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.
Simon Says Newspapers Would Be Killing Themselves Even Without The Help Of The Internet
For the definitive dramatic take on why and how the newspaper industry has fallen so hard, watch season five of HBO’s The Wire, much of which is set inside the beleaguered Baltimore Sun newsroom. The show has it all: The ever-present desperation and dread. The hushed, huddled stand-up meetings in which colleagues whisper about who they think the next round of layoffs will hit. The strain of fewer people, many with less experience and training than they need, trying to handle more responsibilities for diminishing pay and benefits.