Paul Fishbein, Irv Slifkin, and Barry Rosenblatt founded
AVN in 1983 in
Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. Slifkin left in 1984; having lost interest in reviewing adult movies due to the industry's transition from
film to
videos. Rosenblatt and Fishbein had a falling out in 1987. Eventually, Fishbein moved the magazine to the
San Fernando Valley where it operates to this day. Fishbein sold the company in 2010. Theo Sapoutzis became chairman and CEO of AVN. Tony Rios became owner and CEO of AVN in August 2015.
AVN is widely quoted for various figures about the adult industry and its revenues.
AVN estimated that adult industry revenue in 2005 was $12.6 billion with $2.5 billion of that coming from the Internet. However,
ABC News reported that this figure could not be independently verified. According to Michael Goodman of the
Yankee Group, it is difficult to estimate for an industry where few companies are public and new providers continually appear. By 2018, Dan Miller, AVN's managing editor said, "The safe estimate is to say it’s worth billions, but I don’t know exactly how many billion, and no one does."
Notable alumni •
Eli Cross (as Mark Logan): former managing editor •
Anthony Lovett: publisher and editor-in-chief (2005–2010). == Adult Entertainment Expo ==