Playboy lost $13.7 million in the first quarter of 2009, stirring pangs of nostalgia in the company for those halcyon days of first quarter 2008, when the publisher lost only $4.2 million. Late last year Playboy closed its DVD arm and enacted massive layoffs, but the savings weren’t quite able to offset lost print and digital ad revenue, which dropped 26 percent from a year ago.

Since the government isn’t talking nudie magazine bailouts, it’s up to Playboy to get its stuff right and start heading back to hemorrhaging money. The solution? If every magazine you print loses money, don’t print as many magazines. Industry mag Folio said that’s the plan for interim Playboy Enterprises CEO and chairman Jerome Kern, who stepped in after Hugh Hefner’s daughter, Christie Hefner, resigned last year.

Playboy is considering “radical changes” of the print business model, including price increases, a frequency reduction and lowering its rate base of 2.6 million. The company said it would combine Playboy’s July and August issues into a double issue.

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.

Playboy Plans ‘Radical Changes’ to Print Model [Folio]
(Photo:yoshiffles)

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