The Financial Times and Pushkin Industries launched 'Hot Money', a new podcast series about power, finance and the business of online porn. The eight-month investigation was led by the FT’s Patricia Nilsson and Alex Barker. The first two episodes are available today on Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music and Spotify.
Hot Money sets out to discover who rules the porn industry. Through the eight episodes, it tells the secret history of the adult business, stretching across three decades with a cast of billionaires, tech pioneers and some of the biggest financial companies in the world.
“This all began for me when I realised nobody knew the name of the man who owns the world’s biggest porn company,” says Nilsson, a consumer industries reporter at the FT. “But identifying him was, it turned out, just the starting point. Our investigation took us well beyond that, to a place we never expected.”
“Almost a tenth of all internet traffic is porn. It’s a multi-billion dollar business. And, for some reason, we still don’t like to talk about it,” says Barker, the FT’s global media editor. “We thought it was high time to understand how this business works, and find who is actually in control.”
New episodes will be released weekly, with the season finale on July 19.
Ends
For more information, please contact: Molly Eisner | molly.eisner@ft.com
Notes to Editors
Trailer: Listen here
Episode 1: Porn Meets the Internet
Stoya is a porn star who saw first-hand how a firehose of free porn online transformed the adult industry. She sends hosts Alex and Patricia on a quest: Find out who is in charge, and get to the bottom of how the business of porn really works.
Episode 2: The Darth Vader of Porn
A decade ago, a computer programmer named Fabian Thylmann began to build one of the biggest porn empires in the world. How did Fabian do it? He was good with money in a business that was starved of finance. He convinced Wall Street to bankroll his vision to take control of the industry.
About the Financial Times
The Financial Times is one of the world’s leading business news organisations, recognised internationally for its authority, integrity and accuracy. The FT has a record paying readership of 1.2 million, more than one million of which are digital subscriptions. It is part of Nikkei Inc., which provides a broad range of information, news and services for the global business community.