Honestly, they need to get some fresh writers in there and change that damn staticky paper. I understand that most of their customer base is old baby boomers, but they really need to modernize a little bit. Also? The standard 3 pictorials per issue thing is just not enough. Even bumping it up to 4 would be great. I dont want to read another interview with Woody Allen.

You mean people don't want to look at airbrushed to hell models in a magazines any more?

"I vote for Playboy to drop the skin pics, which make the magazine too racy to read in public and yet too tame to arouse anyone who's ever logged onto the Internet, and focus on its journalism and fiction."

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!

I was wondering when something like this would come along. I would not even buy Playboy due to the fact that the internet has much hotter women, not all bleached blonds, and obviously you can see a hell of a lot more.

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

and enacted massive layoffs

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 don't know about doing drastic changes like dropping the nude pics, after all a lot of this probably has to do with the recession. But they definitely need to do more then 3 pictorials per mag.

@SanDiegoDude: You do know that Maxim has had to shutter some of it's magazines, right? Stuff wasn't good enough, and was absorbed into Maxim. On the plus side, my subscription is good till 2012 on maxim now.

@LegoMan322: "and obviously you can see a hell of a lot more"

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

@TheTriStatesBestSide_GitEmSteveDave: Classic movie. I love the scene at the end where Winslow lets the other guy shoot him in the ass. Great stuff

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...

@Radi0logy: Now I must Wikipedia "The Fat Boys" to see what became of them.

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.

@TheTriStatesBestSide_GitEmSteveDave: That reminds me, I just got an offer to extend my subscription, so I would run into 2011

Playboy's business model, like the rest of the dead-tree media, is outdated; who's going to pay for content that can be read for free on the internet?

@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.

@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.

@TheTriStatesBestSide_GitEmSteveDave: The racier, nude-ier version of Maxim in Europe seems to be doing just fine.

@Radi0logy: Neither do I, but bleach blondes and fake body parts are not too arousing for me. I like a bit more natural and with maybe different hair and unphotoshoped is fine for me.

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

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.

Well, there goes my scam of saying I'm a talent scout for Playboy to get girls taking off their clothes for me.

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

I used to buy an adult mag about once every three months or so, but now that I have internet again I haven't looked back.

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.

If you don't change with the times you get left behind. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

@Applekid: Why even bother with Playboy if you've got Maxim or any of the other magazines of that type. Especially since I imagine any of them probably cost less than a subscription to Playboy.

@LegoMan322: Very enlightening on the standards of attractiveness men use today. I'm not a radical feminist but I hate seeing teenage girls running around with orange fake-bake tans, overly bleached/dyed hair and tons of makeup on thinking that its attractive to guys. Girls, its not attractive; ask any straight, non-DB male if you don't believe me. It says to me that they're not respecting themselves when they do that.

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.

@mariospants: "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."

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.

@halcyondays: ..he said, as he took another sip of his bottled water.

Playboy will always be around in some form or another. Where would declining actresses go to pose nude to give their fading careers a jump-start if Playboy went under? Yesterday's hot new starlet isn't going to pose for www.hotcoeds.com. Playboy's the only mag with a veneer of taste that ameliorates the stigma of going full frontal purely as a career move, and there's no online equivalent. At least, none with the name recognition of Playboy.

Playboy should dump Playboy.com and start up airbrushedbabes.com.

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.

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

@LegoMan322: "Pretty surprised Hugh never did anything major with the internet."

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

@Radi0logy: "not the overweight chick with a big zit on her nose."

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

@MightyDwarf56: The problem is that they were late on both counts ... what they offer in terms of website and DVD entertainment pales in comparison to what is available elsewhere.

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.

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

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...

@theblackdog: I got mine on eBay for like 1.99 for three years.

My dad has had a subscription to Playboy for as long as I can recall. While the nekked ladies were pretty neat when I was prepubescent, when I got older they really lost their appeal. Plus I found much better things online. I do, however love reading the columns and articles. One of my favorites is the Playboy Advisor.

@nakedscience: Cause its free, not cause men want to see stretch marks and hooknoses.

@GMFish: "What a great idea for a website: OverweightChicksWithZits.com!"

Rule 34...

@TheTriStatesBestSide_GitEmSteveDave: *sniff* RIP Human Beat Box... we hardly knew ye..

@SanDiegoDude:

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!

@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.

Phil's on the right track with the suggestion to drop teh newds. Forget about the maxim style scantily clad teenage garbage too. Maybe 1 or 2 sexy classy spreads per issue. Here's the rub: Include access to an official Playboy porn/nudes website as part of the magazine subscription. Dad gets a magazine he can read on the train AND a decent ad-free site to shake his stick at for one price. Playboy gets to keep its image and its business.

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.

Wikipedia says "The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) has published a Braille edition of Playboy since 1970."

Interesting.

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.

MEN'S HEALTH ate into Playboy's pool of mag subscribers big time. When young guys need help and advice on how to get women why turn to the mag that tells you to buy this $$ suit and car when you have a mag that tells you how to get healthy and that gives raw sex advice? MH is also into the internet big time.

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.

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.