Adult affiliate program SmashBucks, which specializes in vintage adult content, has finalized a deal with Caballero to distribute several of the company's classic titles online.
SmashBucks first will unveil CabelleroClassics.com in early February, followed by another as-yet-unnamed site that will utilize SmashBucks' forthcoming content monetizing software.
According to SmashBucks' Mike Hawk, the deal with Caballero had been in the works for the past two years.
"Caballero is one of the larger older studios that have some of the most amazing classic movies in the world, from the Swedish erotica series to some of the early Christy Canyon movies. It was a big 1,500-title library that we wanted to lock down," Hawk told AVNOnline.com. "It took two years of conversations and negotiations and relationship-building to secure a nice relationship with the owners, and we're doing a joint venture together to launch the first phase of our business venture together with them to launch the classics. They've got 14,000 titles there, so it's a monumental, big project. It's pretty exciting.
"This is a great move for us in terms of the future as far as the studio business and monetizing older content and going into business with one of the oldest, most respected businesses in the studio," Hawk went on to say. "We're looking into the future—at what's to come."
Caballero's president, Tom, said he, too, is looking forward to the partnership with SmashBucks. "It's hard to trust many people in this industry. I feel confident with them. They seem like honest guys, and we're becoming friends, so we're going on the same adventure together," he said. "I hope this gives us a very strong presence on the Internet, and [we get] a lot of content not available on DVD—yet available to many customers who use the Internet.
"We are a video company, and the Internet is a new industry for us," Tom explained. "Instead of doing it ourselves to catch up with everybody, we partnered with the right people. So, they bring their knowledge to the table [with] our content and knowledge, and then we can build a winner. Many people are looking for Caballero—it's already [had] more than 30 years in the business. This company is well known in the industry. With SmashBucks' experience we can reach a lot of new fans on the Internet."
One of many recent deals between brick-and-mortar video companies and Internet distribution companies, the SmashBucks-Caballero partnership represents an increasing openness to online content licensing—an openness that Hawk said he hopes to exploit.
"We want to be one of the trusted companies that takes studio companies online and maximizes their profits," he commented. "We see a long-term relationship with companies like Caballero. As far as we look at it, Caballero is a huge company that has good titles that do really well. They do tremendous on the pay-per-views, and on a membership format, I think they'll do extremely well. We've done extremely well with our classic sites, and we're excited to roll out the classic arm with Caballero."
