Mutt

anybody hear about this? The buzz is that Playboy might ditch its past and lose the nudity to compete head on with Maxim, FHM and the rest of the new men's magazines. Interesting. Why don't they just come out with a new brand to compete with Maxim and keep Playboy as it is? I'd try that before messing with Playboy itself.

Media Life
December 4, 2002? 2002

The great Playboy coverup debate

Time to hide the boobies? Come ponder with us.
By Jeff Bercovici

With all the buzz coming out of Chicago, one would
think big things are about to happen at Playboy, the
men's magazine that time forgot.

Yes, the magazine is moving to New York, but that's
not what we're talking about. When it comes to
Playboy, there's only one thing to talk about--boobies.

Under new editorial director James Kaminsky, the big
puzzle is whether Playboy will cover nipples, along with
crotches, to compete with Maxim and the other lad
titles. Officially, Playboy says no way.

But should it cover up?

Here, in brief, are the arguments for.

By renouncing nudity, Playboy stands to win major
dollars from those advertisers, chiefly Detroit
automakers, whose guidelines currently prohibit them
from running there.

It might also snag some new readers if guys no longer
had to be embarrassed to flip through it on a bus or
airplane.

Here's the argument against: Despite its celebrated
tradition of publishing great journalism and fiction,
Playboy is still best known for the boobies. Get rid of
that and you alienate millions of readers, driving them
straight into the arms of the competition.

Moreover, even after cleaning up its pages, the name
alone might give pause to more buttoned-up
advertisers.

To see where the debate stood, we rounded up an
assortment of opinionated media types and put the
question to them: Should Playboy ditch its R-rating for
a PG-13?

Without a doubt, says Bob Guccione Jr., editor of the
men's magazine Gear.

"If I was the publisher of Maxim, I would absolutely
be burning candles and praying to every God I could
find that Playboy doesn't do that," says Guccione.

"Maxim's been falsely claiming to be the biggest
men's magazine for a long time and everybody's
forgotten Playboy, which is much bigger and also much
smarter."

Guccione says he doubts a coverup would result in a
mass exodus of readers, at least not immediately.

"You can't lose 3 million subscribers overnight. It
would be a real Godzilla-Mothra battle among the
high-circulation magazines."

Magazine consultant Martin Walker disagrees, arguing
that Playboy would run a huge risk in ditching the
nudes.

"It's dangerous. They're going to give up a heritage
they've had forever?" says Walker. "It still has the
largest circulation of any of the men's books. You want
to move something like that slowly."

He expects Kaminsky to make Playboy more similar
to other men's magazines, especially "lad" magazines
like Maxim, but to do so gradually and subtly.

"I think it's going to be more about the content --
younger writers, hipper, shorter takes, a change in the
Losing the nudity would not be to Playboy's
graphics. The paradigm to take a look at is the women
service magazines, how they're all trying to move to a
more contemporary look."

advantage, agrees Paul Benjou, director of client
services at Mediaplex.

"They have a very good editorial product. They're not
going to change who they are and they shouldn't change
who they are."

> The magazine shouldn't allow Detroit to dictate its
> editorial content, he says.

"Instead of trying to pull those advertisers in--instead
of throwing good money after bad--they should focus
on extending the relationships with the advertisers they
have."

Another media executive says he believes at least
some advertisers would adopt a wait-and-see attitude
rather than rush into a newly non-nude Playboy.

At any rate, Playboy's executives appear to have
settled the question for themselves, at least for now.

When Hefner spoke to a reporter earlier this fall of
the need to "recapture the mainstream nature of the
magazine" and "find ways to do things with style and
taste," he wasn't talking about covering up altogether,
says a Playboy spokesperson.

Rather, he was saying that the magazine may soon
begin featuring non-nude photo spreads of actresses and
models in addition to, not instead of, the familiar
full-monty shots.

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