From www.gawker.com – CNBC, the nation’s preeminent financial news network, aired an investigative special [Wednesday] night! Did they venture deep into the Heart of Darkness to investigate the welfare queens at Goldman Sachs? Well, no, they investigated the porn industry, naturally.
Yes CNBC, fresh from being shamed to the nth degree in recent months for the vigorous handjob they pass for coverage of the financial firms that brought a mightly nation to the brink of collapse, ran a special, “Porn, the Business of Pleasure,” [Wednesday] night, and the ratings are in! Looks like a score for CNBC.
According to Nielsen, CNBC, which aired the one hour special at 9pm and repeated it again at 10pm, scored 1,063,000 viewers in the 25-64 age range over the two prime time hours, which was dramatically up from the 232,000 viewers in the same combined time slots on Tuesday, an increase of almost 500%. Hey, ratings baby! Score!
So what did CNBC uncover in their “investigation?” Allow us to run down the highlights:
* The porn industry was birthed in the early 1970s by this movie called Deep Throat. It was shot for $25,000 and made millions.
* Throughout the 80s and 90s, coinciding with the proliferation of VCRs and DVD players, porn flourished as people could enjoy it in the privacy of their own homes. Many people in the industry became very wealthy.
* Nowadays, the internet is crimping porn’s style, what with online pirating and all. What will they do to survive? Nobody knows.
* There’s this one porn star named Sasha Grey who just starred in a “mainstream” film. She’d like to “crossover” more, but it’s going to be hard, what with the gangbangs she’s been filmed doing and all.
* There’s this other porn star named Jesse Jane. She lives in Oklahoma City, like a “real American,” and lives her life like a “normal” wife and mother. She could be sitting next to you in a PTA meeting!
* Throughout the program, scenes from porno movies were shown with the naughty bits blurred out, of course.
And that was about it. The whole thing didn’t really provide any information that the average person couldn’t get off of Wikipedia.
Congratulations CNBC. You are a complete fucking joke.