to watch live sex shows, live nude wrestling events or specialty live programming by purchasing a PPV ticket. Once a ticket is purchased, the viewer has access to watch the broadcast from any device. The broadcasted event is automatically archived and added to the viewer’s virtual cloud library along with other on-demand purchases.
“The gay porn movie channel programming is done in-house, just like any other cable or broadcast TV station,” says Steele. “We put a minimum of 30 movies per month into rotation on the channels, and we broadcast new movies as they become available for the service. A subscription to a premium, gay porn movie channel is the best value there is for any gay porn consumer.”
It’s been a long road for Steele, who — along with his team — began developing GoToFlix.com five years ago.
“One of the big challenges of a site with the functions of JetSetOnDemand.com is developing a fully responsive delivery platform that can deliver up to 1080 high-definition in fast high quality,” Steele says. “There have been challenges along the way, but ultimately we have kept to our main goal of developing a fully responsive, high-quality, content-delivery platform that can not only serve on-demand and gay porn movie channel viewers, but that can potentially replace the DVD market with the introduction of the gay porn virtual cloud library.”
And Jet Set will be filling the stations with its successful content, including more from Jet Set Reality — the gonzo line it launched a year ago with “Hole Damage.”
“The brand was created to give viewers who prefer more sex and less story an option in the Jet Set brand. The sex scenes are raw and up close, and the sexual energy is palatable. There is much less stopping and starting on the shoot, giving the viewer a more realistic sexual experience.”
The studio has four titles in that stable, with more to come. Steele is currently working on a new format for Jet Set Reality that is less gonzo but still raw, and he’s developing a few ideas for full feature Jet Set Men movies: “I don’t like to publicize scripting ideas, but I can say I have several in development and we have planned a very busy production schedule between all our brands over the next year.”
That will include offerings from Can-Am Productions, which bought Jet Set Men last year and since that time has launched a brick-and-mortar distribution company known as Jet Set Sales. “The relationship between Jet Set and Can-Am goes back many years, so the transition was seamless. The movie lines complement each other in the type of models we cast in Can-Am, Hard Heroes and Jet Set Men movies. Having multiple lines gives us the ability to cast models in more scenes during their time with our studio, making their overall production experience a profitable one.”
Also doing well for Jet Set are its signature parody films, which continued in the last year with two more entries:
“America’s Next Hot Bottom” and “The Ultimate Top” (a spoof on the boxing reality show “The Ultimate Fighter”). “‘America’s Next Hot Bottom’ has been very successful this past year,” Steele says. “When I’m producing feature-length movies for DVD and gay porn movie channels, I am challenged to create a full hour-and-a-half to two-hour multiscene movie that is both cohesive and entertaining while delivering sexual heat. It’s one thing to film a single scene and call it a ‘parody’. It’s an entirely different animal to create full feature-length movies with multiple sex scenes all taking place within a cohesive sexual storyline. Every week, I get one or two emails from fans suggesting topics for gay porn parody movies or compliments on past projects. That enthusiasm from fans lets me know directly that people not only enjoy gay porn parody movies, they definitely want to see more of them.”
