A 1950's Playboy centerfold could be quite tame by todays standards.
Posted on 10/15/2015 7:24:11 AM PDT by canuck_conservative
...The streak will end with the March edition — its first without any naked ladies.
Many industry observers see the move as a huge gamble — one last gasp at getting the magazine back to any semblance of its glory days when circulation was at a high of 5.6 million.
That was in 1976. Today, it stands at just a bit more than 800,000.
“I am sure they are hoping that they will be able to attract advertisers, now that a reason for staying out of it has been removed,” said one former top executive at Playboy.
Playboy’s new look is likely to set up a clash with Maxim, another title aimed at young men and trying to soften its image to attract more ads.
Both titles are said to be losing money.
To turn around Playboy’s fortunes, experts say, the title will have to ramp up circulation after letting it run down for years....
Newsstand sales — the most lucrative form of circulation revenue for publishers — today accounts for only around 30,000 copies a month for Playboy....
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
The very first issue of Playboy, put together in HH's kitchen in the fall of 1953, sold 70,000 newsstand copies - more than double today's newsstand sales, and in 1953 it was an unknown, unlike today. So, how far Playboy has fallen.
The peak sales were Sept. 1972, when it sold 7 million copies per issue.
The one thing Playboy always had going for it was the centerfold - properly speaking, a true American original. Now they want to get rid of that, thinking it will make Playboy more "acceptable" to buyers.
That's a big assumption, especially if the articles continue to be crap - every issue, it seems, Playboy tries to relate to millionaires, not average guys - endless articles about clothes, cars and gadgets that the average guy can never afford, articles about exotic locations that are unaffordable, etc. Then there's the standard leftist-Dem-Party talking points that always get parroted - Republicans are evil, anti-women, etc.
If Playboy intends to survive on articles alone, they need a major attitude adjustment. And stop using irrelevant, uninteresting idiots (Jonah Hill, Al Franken, etc.) for the interviews (which at one time were good).
The onsie coffee cup guy, Sheldon Whitehouse, and the cheese & mac kid will love it!
There's already GQ for that.
The print version of Playboy will be gone within 5 years. Probably much sooner.
Who will be gone first - the print edition or Hefner?
A 1950's Playboy centerfold could be quite tame by todays standards.
Good question. I'm thinking it will be the magazine. Hef is like Keith Richards, he looks like he died 5 years ago but the heart is still beating.
Ah, the “new coke” of the dirty mag world. Watch what happens. Just like coke they will have an epiphany and go back to all nude. Wait and see, it’s all about long term marketing. Just my 2 cent.
+1.
My first thought, too.
I think it took only 2 or 3 months for “Coca Cola Classic” to be on the shelves.
No one ever bought the magazine for the centerfold....ever.
I can remember the barracks days when we would discuss the various periodicals around and Playboy was read strictly for advice on stereo equipment, men’s fashion, and oddball interviews. In thirty years, nothing has changed.
There are simply 700,000 guys in America who want to project themselves as ‘playboys’ (some image out of the 1970s)....and they think the advice and commentary out of the magazine will help to mold them into such.
There are also a a lot of articles on the Internet.
I don't think that "running nude photos" of women is even one of the top 100 reasons that Playboy isn't attracting advertisers. (But pretending that it is will at least get the executives a few more years of bonus checks.)
thanks for the stats- i still like looking at gorgeous women with no clothes despite this...
“That’s a big assumption, especially if the articles continue to be crap - every issue, it seems, Playboy tries to relate to millionaires, not average guys - endless articles about clothes, cars and gadgets that the average guy can never afford, articles about exotic locations that are unaffordable,
There’s already GQ for that.”
And the Personal Journal section of the Wall Street Journal.
The print media, as a whole, is largely dead. It should be no surprise that girlie magazines are circling the drain with them. In fact, it’s about the only place that still has “Miss....” as the honorees.
They are as yesterday as poodle skirts and Corvairs.
"Remove nude sexy women from all nudie magazines".
______________________________________________
"45 Communist Goals", as per "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen:
Congressional Record--Appendix, pp. A34-A35
January 10, 1963:
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use ["]united force["] to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.
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