Playboy (magazine)

playboy
description	Men's and lifestyle magazine
language	English
publishing company	Playboy Enterprises ( United States )
Headquarters	Chicago , Illinois
First edition	December 1, 1953
founder	Hugh Hefner
Frequency of publication	quarterly
Sold edition	206,483 copies
( 2018 )
Editor-in-chief	James Rickman
executive Director	Ben Kohn
Web link	playboyenterprises.com
ISSN (print)	0032-1478

Playboy is an American men's magazine that is primarily known for erotic and nude photography . It also contains articles on lifestyle topics. The publisher of the American edition is Playboy Enterprises , which was founded by Hugh Hefner (1926–2017) and later headed by his daughter Christie Hefner . It now appears as a licensed product in the national language and with its own topics in over 30 countries.

history

Playboy founder Hugh Hefner with two of his friends (from left Kendra and Bridget ) at his birthday party in Munich (2006)

The first issue appeared in the United States in December 1953 and contained a centerfold sheet on which Marilyn Monroe posed quite freely , along with a Sherlock Holmes story, an article about the Dorsey brothers ( Jimmy and Tommy ), and another Report on the table design in the modern office. Of the initial 70,000 copies, 54,175 were sold at a price of $ 0.50 .

Originally the magazine was supposed to be called Stag Party (for example: "Bachelor Party"), which was not possible due to trademark law reasons. A friend of the publisher's Hugh Hefner then suggested the name Playboy .

During its heyday in 1975, the magazine for "Everything Men Enjoy" had a regular circulation of 5.6 million in the United States . The November 1972 issue even had a one-off circulation of 7 million issues. In the early 1970s, the magazine began with foreign language editions in European countries; the first appeared in Germany, Italy and France. Further international editions followed. Playboy is published in a total of 32 countries (as of July 1, 2012). In addition to the USA, these include Brazil, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain. For 2012, the world edition was given as a total of 4.5 million copies. In early 2015, 800,000 copies were sold in the United States.

Playboy sponsored Porsche 997 GT3 Cup at the Daytona 24-hour race (2007)

Since April 3, 2008 the magazine has also been published in the Philippines . In some countries in Asia there were significant protests because of the revealing pictures. Playboy was not allowed to be sold in China and Malaysia . In the Filipino version, no completely naked women were depicted - an emphasis was placed on high text quality.

In addition, there were and still are special editions that appear primarily in the USA (e.g. Voluptuous Vixens , College Girls , Book of Lingerie ). Today Playboy is also widespread on the Internet; articles and other multimedia content are published there. There is a membership account , the so-called Cyberclub .Y

In 2015 the publisher decided not to show complete nudity online anymore. This change is in response to the guidelines of companies like Facebook and Apple that are important as marketing or sales channels and that have conservative attitudes towards sexuality and nudity. The publisher stated that this had quadrupled its reach to 16 million 'Unique Monthly Users'; the average age has fallen from 47 to 30 years, making users a significantly more valuable target group for advertisers. In October 2015 it became known that from March 2016, completely naked women will no longer be shown in the magazine. According to the publisher, nudity is freely available everywhere on the Internet and no longer an incentive to buy the Playboy. They want to continue to have beautiful women portrayed as playmates by prominent photographers; In future, however, they will be suitable for minors and will be retouched less expensively. The decision was seen as an error after about a year and was reversed; Since the March / April 2017 issue, Playboy has again included nude photos.

From January 2017, Playboy appeared bimonthly in the US and quarterly from January 2019. In March 2020, it was announced that the magazine would be retired in the United States after the spring issue. The COVID-19 epidemic has accelerated this decision.

The logo

The Playboy-Bunny logo , the stylized rabbit's head with a bow tie, was created in 1953 by the designer Art Paul for the second edition and has since appeared on the cover of every US edition. It became known worldwide and varied several times over the years:

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Playboy in Germany

playboy
description	Men's and lifestyle magazine
language	German
publishing company	Kouneli Media GmbH ( Germany )
Headquarters	Munich
First edition	August 1, 1972
Frequency of publication	per month
Sold edition	94,478 copies
( IVW 2/2020)
Widespread edition	97,378 copies
( IVW 2/2020)
Range	0.75 million readers
( MA 2019 II )
Editor-in-chief	Florian Boitin
executive Director	Florian Boitin Myriam Karsch
Web link	playboy.de
ISSN (print)	0939-8546

history

Playmate Jennifer Henschel (2011)

The first German edition of Playboy appeared under the direction of editor-in-chief Raimund le Viseur on August 1, 1972. At this point in time, the so-called “ sex wave ” had reached Germany.

The German edition of Playboy was published by the Bauer publishing group until December 2002, and from January 2003 it was published by Playboy Deutschland Publishing GmbH, a subsidiary of Hubert Burda Media . On December 1, 2019, Florian Boitin and Myriam Karsch took over the magazine as part of a management buyout with their Kouneli Media GmbH.

Edition

The German edition has lost a lot of circulation in recent years . The number of copies sold has fallen by 65.7 percent since 1998. It is currently 94,478 copies. This corresponds to a decrease of 181,277 units. The share of subscriptions in the circulation sold is 41.1 percent.

Development of the number of copies sold

Playboy in Austria

The first Austrian Playboy edition was published on March 15, 2012 and went on sale with a circulation of 60,000. Before sales of this first Austrian version began, around 15,000 copies of the German edition were sold monthly in Austria.

The Austrian edition is expressly not a regional version of the German playboy. There is a separate Austrian team of authors who focus on Austrian topics.

The first playmate was Anna Repnik from Graz, who was twenty at the time.

International Playboy Editions

There are currently 35 international editions of Playboy magazine. Eight editions have now been discontinued (Georgia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey). The youngest member of the Playboy community is Israel. After the Australian Playboy edition was discontinued in January 2000, the South African licensee is now producing its own Australian edition again. In South Africa, Playboy magazine appears both in English as Playboy South Africa and in Afrikaans as Playboy Suid Afrika , although both editions are independent in terms of content despite the same publisher. A Playboy magazine is distributed in Singapore under the name VIP . It has all the features of normal Playboy magazines, e.g. B. there is a Playmate of the month.

country	Issue period
Argentina	1985 (JUN) - 1995 (DEC), 2005 (DEC) - today
Australia	1979 (FEB) - 2000 (JAN), ???? - today
Brazil	1975 (AUG) - today
Bulgaria	2002 (APR) - today
Germany	1972 (AUG) - today
Estonia	2007 (OCT) - today
France	1973 (NOV) - 1988 (APR), 1991 (SEP) - today
Georgia	2007 (JUL) - 2008 (APR)
Greece	1985 (APR) - today
Hong Kong	1986 (AUG) - 1993 (OCT)
Indonesia	2006 (APR) - 2007 (JUN), 2008 (SEP)
Israel	2013 (MRZ) - today
Italy	1972 (NOV) - 2003 (DEC), 2009 (JAN) - today
Japan	1975 (JUL) - 2009 (JAN)
Colombia	2008 (MRZ) - today
Croatia	1997 (FEB) - today
Latvia	2010 (OCT) - today
Lithuania	2008 (NOV) - today
Macedonia	2010 (OCT) - today
Mexico	1976 (NOV) - 1998 (FEB), 2002 (NOV) - today
Mongolia	2010 (OCT) - today
New Zealand	2013 (NOV) - today
Netherlands	1982 (OCT) - today
Norway	1998 (JAN) - 1999 (MAY)
Austria	2012 (APR) - today
Philippines	2008 (APR) - today
Poland	1992 (DEC) - 2019 (DEC)
Portugal	2009 (APR) 2010 (AUG), 2011 (MAY) - today
Romania	1999 (NOV) - today
Russia	1995 (JUL) - today
Sweden	1999 (JAN) - 1999 (SEP)
Serbia	2004 (JAN) - today
Singapore (VIP)	2009 (APR) - 2009 (DEC), 2011 (MAY) - today
Slovakia	1997 (FEB) - 2003 (APR), 2005 (OCT) - today
Slovenia	2001 (JUN) - today
Spain	1978 (NOV) - today
South Africa	1993 (DEC) - 1996 (DEC), 2011 (APR) - today
Taiwan	1990 (APR) - 2003 (DEC)
Thailand	2012 (APR) - today
Czech Republic	1991 (MAY) - today
Turkey	1986 (JAN) - 1995 (JUN)
Ukraine	2005 (SEP) - today
Hungary	1989 (DEC) - 1993 (JUL), 1999 (NOV) - today
United States	1953 (DEC) - today
Venezuela	2006 (OCT) - today

Braille editions

From 1970 to 1985 the publisher also published its magazine in Braille .

Online shop

With the online shop PlayboyVapor.com, Playboy launched a new sales concept in January 2014 to sell Playboy products to end customers. On PlayboyVapor.com, the Playboy offers tobacco and nicotine products, including water pipes and electronic cigarettes. Free condoms are included with every order as a giveaway . Sales of Playboy's first official web store, PlayboyStore.com, have been on a decline for years.

See also

• List of Playmates of the Month (German edition)
• List of Playmates of the Month (US Edition)
• Little Annie Fanny
• Playboy TV
• Playmate

literature

• Robert Coover [and a.]: Playboy. The Complete Centerfolds. Schirmer / Mosel, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-8296-0330-0 .
• Gretchen Edgren: The Playboy Book. Taschen, Cologne 1994, ISBN 3-8228-7607-0 .
• Gretchen Edgren: The Playmate Book. All playmates from six decades. Taschen, Cologne 2005, ISBN 978-3-8228-3977-5 .
• Gretchen Edgren: Playboy Book. Fifty years. Taschen, Cologne [u. a.] 2005, ISBN 978-3-8228-3974-4 .
• Hugh Hefner (Ed.): Hugh Hefner's Playboy 1926–1979. 6 volumes. Taschen, Cologne 2013, ISBN 978-3-8365-4718-5 .
• Helmut Newton: Playboy. Schirmer / Mosel, Munich 2005, ISBN 978-3-8296-0185-6 .
• Jim Petersen: Playboy 1954-2004. Collection Rolf Heyne, Munich 2003, ISBN 978-3-89910-209-3 .

Web links

Commons : Playboy  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Website of the German edition
• American edition website
• Front pages of the German edition from 1972 to 2017

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c d} New York Times: Playboy to Drop Nudity as Internet Fills Demand , October 12, 2015
2. ↑ Jürgen Schmieder: "Maybe show a nipple". In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , April 2, 2008.
3. ↑ bbc.com (accessed May 6, 2017)
4. ↑ Hefner's son offers Playboy promotions after cuts nypost.com, March 30, 2017
5. ↑ Playboy stripping down to 4 issues per year in 2019 nypost.com, September 11, 2018
6. ↑ Erotik- Magazin discontinues American print edition faz.net, March 19, 2020
7. ↑ After Burda now Kouneli Media: first German “Playboy” with a new licensee appears meedia.de, December 4, 2019
8. ↑ according to IVW , ( details on ivw.eu )
9. ↑ according to IVW , second quarter 2020 ( details and quarterly comparison on ivw.eu )
10. ↑ according to IVW , fourth quarter in each case ( details on ivw.eu )
11. ↑ Playboy • First Austrian edition - news.at
12. ↑ Anna Repnik is the playmate of the "Austria Edition" - "Dream comes true" - Stars & Society - krone.at
13. ^ Website of the Australian Playboy magazine , accessed October 7, 2018
14. ↑ Braille porn - blind people get sharp turns to touch. spiegel.de, April 13, 2010.
15. ↑ Jon Love: Playboy lights up a new e-commerce site selling electronic cigarettes and hookahs . Internet Retailer , January 24, 2014. Retrieved January 27, 2014.