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London – The creators of the Ultimate Fantasy Vacation (www.pornweek.com) and the hugely popular Porn Week reality DVD series are happy to announce the extension of their distribution deal with Hush Hush Entertainment after the recent split between Hush Hush and Shane’s World.

“We have been with Shane’s World and Hush Hush Entertainment for our DVD distribution since we started out and have been very pleased with the excellent sales especially in today’s reduced DVD market”, said director Dave West.

Best. Week. Ever.

“We have been offered an on-going deal with Hush Hush Entertainment for our DVD distribution and we are happy to accept this as they do a tremendous job with our sales and are clearly a leader in the industry”, added West.

The Porn Week brand is also due to expand in 2011 as it rolls out “Porn Academy”, a fan based event featuring some of the biggest names in porn. Based around a weekend workshop of full-on hardcore action with a whole host of scenes from steamy girl on girl to extreme double penetration. Whether you are an aspiring director, an upcoming star, or a photography freak, “Porn Academy” covers all the bases as it brings top talent from around the world to perform in global sex capitals such as Prague, Budapest, and Los Angeles.

Featuring unique opportunities to cast your skills as the next big thing in porn, the Academy epitomizes the kind of unique fan focused event that typifies the team at Porn Week. All the hardcore action with fans and porn stars will be filmed for a new reality DVD series being distributed exclusively by Hush Hush entertainment.

For DVD sales, call Hush Hush Vice President of Operations Valerie See at (818) 717-8851, or email val@hushinc.com .

About Porn Week:
Porn Week offers all-inclusive vacations that give adult film fans a front-row seat to top porn productions in the world’s most exotic destinations. Guests get to party with porn stars and photograph all the action at exclusive resorts and gorgeous locales. Guests may also have the opportunity to try their talents in front of the camera through Porn Week’s special casting calls.

In the end, Blockbuster’s delayed second quarter (ended July 4) fiscal results hardly seemed worth the wait.

The Dallas-based rental chain, which canceled an Aug. 12 call with analysts and then postponed disclosing results nearly 19 hours, reported a loss of $69 million compared with a loss of $37 million during the previous-year period.

Blockbuster cited ongoing store closures, decline in same-store sales, liquidity issues and cost associated with recapitalization efforts for the loss. Revenue fell $194 million to $788 million from $982 million last year, well below Wall Street expectations.

If there was a silver lining, Blockbuster said it received another extension, until Sept. 30, of a forbearance agreement postponing payment of a $42.4 million interest payment.

“We appreciate the continued cooperation of our senior secured noteholders and the other parties involved in our ongoing recapitalization efforts,” said CEO Jim Keyes, in a statement. “While making progress, this extension allows additional time to complete these complex, multiparty negotiations.”

Still, Blockbuster warned in its Aug. 13 quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that, in addition to a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Chapter 7 liquidation is a possibility if sufficient debtor-in-possession financing is not available.

Article HERE

In a major win for packaged media kiosk vending, Redbox Aug. 5 said it will install DVD/Blu-ray Disc rental kiosks in thousands of CVS/pharmacy locations nationwide, in Puerto Rico and in subsidiary Longs Drugs in Hawaii.

Oakbrook Terrace, Ill.-based Redbox said it would install 700 kiosks at CVS/pharmacy locations by the end of the year, with further rollout slated in 2011. CVS/pharmacy has about 7,000 stores globally.

The deal represents a major coup for Coinstar-owned Redbox, which is locked in a retail land grab with NCR Corp., the latter rolling out Blockbuster Express kiosks under a license agreement with Dallas-based Blockbuster. With plans to install 10,000 Express kiosks this year, NCR, in a recent financial call, indicated it wasn’t sure whether it would expand beyond that install base.

Coinstar last week reported an unexpected hiccup for Redbox most recent fiscal quarter when a combination of studio-delayed new releases and excess disc stock resulted in revenue declines.

Redbox is currently available at approximately 23,000 locations and has rented more than 880 million DVDs to date.

“We’re pleased to add CVS/pharmacy stores to our list of convenient locations for movie lovers to rent films,” said Redbox president Mitch Lowe, in a statement.

Michael Pachter, analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities in Los Angeles, last week predicted Redbox would announce a major retail agreement with a marquee chain.

The announcement also follows yesterday’s comments by Time Warner Inc. CEO Jeff Bewkes, who said 28-day delays of new release movies imposed by Warner Home Video, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and Universal Studios Home Entertainment on Redbox and other kiosks were having the desired effect of maintaining a retail window, including transactional video-on-demand (VOD).

Eric Wold, analyst with Merriman Curhan Ford, said the announcement explains why Coinstar upped its expected kiosk installation estimate by 500 for the year. He said CVS and Redbox had tested kiosks in October.

“We still don’t know how many will be installed with CVS next year, but the ‘thousands’ referenced in the press release is a solid indication and the 7,000-plus CVS locations in the U.S. would be a strong customer added to the Redbox pipeline,” he said. “And it’s clear that Redbox is successfully winning the major national customers, while NCR is taking the ones that are either under the radar or not passing Redbox’s minimum hurdles.”

Article HERE