IMHO the articles aren't that great, but I do agree that they would probably do better in the current (and future) market by dropping the shoots. They could move the shoots to the internet as a subscriber extra and develop a print magazine that could be read in public without people smirking at you. Then they could latch onto the lucrative doctors/dentists' waiting room market

"I'm right, you're wrong! Whatever you said, I'll say that to you!!"

no. probably everyone that meets you realizes any argument with you in unwinnable. You're clearly content to just argue regardless of whether you're right, well after you've abandoned the subject, simply because you can't handle the idea that someone with an opinion other than yours is right. Seriously, cognitive dissonance. It's going to catch up to you sooner or later and it's going to suck.

I'm sure this pays off well for you away from your computer. Keep it up, my good man.

(that was a joke, just fyi.)

And allow me to rebut; I'm rubber, you're glue, whatever you throw at me bounces and sticks to you!

I think I've finally gotten the hang of your logic. Eagerly awaiting your well thought out reply.

Playboy magazine was briefly available on CPAir flights in 1972 "for relaxation" but apparently there was a backlash: [jetfuelcafe.com]

The internet has all the porn you can get, I see Playboy as more of a classy nude mag, like Vanity Fair nude. It's just a woman standing there without clothes, airbrushed.

Chuck Palahniuk got his start writing for Playboy, their interviews are still strong and they have some educational material. It'll be interesting to see how this turns out.

They are not going to do that though.
There is no reason for anyone to buy playboy. They have outlived their usefulness.

Playboy had been screwed since the 90's.

Playboy publishes fiction? Regular fiction or sexy stuff?

@econobiker: Ewwwwwwwwww.

Pam Anderson, yuck.

They need to update their style to stay relevant. Take Maxim for example. Their pictorials are far "hotter" than Playboy's even with all the "naughty bits" covered by clothing (though sometimes what they wear barely classifies as fabric.)

It's not about how much you see, but how it's shown. Yes, you can find whatever you like on the net (and most times more then you really want to see), but if Playboy came back into a niche people want, they could still do fine. As someone else said, you can't openly read them for the articles, and the naked women are not interesting enough for me to subscribe. They fail on both counts and therefore will continue to lose subscribers.

The adviser is still around.

@YouDidWhatNow?: Maybe because you can't hide your browser history under the mattress?

Seriously.

How many idiot pc users run without virus/spam ad protection and end up on sites that go to pop up hell? You only can claim it was a mistake once...

And then there is the road trip mobile DVD market- ie watching XXX in cars- (which is illegal in some states). I only say this since an acquantaince of mine is actually on a paid interestate road clean up crew and he said that they pick up lots of empty p0rn DVD boxes.

@Trai_Dep: @backbroken:

If you can find it it is a funny listen too.

Band: Da Vinci's Notebook
Title :Internet Porn

Back in the not-too-distant past
When I would need a quick repast
Or a temporary break from my agenda
Off to the bedroom I would head
Pull out the Playboy from 'neath the bed
And sneak a peek at all the portraits of pudenda

My alternatives were slim
If I tried to find another source for sin
I'd have to hang out with the losers in the back room of my local video store
But last month I finally made the call
I got a brand new cable modem installed
And it opened up the floodgates on a whole new universe of Internet porn

(Internet porn) Roman orgy scenes
(Internet porn) dominatrix queens
(Internet porn) girl on girl on girl on girl on girl on guy on sheep
(Internet porn) gross anatomy
(Internet porn) Pam and Tommy Lee
(Internet porn) when you're given so much to choose from, who has time to sleep?

After my girlfriend goes to sleep
Then I get out of bed and down the hall I creep
So I can hunker down and wallow in depravity until 3:00 or 4:00
You'll always find me in that same tableau
Silhouetted by my monitor's warm glow
And absorbing all the bounty from the cornucopia of Internet porn

(Internet porn) barely legal teens
(Internet porn) naughty figurines
(Internet porn) geriatric German grandmas spanking Spanish men
(Internet porn) erotic Asian art
(Internet porn) guys with extra parts
(Internet porn) I don't think I'm ever going to see the sun again

(Internet porn) melon-love.com
(Internet porn) there's my neighbor's mom
(Internet porn) bikers wearing diapers chasing nurses dressed like Smurfs
(Internet porn) Maison l'Esclavage
(Internet porn) un, deux, trois menage
(Internet porn) every kind of smut from every corner of the Earth

@GrandizerGo: "And if I was feeling particularly "nasty" there was Hustler, we won't talk about the articles."

Enough jokes for Rev. Jerry Fawell to sue about...

I liked Flynt's home town pics too though you could usually kind of tell the strippers from the housewives...

I dug when BBW stuff started to hit for much the same reason - listen to Sir Mixalot's Baby Got Back if you need me to explain. The more fringe mags like Legshow and and its sister Juggs and similar mags kind of catered to that market too. Those also hit the market for real ladies as I don't think they ever had any extra money for airbrushing...

@GreatWhiteNorth: Yet another LOL quote...

@econobiker:

Yeah, I get that people *are* buying porn. I just don't understand why. How could anyone need any more than you can get in 3 seconds with a web search for free?

Yes, so because bestiality and other niche porn exists, something that does not contain those elements must be classy. Really? Reaaallly? Can you not see how unsound this logic is? Even without analogies, it should be obvious how shorthanded the thoughts behind your argument are.

Shooting and boxing both contain acts of violence, of dramatically different degrees, just as bestiality porn/transsexual fisting and nudie-mag's contain sexual content of drastically different degrees. The shared elements, or per the Oxford English Dictionary, "resemblance of things with regard to some circumstances or effects", (violence and sex respectively) makes the comparison of one to the other analogous, and therefore my analogy, successful.

"Oh, its peaceful like a car wreck compared to the polar ice caps melting."

Are you on talk radio, by chance?

"Oh, its peaceful like a car wreck compared to the polar ice caps melting." No. Learn how to use analogies, or don't use them.

"Yes kids, I remember the days before the internet destroyed Playboy... Those were the days before sticky keyboards and mice..."

(Apologies to all those I have just offended.)

I also think that they tended to draw on presenting women who wouldn't take off their clothes readily, and that that's a smaller group than it used to be (I have this picture in my head of the Playboy staff sneering at Girls Gone Wild stuff while anxiously watching its success). But there are also enough prominent women who are entrepreneurial enough to make an exclusive contract for a good sum of money, if they have it. Dump the stable of no-names and spend the money on a must-read article and stealing the celebs from Allure's nude issue. (I suspect Padma Lakshmi could have sold a hell of a lot of Playboys.)

@jpdanzig: Please provide some examples of the "recent conservative editorial slant."

Actually, I would recommend a compromise: drop the nudes from the print mag, but keep them online.

This way, you can increase the circulation of the print mag, but still keep the Playboy cred-- AND tease some traffic to the website (although, granted, you can quickly get every photo for free thanks to internet theft).

Right. And the way I do enter her league is by spiking my hair like a teenager, wearing skin tight armani exchange or other screen-printed shirts, bathing in cologne and having millions of unearned dollars. Seriously.

For "the goods" there was always Penthouse, which also had good articles although not always of Playboy level, they frequently had close competitions.
And if I was feeling particularly "nasty" there was Hustler, we won't talk about the articles.
But one thing Hustler had that I loved was more ethnicity and the Home town beaver section, real people, not the airbrushed masses that the more vanilla mags had.
I did dabble in some others as well, (Oui, Ebony, Swank and others) but really those three were the main ones.

This. As someone who seriously did read Playboy more for the articles (and especially the interviews), that is frankly a brilliant idea. The handful of copies I actually own weren't for the pictorials but for stuff like the Frank Zappa interview or the Harlan Ellison interview.

Plus, there are any number of magazines (well, a few) full of good writing and journalism with strong editorial voices who'd likely publish good pieces made homeless by the shuttering of Playboy. I think switching the format so dramatically would only accelerate the decline o Playboy.

But also it funny to watch how weird people can be when they do that shit. If the woman likes a horse...let her have the horse. Just all this kind of stuff is up there, you do not have to look at it. Find something you do like and call it a day.

There's got to be some middle ground of fame and respectability between, say, Jenna Jameson and Scarlett Johansson. If Playboy could figure out that sweet spot and create model celebrities who only pose for Playboy, maybe they'd have something worth buying again.

...I can't believe I'm so obsessed with trying to solve Playboy's problems today.

It looks like I'm on my last subscription. I almost didn't renew last go around. The interviews have been steadily going down hill, I've never liked the short fiction (not a short stories fan), and I just don't agree with the politics of the "Forum" any more. That doesn't leave much left in the magazine. So if the price is going to go up, and the issue count down, then I will no longer be getting the magazine.

Ive seen a man have relations with a chicken.

Ive seen women vomit while performing oral sex, and continue.

Ive seen a woman allow a horse to... have its way with her.

So yeah. Playboy is pretty classy.

Yeah, as many of said, the nudes aren't the selling point anymore of Playboy, sure they have some fine models, but honestly, you can find the same girls for free on the net, as said in the article, making the articles in Playboy the only thing worth reading. But with other magazines out there that are more accessible to reading, like Men's Health Journal, and Maxim, and others, it just isn't worth to buy a Playboy to have a few nudies here and there between articles.

And not every porn pulls the anus open so you can see what she had for dinner.....just the really really good one do that.

Remember Playboy is not just a magazine they have an online and digital component.

So if the mag tanks, where will we find the hidden bunny on the covers anymore?

What, you say, hidden bunny? Yup, like an "easter egg".

On every cover of the mag there is the Bunny logo somewhere. Often it is easily found- a keychain the model is holding, stitched into the chair she is sitting on, on a towel covering her, but sometimes it is a pain and hidden well. For many years it was an inside joke and then they started to reveal its location in the next issue's table of contents. In the 1980s,I remember visiting friends working at a 7-11 (when they still carried adult mags) and we would always search for the logo -after reviewing other content. Worst one ever was concealed on the spine of the mag in some design that ran over from the cover. We also found it hidden the model's hair strands and even in the sunglint from a window or mirror...

About the same time, I worked at a gas/service station with a older guy who never had heard about the bunny until one of the mechanics recovered a couple of years issues from an abandoned car. The old guy about freaked out looking for the logos saying that he had subscribed to the mag for years prior and never knew about it.

But then I found I could get much more of both, for free, on the internet.

Honestly I kind of want to like Playboy due to their history and reputation, but they don't seem to understand the new economy (like so many other traditional media corporations).

I'd happily sign up with them if buying the print edition got you a virtual edition, and if they went more class less trash. It wouldn't hurt if they got out of the 70s and started including innovative adult comedy like Cracked.com has.

No, interested isn't the right word, more like terrified.

@YouDidWhatNow?: Remember the study that found that people in Utah admitted to buying more p0rn on-line than anyone else? Key word was "buying".

It is the same as "Who buys music CD's anymore?"

As for the products, the dvd guys develop their stuff from the near costless digital items posted online and then sell it for $49- I suspect that respect for copyrights is as loose as some of the people. Many of the "shoppes" are taking the JHustler Hollywood slant with apparel and novelties more than viewed content anymore.

Penthouse has been struggling for ages. Especially since their web portal and video divisions have never really taken off.

Playboy still always has had the "clean cut" porn image since they don't do graphic pictorials and manage to secure shoots with real actresses.

Penthouse creates it's own celebrities by sending the girls to Howard Stern, which has obviously diminishing returns.

Hustler's probably the only one poised to survive this. They created a successful video division and retail chain, so their brand managed to rise up out of it's own persistent controversy to create something of an "alt porn" brand to counter Playboy's image.

To a guy, seeing a girl with a playboy bunny necklace sends one message, but a girl wearing a Hustler tshirt sends a very different message. Hustler's managed to tap into a psychologically juxtaposed "bad girl" market for both genders with this image and presence.

And that message plays really well in today's society.

I prefer the photos in Playboy to most of what's online, too, but it's certainly not why I subscribe to it.

@Applekid: When women deliberately began to get Bunny tattos and wear Playboy apparel you know it jumped the shark...

@aerick79:"This is the GM of Porn Mag."

LOL, great quote.

I have not paid for much porn over the 15 years I have been on the internet...and what I have paid...maybe is the equivalent of 5 Playboy Mags or so. Not much at all is my point.

I would much rather deal with shitty lighting, shitty place and setting, bad acting (although no acting is much better) than this..." Ohh i live at the Mansion, Hugh is so great to me, I don't care that he has 16 other girl friends and is 80 years old".

Playboy had it's day...They missed the internet, they never did any kind of porn, its way past Hugh's bedtime...Nighty night.

The only one I could deal with is Kendra...purely sexual reasons but that is it. Tape over the mouth if you know what I mean.

Anyway...I been on the internet for about 15 years or so, and I could not careless about playboy.

Then again, they'll always be Playboy, which is always going to sound like my grandfather's nudie mag no matter how good the writing is.

...hmmm, maybe it's Hefner holding them back. Gotta get rid of the old guy if you want 20somethings to relate? You know what you need to do, Girls Next Door. America is counting on you.

Maxim, however, has pics of hot popular babes (although no nudity), and you can read it in public. These softer-core magazines (and web sites) have taken some of the younger crowd with them and away from Playboy.

@Radi0logy: There is plenty of free porn ont he internet that is not amateur porn. (Trust.) Chubby porn does really well, too.

Playboy doesn't do well because it's the same bland woman over and over and over again. Men like variety.

I am a woman who knows her porn.

Playboy Bar and Grille - Put those blond models to work. (Management not responsible for mistakes on orders)

Playboy Strip Club - Similar to Bar and Grille but grease isn't only on the food.

Playboy Aerobic videos - Finally, understand the workouts of these 20 somethings. Cheaper than a gym membership and sadly possibly better than their other dvds...

Playboy Perfume - Haven't you always wanted to smell like sex, vanilla and shame? Now here's your chance! Other varieties include additional glitter, and Heff's sweat.

Playboy House Cleaners - Move over Mollymaid! These girls are ready to vacuum, sweep, and dust your house to your satisfaction. Our girls arrive discretely and will perform all work indoors while wearing a french maid's outfit. The girls will perform landscaping duties, however management is not responsible for the grass if it is bald..

@backbroken: Backbroken, you made my day! soooo nice to hear from someone who (even in jest) aren't looking for a bag of antlers with some silicone balloons attached

Playboy for years sold the ideal of the 'Playboy Lifestyle' to it's readership via the print magazine. It was something many males aspired to.

Problem is, there's only one man who can actually afford the Playboy Lifestyle, then and now...Hugh Hefner.

As to the Playboy women, they all look alike. It's not a question of being out of someone's league. The question is about being boring.

Playboy is too big a brand to go under completely. I could see someone buying the brand and doing some good with it. Heff and his family have been at the wheel too long.

I loved the interviews growing up, the level of journalism in the magazin was better than a lot of people think. The magazine is anachronistic now because of the girls. Maxim and such made it superfluous on the soft core side and Playboy was never hard-core. so it never had a chance at that market.

Interesting.

I think Playboy has missed the boat, even if they dropped the nude photos. You just aren't going to be seen in public reading a Playboy for another 10 years.

However, Men's Journal, Men's Health, and Maxim seem to be acceptable and offer the same content.

@diasdiem: One year of hef's mag is like $20... much cheaper than almost any other magazine subscription I've seen.

Maxim is written by chimpanzees and failed brain transplantees... it's barely readable.

I know I've always only ready Playboy for the articles...

In all seriousness, though, I agree, except that magazine already exists: It's called Esquire.

Playboy was already on a death spiral in the eighties. The writing got worse and worse (rather, the good writing became increasingly sporadic), and the models got more and more plastic. I'm just sure this is somehow Reagan's fault. Curse you to hell, Reagan!

Rule 34...

So they airbrush the pics. Big deal. They're creating someone's idealized version of what women should look like. Obviously lots of people like that. Other people like Hustler, which AFAIK doesn't airbrush anything, and is racier to boot. I believe, though, that Playboy has always crushed Hustler in sales...

But at any rate, I do have to admit that I wonder how *any* porn product really survives much anymore, granted the vast volumes that can be had for free on the internet anyway. It'd be like, oh I don't know, paying a premium for "pre-bottled water" when you can get as much water you want for free from the tap...

i wonder how much playboy makes off of those t-shirts, bootie shorts, hats, etc with the little bunny emblem on them.

@Radi0logy: But the thing is, PEOPLE ARE NOT BUYING Playboy. Men don't care if they can't get those women. Probably because those women don't even really exist.

There is a reason armature porn does so well on the internet.

I mean, that's what I heard from this friend of mine.

They've got no shot at establishing a successful business going in that direction, so yeah, they might as well try to nudge Maxim et al from their niche.

What a great idea for a website: OverweightChicksWithZits.com!

Old media is deathly afraid of the net. To their peril, of course.

@MightyDwarf56: Their DVDs are GAWD awful! I couldn't figure out who those things are even made for. Certainly not for men.

My old man used to buy Playboy when I was a kid. And he was one of the many men who DID just buy it for the articles. It was a great "lifestyle" magazine and they used to have some of the best writing and interviews to be found anywhere. But yeah, those two or three dozen pages of nekkid women meant that those mags had to get stashed away (unsuccessfully) from my prying little hands. I don't know if the writing quality has deteriorated over the past couple of decades, but the quality of the models certainly has. Do away with the unappealing, siliconed-up bimbos and people can start leaving Playboy out on their coffee tables.

The problem is, an even average guy can GET that busty shy girl naked and in the sack. It's the Playboy girls that are out of his league, not the overweight chick with a big zit on her nose.

I've heard Pam Anderson and Anna Nicole Smith referred to as S-L-%-TS by several of my husband's buddies (non religious fundamentalists) so I'm not surprised that old Hef is going down hill; physically and financially.

But I am surprised that they haven't made more of leap into the internet. I also wonder if they do a good amount of DVD sales.

I suppose this Federal Beaver Inspector shirt is obsolete as well.

I want to know, about the other Porn Mags?

So, if Playboy is going through a hard time, then Penthouse and Hustler can't be doing good too. This is kinda sad regardless if you don't the Chicks,or what not, This is the GM of Porn Mag.

If you can get off on just blondes who "love horses" then I am not as boring as you are.

@Radi0logy: Since I was a kid, I found Playboy pictorials completely unappealing. Penthouse was always my gig. Playboy models are typically fake-tanned, bleached bouffantes with hyper-long fingernails, Tammy Faye-Baker-levels of makeup and attitude that just screams high maintenance. It's been a long time since the majorty of men sided with the tastes of Hugh Hefner and it's time he learned to let them go.

I'd much rather see the busty shy girl who serves me coffee in the morning naked than Pamela Anderson any day of the week.

@Skankingmike: Yeah, Playboy is like the American car industry: full of airbrushed fluff nobody would really like to live with in real life. You'll occasionally get the odd girl with her real skin color, breasts and bits/Caddilac CTS, Corvette VR1, Chevy Malibu but for the most part, the best place to read a Playboy magazine is also the best place to find your typical American car: at a rental car dealer.

Wait one second. You are telling me that I can get free porn on this here internet? FREE porn??? I've got to see it to believe it. Hold let me open another browser and...

Holy shnikees!! The internets are nothing but porn! Who knew?

Goodbye Consumerist!! No more wasting my time on this NON-PORN website. Now if only there was a place on the internet where I could satisfy my love of the larger ladies. Oh, to dream the impossible dream.

Hmm... Playboy's declining fortunes may be due in part to their recent conservative editorial slant, out of step with the rest of the country.

Their fall could also be due to their reliance on the plastic surgery industry. Really, there is so much silicone in their models, I am surprised that the makeup people in Hollywood have enough of the stuff left to supply the crash & burn films of summer.

Then there is also the creepy crypt-keeper at Playboy's helm, continuing to cavort with girls a quarter of his age. Cosmo had the smarts to show Helen Gurley Brown the door when she started looking like Nancy Reagan, and it's way past time for Playboy to tell founder Hugh that he's through...

You know, some people don't need to see all the way to a woman's uterus to become aroused

Ahhh, that explains why Heff laid off his three nurses. I knew there was a reason why "the Girls Next Door" reminded me of "Disorderlies"

I never really even read Playboy. Pretty surprised Hugh never did anything major with the internet.

Oddly enough, I completely agree. Playboy has always had excellent writing (honestly ladies, a lot of men are telling the truth when they say they read it for the articles...) and just like the quote above says, the pictures are tame by today's internet porn comparison.

Drop the nudity (change from "naked" to "Scantily clad" ala Maxim) and push in a new direction, away from the "sleazy guy coffee table reading" and "teenager under-mattress entertainment" which honestly, just isn't working anymore since both the sleazy guys and the teenagers have porn on their computers now!