The New York Times is reporting that Playboy Magazine, once a landmark publication and a landmark in the lives of countless adolescent boys, is ditching nudity in its print magazine.
Why? Here’s the reasoning laid out in the piece:
Its executives admit that Playboy has been overtaken by the changes it pioneered. “That battle has been fought and won,” said Scott Flanders, the company’s chief executive. “You’re now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it’s just passé at this juncture.”
It’s true.
The Playboy of old can’t compete in the age of the smartphone. And in the age of social media, which now acts as a hub for most of the web, Playboy was forced to respond for today’s digital consumer.
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The latest redesign…is more pragmatic. The magazine had already made some content safe for work, Mr. Flanders said, in order to be allowed on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, vital sources of web traffic.
In August of last year, its website dispensed with nudity. As a result, Playboy executives said, the average age of its reader dropped from 47 to just over 30, and its web traffic jumped to about 16 million from about four million unique users per month.
Sounds like it’s paid off.
On the whole, we’re always glad when businesses wise up and start heading in a less porn-filled direction, but we aren’t hanging up the “Mission Accomplished” banner just yet. There are still plenty of sites out there that are using up men and women—both performers and consumers—all in the name of a buck.
Still, we never thought we’d say this, but: way to go, Playboy. A step in the right direction is better than no steps at all.
Read the whole article here.
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