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NEW YORK - Movies, porn and wrestling drove the 2000 pay-per-view business, while PPV-event revenue continued to slide due to a huge drop in boxing revenue, according to Showtime Event Television.
PPV movie revenue jumped $313 million to $1.3 billion, while adult-PPV revenue jumped $67 million to $409 million. But PPV event revenue fell $91 million to $394 million, led by a $103 million drop in boxing revenue, according to Showtime estimates.
Overall, PPV will surpass $2 billion in revenue this year, up from 1.9 billion in 1999, according to SETs annual industry overview.
Part of the blame for the drop in event revenue should be attributed to decreased fight marketing by cable operators and other distributors, which is sometimes caused by protracted negotiations, said SET executive vice president of corporate strategy and communications Mark Greenberg.
"We have argued so much on splits that we lose months and months and months on marketing time," said Greenberg, citing the Felix Trinidad-David Reid bout in March as an example of a fight that could ve drawn more PPV buys had it been better marketed.
"The issue...