14 DAY TRIAL // For the first time in its 62-year history, Playboy Magazine is going PG-13, Chief Executive Scott Flanders tells the New York Times in an interview. The decision wasn’t an easy one, but it was the next logical step in the history of a publication that’s going on a $3 million (€2.6 million) loss a year in its home country.
Hugh Hefner, the magazine’s founder is still credited as Editor-in-Chief, and he was OK with the idea, Flanders explains. He understood there was no other way around it.
Playboy is no longer delivering something new
The appeal of Playboy was that it managed to combine salacious imagery with very well-written articles on a variety of topics, from celebrities to politics and finances. However, not even Flanders is trying to deny the fact that, back in its glory days, few bought the magazine for the articles.
The times have changed, though. Today, everyone with a smartphone and access to the Internet can see the kind of images usually reserved for Playboy in a matter of seconds. And it doesn’t even cost a thing.
So no wonder sales for the magazine have declined from 5.6 million items in the ‘70s, to just 800,000 right now. Playboy Magazine is now registering a $3 million (€2.6 million) annual loss, recouped only by strong sales for merchandising.
If you want to assign blame for the magazine going PG-13, blame the Internet, Flanders says.
Focusing on quality
The big question now is this: if you take the revealing photos out of Playboy, what is there left? Cory Jones, Chief Content Editor for the publication, who also had the task of presenting Hefner with the suggestion to go PG-13, says the answer is “quality.”
Sales have decreased because what the magazine was selling was no longer a novelty. Instead of the shock factor, Playboy will now deliver quality, with an added bonus of sizzling photos, Instagram-style.
“A little more accessible, a little more intimate,” Jones says, adding that the mag will adopt a “more modern, cleaner style.” There will still be a Playboy of the Month, so there’s that for consolation.
Last year, the online version of the magazine also went PG-13, with Jones saying that traffic increased instantly, while the age of the average reader went down from 47 to 30. There’s hope that the print edition will also benefit this way from the change.