Andrew Trentacosta

2/26/99

Luke talked with Spice's Andrew Trentacosta, who's serving as a consultant to Playboy during its takeover of Spice. Then he wants to concentrate on producing of porn features. "I'm not interested in shooting Playmates...T&A stuff. I want to shoot sex."

After ten years in Programming for the Los Angeles PBS station KCET, Trentacosta started (at age 30) at ON-TV in New York 1979, the first cable channel in America to develop softcore programming. Then he worked at Playboy cable TV from 1986-93.

Trentacosta next developed and ran the Adam and Eve channel (for its owner VCA and Adam and Eve) until it was taken over by Spice in 1995. Andrew then worked for Spice until it was bought out by Playboy in 1998. Trentacosta now works as a consultant for Playboy during the transition.

"Everybody I've worked for has made money," says Andrew. "Playboy made money while I was there because we made it a Pay-Per-View channel. It used to be pay [a set monthly rate instead of paying for blocks of programming at, say, three hours a time] which is not a good idea."

Luke: "I heard that cable TV companies discriminated against interracial programming?"

Andrew: "That's bulls---. Never. Maybe twenty years. There was a rumor that we didn't want Ron Jeremy on Spice. BS. It's all marketing. You stir up the pot. People say, 'Is this true?' You say, 'No, but you said our name and we like that.' We were going to work with Sean Michaels. He wanted to make love stories, not gangbanger stuff."

Luke: "The boundaries are expanding for what you can show on cable TV."

Andrew: "Because we pushed it gently. Cable is a conservative business. We could never even show soft penises before. We went to the lawyer and said why not. He said, we don't know, it might be considered obscenity. We decided to try it. No problem. We could never show pussy but we tried it. No problem. If you do it too fast, it scares the citizens.

"I wrote the guidelines for Playboy. The lawyers and National Cable TV Association checked them and we live by them. That keeps everybody happy and the money rolls in. The cable companies make all the money because they own the store. We have to get in their store. That's the game.

"Anybody can start a channel. I've started five. But to get into the cable universe is hard. When I started Adam and Eve, I hired the best sales people, which is the key. It doesn't matter what you're selling. It's a good product and you'll make a lot of money. So you go, let's talk. We don't say, 'we're going to show pussies. We're going to show people f---ing.' No. If you want to make a lot of money, you trust us and we'll deliver the product. Playboy has great sales people. TeN hired three of Spice's best sales guys...

"We show no violence. Showtime shows more than we do. And no abuse of women. Only playful bondage. No playing underage.

"Adam and Eve is edgier than Spice, with more black product, more gonzo... We wanted people to think that Adam and Eve and Spice were competitors, when they both were owned by the same company [since 1997]. 'Oh, let's watch the nastier stuff tonight. Let's watch Adam & Eve.'"

Trentacosta says that at most, a porn company will earn a third of its total revenue from a tape from its sale to cable TV. Conquest (world-wide license) sold to Spice for about $20,000. "Home video is still their [porn companies] bread and butter."

Spice Hot (harder material) started in 1997 "and was a hit from the beginning." Vivid now owns Spice Hot (which appears in 4-5 million homes). "It's a hard sell. Some [cable systems] only put it on late at night. Others want to wait. It's mainly in the smaller markets, guys who don't care [about the legal risks], they just wnat the money. Buy rates triple when put on Spice Hot.

"People are now used to $75-80 a month cable bills. There's a whole generation that grew up paying for television. Sometimes they'll pay $50-$60 for a fight that may go two rounds.

"People like Vivid, VCA understand what we [cable TV] need. Thomas Paine is a filmmaker and makes great movies... Paul Thomas. I brought him into Playboy and got it right. He knew exactly what worked. He's been making movies for Playboy for over ten years. Hef [Playboy founder Hugh Hefner] loves his stuff. Hef watches a lot. He'd call, he liked the older ones, and ask for us to schedule Misty Beethoven.

"We run few classics on Spice. We found a better response to the newer product. The classics weren't shot for cable and so you end up chopping the s--- out of them. And there aren't many classics.

"Spice wants sex. They [Spice viewers] don't want talk shows or comedy... It's a movie channel. And mainly American [product]. They want to see Jeanna and Nina and Missy... Playboy should be just a basic channel that everybody could watch but America is not ready for that yet.

"We've [porn cable] tried to keep in step with the evolving sexuality of our country. People are more comfortable with stuff [porn]. There's an understanding, if you don't like it, don't look at it.

"Spice tried to get into Europe but it is tough. Techonologically, they're ten years behind us. We're in some parts of Latin America. Playboy is great worldwide, and they'll move Spice out there."

Luke: "I'd think it'd be in the consumers' interest for there to be more competition?"

Andrew: "Of course, but when you're a company, you don't want competition. That's why Showtime and TeN exist...

"There are about ten hardcore channels available on the big satellite dish and we [Spice] own five of them. New Frontier has four. But there are only two million big dishes out there anymore. It's a dying business. Because of the little dish [Direct TV]."

Trentacosta produced 13 porn features in 1998 for Spice. He sold the hardcore version to Sin City. Mark Gallagher's considering buying the other dozen. Mike Horner directed three of them, Melissa Monet made three, veteran Jack Genero came out of retirement to direct three, Roy Karch made one as did Mr. Marcus (his first).

Andrew: "We made a movie with every English person in the business - Nici Sterling and her husband Wylde Oscar, Roxanne Hall... And we used Rebecca Lord [from France] because she's popular in England. We made a movie here that looked like it was made in England by English people and it killed in England.

"We still have 12 titles that we haven't sold yet.

"I know all the people [who are important in porn]. I've tried to never burn any bridges. I've never f---ed anybody over. I've always showed respect to people. And it comes back. That's the way I like to be treated.

"I knew Sean Ricks when he was an idiot. He's getting smarter every today. Chuck Martino. He came to me and said, 'I want to make real movies.' I said to him, 'I think you can make real movies, not the s--- you've been making.' He's making real movies now and every time I see him, he says, 'you believed in me and I appreciate that now.' Sean's girlfriend heads programming for Spice. She starts at Playboy fulltime Monday.

"Chuck made a bunch of movies for me. He needed to grow up a little and he's doing that. And he needed somebody to say no to him, and I said no to him a lot, and he respected that.

"Christie [Hefner, head of Playboy Inc] doesn't get involved in the programming. She's a business person. Just like the magazine. I bet she doesn't even look at the magazine, but she'll tell you how many pages of ads they sold last month. Whereas Hef, he looks at every page and every girl. He still picks the girls. He's the best. He's a great man. I love working for him. He's the best boss I ever had. And a legend.

"I read AVN from cover to cover. I know Paul [Fishbein, publisher] from way back. [Paul's wife] Kymberly helped us start the Adam @ Eve channel [co-owned by Russ Hampshire's VCA and Phil Harvey's Adam @ Eve.] She was our publicist... She was married to a musician at the time. My wife and I used to go out on a double date with them. Next thing I know she says 'I'm leaving him.' Fishbein said to me, 'Do you think she'd like to go out with me?' I said, 'absolutely, you're a nice guy.' Next thing you know, they live by me...

"I've been married 25 years. My wife is fine with this [Andrew's role in porn]. So long as I bring home a check... She did the make-up on our [Spice] 13 movies. I wanted a softer look, without the fake eyelashes...

"I've never played around with talent. I try to maintain a certain persona... And that wouldn't be part of it. I'm a businessman. I have fun. PT [Paul Thomas] and I were close friends for years and he's the craziest guy I ever knew. Many of the girls are friends. Montana Gunn...she's done me a lot of favors at parties for friends of mine. I've known Sharon Kane for years. And Veronica Hart worked for us at Adam and Eve channel.

"It's all marketing. Marketing is magic. We used to say that we had the best looking women on Adam @ Eve and that all the girls on Playboy and Spice were ugly. It was the same 50 girls. If you say it enough, it becomes the truth. If you say enough 'TeN's f---ed up,' soon people will be saying, 'TeN's f---ed up.'

"Steve Hirsch [Vivid Video owner] is a marketing genius. The Vivid Girls are worth a million dollars. And Steve Orenstein of Wicked with Jenna [Jameson]. She looks like Frankenstein but it's a beautiful job [of marketing]. Same with Max [Hardcore]. He says, 'I'm the dirtiest, filthiest motherf---er in the world.' And people go, 'yeah, that's right.'

"Right now we are saying that 'Playboy and Spice are going to be the strongest adult entertainment package available in the world on television.' And we're going to say it and say it and say it. And eventually, all over the world, people are going to say 'Playboy and Spice are the strongest erotic package in the world.'

"We're like Napoleon. We've got to keep grabbing more territory. We've got to be everywhere.

"Jay Leno loves us. He does Spice jokes all the time. The Nanny [TV show] did three Spice jokes in one season. Howard Stern loves us because we deliver. He says 'we need this,' [and Spice replies] 'Yes sir, Mr. Stern.' You can't buy that kind of publicity.

"It's a pain to shoot in Pasadena. They assign a guy to monitor your shoot.   We're shooting in a gazebo and the girl gets naked, and the guy stops it. 'Everybody has to be clothed.' So we shot as much as we could and then segued into the house. Then we had to pay him. We never went back to Pasadena. Hardly anybody does. The lady who owned the mansion said 'they do this a lot. Even with mainstream.' And so no one shoots there anymore. And then the cops came around and said 'are all these girls of age?' And I looked at them and said, 'Do I look like an idiot to you? I'm the Vice-President of Spice. We've triple-checked everybody.' Well, we want to watch. They're lookie-loos. There's no crime in Pasadena today, so you're going to hang around our set?

"We had no alcohol or drug problems on any of our [Spice] sets. All the girls showed up on time. We didn't hire Al [Peter North who is notorious for showing up late]. That was one of his retirement phases."

Luke: "Do you show gay stuff on Spice?"

Andrew: "No. America is not ready for that on cable. They do it on satellite. They're not even that keen on girl-girl, and that it wasn't what they thought it was."