When Playboy bought Spice Entertainment Cos. early this year for $95 million, the price included a subsidiary that appears to be too hard to digest. As a result, Playboy will sell off the Spice Hot video channel to Califa Entertainment for $25 million. Califa is owned by Vivid Video Inc., one of the largest producers of porn in the world and a privately held company. \n Playboy is expected to take over operation of the Spice network by the end of the year. The network has 17 million subscribers who have access to the pay-per-view soft porn movies offered by Spice. The movies are heavily edited versions of hard core porn and similar in content to the movies offered on The Playboy Channel, which has more than 11 million pay-per-view subscribers. \n In addition to the Spice network, the purchase price included Spice Hot, which doesn't bother cutting and censoring hard core videos and movies. Spice Hot can be accessed by 6.5 million households, mostly those who subscribe to smaller cable services and the 3 million customers of DirecTV satellite television distributor. The larger cable companies, such as TCI and Time Warner, have been reluctant to offer Spice Hot for fear of the controversy it might create and the image problems that could develop. \n Similarly, Playboy, which always has shunned association with hard-core porn, has no desire to link itself with Spice Hot. "Playboy has a worldwide image to protect," David Jones, a co-owner of Califa Entertainment, told a reporter. He said Califa plans to rename Spice Hot and call it The Hot Network. \n Califa's parent company, Vivid Video, is the single largest supplier of soft porn videos to The Playboy Channel. It is estimated that Vivid revenues for 1997 were about $30 million.
All models were at least 18 years old at the time of their performance. 18 U.S.C. 2257 Record-Keeping Requirements Compliance Statement.
