Posted on 05/26/2009 3:26:54 AM PDT by Zakeet
The Adult Magazine Is Scaling Back in a Last-Ditch Effort to Keep Publishing
Ever wanted to pick your own Playboy centerfold?
Now might be your chance. It appears that the iconic magazine is being shopped around, with potential bidders being asked around $300 million for the publication. The market capitalization of the company's stock is hovering around $100 million.
Several giant players in the private equity field have been approached, including Apollo Capital Partners and Providence Equity Partners, which both refused to pay such a high premium, unnamed sources told the New York Post.
But a bidder might also come from overseas: Virgin Media, the U.K. cell phone, Internet and television giant. (The company licenses the popular Virgin name and logo from Sir Richard Branson.) The Daily Mail said Virgin's name has been "raised as a potential buyer by speculators," but that nothing solid has yet to materialize.
It seems that even porn isn't immune from the recession. Playboy, probably the most famous adult magazine, is struggling to stay alive and is about to undertake "radical changes" in what many see as a last-ditch effort to continue publishing.
Options being considered including publishing less often, reducing circulation and raising prices.
"It is clear that this company cannot continue to sustain significant losses in a business that now comprises less than one-quarter of the company's revenue base," Jerome Kern, interim chief executive for Playboy Enterprises said during an analyst conference earlier this month.
So, does that signal the end for the magazine, which first started in 1953?
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Joe Francis, founder of the Girls Gone Wild video empire, said he has tried to purchase Playboy in the past and now doesn't consider the business salvageable.
"Their overhead is astronomical. They have no core business that's attractive," Francis said.
The girls look plastic. They have lost the girl next door look. Hef is too old. It is no longer new. It has cycled into a boring side show.
The Internet is kryptonite for “girlie” mags. Maybe Hefs (or his daughter’s, who really runs Playboy) only hope is to make Playboy an online-only mag. But there is so much free porn on the Web these days, much of which makes Playboy look as tame as Captain Kangaroo, that I still don’t see it surviving. BTW, didn’t Penthouse go under? Last I heard, it was on its last legs.
Concur. That and:
1. At one time (long ago), its articles were very good. Now its just another liberal rag.
2. Its business model is toast. You can’t compete against the unlimited amount of free porn on the Internet.
Fake boobs and bleach blonde hair gets a big so what from me.
Which helped kill playboy and its image.
Playboy used to be about a much diverse selection of women and all natural. Not every single girl was a D cup and came in lots of shapes and sizes. Most of all, they were natural women.
Playboy’s image is now of a pathetic Hugh Hefner at 80+ years old keeping a harem of bleach blonde, boobjobed, fake faced 20 year olds. Any attempt to age with class has been ruined by the dirty old man he know looks like.
The women in the magazine are also a dime a dozen these days. Too many boobjobs and face work.
He’s destroyed it, but I think he prefered to drive the titanic into the iceburg, rather than let his daughter take over full control and groom some male face to takeover in a “Hef” type role.
I always bought the mag for its good writing... And now we can even get that for free on the web.
/sarc
And in mansions all across the country was heard, “oh no you don’t!”
Right on. Those three in the picture with Hef give me the creeps. I don't think I could ever get drunk enough to hit on any of those three.
The onset of breast augmentation ruined the actual “sexiness” of the models and we end up with bovine ladies trying to “out-stuff” each other and become grotesque in doing so.
The answer is to follow the Newsweak business model: raise prices and cut circulation. Also eliminate the pictures and count on the intellectual content of the articles.Changing the name of the magazine might also help.
Isn’t playboy too big too fail?
Maybe they need a bailout
I believe there was an appeal for a porn industry bailout several months ago.
Playboy also airbrushed their models to the point that you couldn’t tell if you were looking at a real person or not.
Decidedly un-sexy.
When Playboy was at it’s peak (ahem) I glanced through a current issue to see what all the fuss was about. On one page they had an anti-gun or gun ban article. A few pages later there was one that showed people at a Playboy resort shooting skeet. The hypocrisy jumped off the page. The centerfold was a one-minute eye candy scan, then became forgettable.
The pages were full of ads for Playboy keys, tie tacks, cuff links, coasters, ad infinitum. I came away with the belief that is was a gigantic, elitist con job: “We are the Beautiful People and this is how we live. You common Joe SixPack types can never attain this lifestyle but you CAN live our lives vicariously by buying all these neat items with out logo on them.”
I put the mag down and never looked at one again.
I think what has really killed playboy is the girls next door show. It completely tore apart the mystique and mystery of the playboy mansion and what goes on there.
When you had one of those girls actually invite her mom and dad to come visit. They are all sitting there by the pool talking and she's telling her Dad about how she's working on her pole dancing technique to please Hef more. Then Hef shows up looking like some some dirty old man in his robe and captains hat to talk to the parents. The creepy factor was off the chart.
The place is also stocked with hookers to service Hef's friends who hang around the mansion. You can see from that show how high the business overhead is for Hefs crumbling empire.
I heard a few months ago that Hef had put the property he owned next door so his playmate ex-wife could raise their two children. He listed it at a whopping 26 million in one of the worst real estate markets Beverly Hills has had in decades. I saw pictures of it. It wasn't very impressive. No way he was going to get that asking price and who would really want to pay that sum to live next to that 3 ring circus unless you were some horndog.
And I thought I had make a joke.
Damn
At least that dirty old man lived long enough to see the downfall of his porn empire.
Playboy goes tits up.
Much of the magazine industry is in financial trouble, even the ones that don’t sport pics of silicone.
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