“The clock's ticking on Playboy, folks," said Robin Wauters in TechCrunch. The granddaddy of men's magazines is losing money thanks to the advertising slump, online competition, and other factors. And if anything will seal the monthly print magazine's doom, it's interim CEO Jerome Kern's misguided plan to win back fleeing subscribers by charging more and printing fewer issues per year.
Kern isn't just hiking the $5.99-an-issue price and combining the July and August issues to save printing costs, said Lisa Gutierrez in the Kansas City Star. He's also updating the magazine to "attract young readers." Playboy playmates may indeed be the next victims of the recession, but the magazine won't give up without a fight.
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