Playboy kills iconic magazine, citing coronavirus woes

The latest victim of the coronavirus: Playboy.

The nudie mag founded by Hugh Hefner 66 years ago will no longer publish a printed edition, it said on Wednesday, citing coronavirus supply chain woes that have only served to exacerbate its already sagging newsstand sales.

“Last week, as the disruption of the coronavirus pandemic to content production and the supply chain became clearer and clearer, we were forced to accelerate a conversation we’ve been having internally,” CEO Ben Kohn said in a post on Medium.com.

The iconic magazine was already on the decline prior to the coronavirus pandemic as porn has proliferated online. It was still being published monthly as recently as 2017, but was scaled back to a quarterly mag without ads in early 2019.

The spring 2020 issue now hitting newsstands will be its last before it goes all digital next year.

“Over the past 66 years, we’ve become far more than a magazine. And sometime have to let go of the past to make room for the future,” Kohn said.

He left the door open to “special editions,” however.

Kohn, who insiders say was never a fan of the magazine, said the company, which also makes money licensing its brand, will now aim to “help create a culture where all people can pursue pleasure.”

He also touted the company’s social media and digital presence as growth areas. “Right now, the Playboy brand is more successful than ever before. Our audience is massive. We drive over $3 billion in annual consumer spend worldwide.”

A nude Marilyn Monroe was featured in the very first issue of Playboy, which Hefner famously did not date when it debuted in 1953 because he said he was unsure he’d have the money to produce a second issue.

At its height, it sold over 7 million copies a month on newsstands, but it was always a target of conservative opponents. President Ronald Reagan’s Attorney General Edwin Meese pressured convenience store owners such as 7-Eleven to stop displaying the magazine on newsstands. Its sale also was banned on all US military bases.

Hefner died in 2017. His son, Cooper Hefner, quit the company in April 2019 with plans to launch a new millennial-focused digital company, but those plans were halted in December when he said he would be joining the Air Force as a reservist.