How would you save Playboy?

[lodge]

Originally Posted by Soft Pillow

Thanks for your sound observations as I agree with several of them but do you firmly believe that Playboy would listen to your constructive feedback today? I don't think so. Playboy like so many companies have been focusing far too much on the bottom line. Change as we all know is growth if it's positive. The classic Playboy years which you cited were indeed the zenith of quality for the magazine but there's so much that's absent now from its pages. I haven't bought a copy of Playboy in a long time although I did peruse one not that long ago which only depressed me.

True - in fact it could be argued that because PB hasn't listened to its core readership/subscribers is part of the reason it is in the mess its in now.

I wasn't even born during the classic years, so it pains me even more that I've missed out on that quality of PB magazine on a monthly basis.

Is it possible to be nostalgic for a time before your birth?? Cos I feel that way about the 60s & 70s!

[Soft Pillow]

Playboy had it all especially in the 60's! I'm focusing on the entire package not just the pictorials so it's rather sad as Playboy could still rejuvenate if only they would listen... Frank Brady wrote a brilliant book on both Hef & Playboy that was published in 1974 which you would certainly enjoy although I suspect it's out of print today.

[lodge]

Originally Posted by Soft Pillow

Playboy had it all especially in the 60's! I'm focusing on the entire package not just the pictorials so it's rather sad as Playboy could still rejuvenate if only they would listen... Frank Brady wrote a brilliant book on both Hef & Playboy that was published in 1974 which you would certainly enjoy although I suspect it's out of print today.

Thanks for the tip, I'll check it out.

Yeh the PB of the 60s looks like it really did have it all. I'm into the superb drama Mad Men, and always think there should be a PB 60s version of that show

[Rthomas61]

Soft Pillow wrote, "Playboy like so many companies have been focusing far too much on the bottom line."


I strongly disagree that Playboy is focusing on the bottom line. Any co. focusing on the bottom line would immediately sell the Playboy Mansion that is reputedly worth at least $30 million dollars.

Even worse, the Mansion costs Playboy over $4 million yearly for its running and uptake.

$4 million dollars is an outrageous annual expenditure for a small public co. that has an extremely high debt to capital ratio and will be losing millions both this year and 2010. The reason the Mansion sale doesn't occur is because Hefner owns more than 50% of the stock, has complete control, doesn't care about Playboy's other shareholders and likes the lifestyle.

A prospective buyer this past week walked away from a deal largely because Hefner wanted to "continue staying at the Playboy Mansion until his death."

From analyzing the co. years ago from an investment standpoint (e.g. buying Playboy stock), it is obvious Playboy is set up to serve the needs of Hugh Hefner. It is very unusual for someone to still have over 50% of the stock in a public co. for decades and this ownership gives Hefner the control to spend $4 million yearly just for the uptake of the Playboy mansion.

It doesn't take much extension to think the magazine is run the same way, e.g. so what if the readers like a certain playmate the most, Hefner makes his current girlfriend the playmate of the year. More damaging to the magazine was Hefner alienating large groups of potential readers with his political bias by not only taking strong political sides but having smear articles about the opposition. In his defense, Time magazine to a lesser extent did the same thing. However, Playboy is a leisure magazine and unlike Time, not primarily read for its information.

You might think that since Hefner built the co., he is entitled to do whatever he wants with it. That was true until he took the company public and sold almost a third of it to anyone who bought the company's stock. Of course, Hefner himself has lost tens of millions of dollars from Playboy's decline over the 2 years alone.

I never bought any shares because of their high debt and Playboy frequently lost money even when things were "going well."

[Soft Pillow]

What an intelligent reply Rthomas61! I was not aware of certain facts you posted which greatly clarified matters for all of us. This excerpt from your fine message is so true. I think it was Jack Kessie who once said that Hef was the most selfish man he had ever known in his life.

From analyzing the co. years ago from an investment standpoint (e.g. buying Playboy stock), it is obvious Playboy is set up to serve the needs of Hugh Hefner. It is very unusual for someone to still have over 50% of the stock in a public co. for decades and this ownership gives Hefner the control to spend $4 million yearly just for the uptake of the Playboy mansion.

[blondifan]

I think "the magazine" as a format is by and large a thing of the past.
In much the same way as 35mm film is in the film industry.
(I personally mourn the loss of 35mm, as working for Kodak was good).

Whilst I'm personally not a large fan of the pb franchise, I am aware that they have produced movie media. Surely any future for pl@yboy would be in this medium or in website related commerce.

Even then the competition would be formidable, but if they managed to keep women of the calibre of say Marzia Prince under exclusive contract, then there may be a way forward. Just a thought.

[se7en]

I read a couple of months ago that PB sold one of the mansions next to Hef's place. This multi-million $ pad was his son's place whilst at college. I think it is safe to assume that this was some attempt to raise much needed money. It is very peculiar that they had to supply, and I assume run, a huge place for his son. Doesn't seem very business related.

of course this is not the first time Hef had to cut back. He had a large commercial passenger jet which he had converted into a private plaything for his own use. This cost such a huge amount of money that when his daughter took over the operation she sold it. And this was in the pb heyday

it would be nice if you could live like a king and get your business to pay for it. But the problem is, like mentioned above, it places a massive burden on that business. If it costs $4 million pa than over decades this is a massive amount (he's also built a rather nice art collection, don't know who paid for that). say $3 million per year for 50 years.....that mounts up! An amount that would have ensured that they would be in a much healthier position now.

to lavish luxury on yourself is fine (if you can get away with it)....as long as you are making money. With the advent of the internet it simply is not viable to do this. Now the content, and I mean the quality of the models mostly, is slipping, I've written elsewhere about how PB are squandering the massive strength they had. 'Good girls' posed for PB, for a mag to make it acceptable for normal, non-porn star/stripper types was a coup. Now they seem identikit. The surgically enhanced types cut off the normal woman from posing. It's stupid.

now that images are freely available on the internet, as music is, you cannot expect to survive as a magazine. PB goes after sites who publish their images. It does not stop them being distributed, their is always another site that posts them, and miffs the reader. What they should be doing is creating unique contents or product. With music the recording is not as important as most money is made from concerts. Indeed some artists give their recordings away as it promotes their concerts. Like I said, this is where the real money is made.

PB should worry less about copyright and more about developing a service that cannot not be copied. This could be gifts on the magazine, streamed web content, fresh content for subscribers, use the images to sell the merchandise, etc. If new content and uncopyable content is provided, and they improve the quality of the models, then they have a unique product that can be sold to users. They have to crack that if they are going to survive.

Heff has been such a powerful figure in pb, for obvious reasons, that I simply do not think his operation can change now. It's a shame.

[Ignatius J. Reilly]

Perhaps I am missing something but it seems to me, according to what has been written here in this thread, that PB, a publicly traded company, has been paying to maintain the lifestyle of a board member who either cannot or chooses not to pay on his own. Can someone explain to me, and dumb it down please, how this is different (aside from scale) from Tyco or any other scandal of the previous decade? Is PB just wrapping these expenses into overhead expenses? S,G and A? I would love to see a 10Q that has some line item detail fleshing out the costs to maintain Hef's lifestyle. The Viagra cost alone must be crushing.

[bri123]

Ignatius it's all their in the quarterly reports. I almost invested in playboy about 2-3 years ago but when I realized how much was being pulled out by 'someone' (hef) I stoped and bought a ETF.

Ellie, DTravel, John C. Holmes have great ideas.

I didn't see any mention of letting Heff's young son(s) put together a issue. They should be about 20 now and isn't that about the target audience age? I'm very curious if they where given free range what they would do with it.

We can always hope that Hef dies and his heir's decide they really need to make a profit.

[The Black Baron]

I wouldn't. Liquidate the corporation now. It's outlived the competition that it spawned.