VAN NUYS, Calif. — Peach Entertainment Network, operator of PeachDVD, has filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, XBIZ has learned.
The Van Nuys, Calif.-based company over the past seven years has offered hundreds of best-selling soft erotic videos and instantly became a blue-chip brand when it launched.
Offering the “world’s most beautiful women filmed the way men wish to see them seductive, sultry and sensuous,” the company was co-founded by Jim Monroe and its current CEO, David James, who helped Steven Hirsch launch Vivid in 1984.
Today, James continues as a Vivid co-CEO.
Peach, according to the filing, was seeing dwindling DVD sales in the past few years. DVD sales have amounted to only $290,000 this year, after banner years in 2007 and 2008, when Peach saw revenue gravitate to $2.4 million and $1.8 million, respectively.
Peach Entertainment Network comprises a variety of divisions, including Peach DVD, PeachDVD.com, Red Static, Late Night and Red Dragon Releasing. The company formerly was known as David Distribution Inc.
In the Chapter 7 filing, Peach said that it was $1.8 million in debt and had $466,000 worth of assets, including video masters worth $114,000 and $203,000 of inventory.
Its largest creditor is James, who stated he lent the company more than $1.7 million in recent years.
Other creditors include Ingram Entertainment, L&M Optical Disc West, Orbitland Interactive and CAV Distribution Corp.
In the filing, the company disclosed revenue-sharing video-on-demand deals with Trans Digital Media, Aggregator, Diamond Video of Spain and Virtual Video Systems, among others.
It also had a deal in place with mobile distributor WAAT Media, marketing mobile services, including wallpapers, ringtones and video downloads.
When it launched in 2002, the company rolled out numerous videos with the “peach” somehow applied to the titles, including “Search for the Ripe Peach,” “Pretty Peaches,” “Search for the Right Peach” and “Teenage Peach Fuzz.”
The company at one time marketed its Peach Girls — including former adult stars Roxanne Dawn, Alexa Rae and Angel Cassidy, as well as the late Felicia Tang — and oftentimes searched out new models at clubs with $1,000 first prizes.
In 2003, the company embarked on a 10-city Peach tour looking for a Peach Girl, with stops in Boston, Chicago, Miami, New York, Austin, Milwaukee, Phoenix and Hawaii.
Calls to James and company sales executive Tal McAbian for comment weren’t returned to XBIZ by post time.