# Heff says: No more thread-bare hare **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 13, 2015, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heff-says-no-more-thread-bare-hare/734518 "2015-10-13T03:58:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heff-says-no-more-thread-bare-hare/734518/41 "2015-10-13T22:35:03Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Playboy can’t avoid the central problem: it’s a business based around a magazine in a time when magazines are failing. Unless Hefner and Jones figure out a way to shut off the internet, they’re not going to restore Playboy to anywhere near its heights. > > The best Playboy can hope to do is to cushion the fall and run things out as long as they can. And their best asset is six decades of tradition. So they should be focused on reminding people of the old Playboy rather than trying to create a new Playboy. A new Playboy is going to die at birth. An old Playboy might manage to linger for another few years. I think your prediction is probably correct, but it’s not because “magazines are failing” because they’re not all failing. I’m pretty sure the _New Yorker_ is doing very well. But that’s because they have content quality that no one else can match, and they’ve also innovated a unique approach to the Internet. Their Internet portal is not directly competing with the magazine, but exploits their wealth of content and contributors to create a parallel medium in its own right, with free limited access to the magazine as a bonus, and unlimited access to the entire magazine archives for subscribers. Playboy will probably fail because the top-tier literary market is a limited one with established players, if that’s what they’re going for, and they don’t have the culture to execute on that. OTOH if they’re trying to be a general lifestyle type magazine, that’s a competitive and declining area. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heff-says-no-more-thread-bare-hare/734518/42 "2015-10-13T22:50:46Z")
Playboy is a dead brand. Pretty much a zombie company that will go bankrupt the moment Hef dies. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heff-says-no-more-thread-bare-hare/734518/43 "2015-10-13T23:58:29Z")
_Et tu_, Hef? The straight male Boomers of America reel from the unkindest cut. OTOH collectors just saw an uptick in the value of their hoard 😃 Either that or he just got told how little time he has left and he’s trying to summon his origins roots - serious content and wholesome pin-ups - for a swan song. > [@Gary\_T](#): > > If I understood correctly from this morning’s NPR feature, they’ve done that already. Yep, some time back they separated Playboy .com into its components, divested the “Cyberclub” fan site, set up PlayboyPlus as a fully paywalled “premium” site, and last year they made the main Playboy. com site fully SFW … and more important than that, Safe For Mainstream Social Networks and their valuable shares and links and advertisers who don’t want to “do porn”. According to reports traffic either tripled or quintupled and the average age demographic dropped from late 40s to early 30s. The company’s stats tell them that their real profit is in lifestyle branding, including in countries where the magazine itself is banned. They were always a lifestyle magazine, now they’ll try it minus the full nudity. (The question becomes then whether PlayboyPlus and the SpecialEditions \*will \*continue to be adult-content while the flagship properties go PG13…) In the end, for all its onetime glory as simultaneously a pioneer adult publication AND a serious-content magazine for literary fiction and current-affairs commentary, Playboy remained defined as an “adult entertainment” publisher and thus between a rock and a hard place, with many important sales channels and ad sources blocked off because it’s “adult” on the side of the mainstream-content mag, while on the skin mag side online porn and the “free”/ad-supported/often stolen content model far outpaced them. I suppose it would have been too much of a risk to the existing distribution channels, contracts, etc. to wind down Playboy-as-is (which already is a shadow of Playboy-as-we-knew-it for those of us who saw the 60s-80s era), and then launch a clean ground-up reboot, rather than switch on the march. And better it have Hef’s signature on it so if it goes down badly it falls on nobody’s head but the Founder. ---
**Author:** ![romansperson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/romansperson/32/17100_2.png) [@romansperson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/romansperson)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heff-says-no-more-thread-bare-hare/734518/44 "2015-10-14T00:09:09Z")
So does this mean they are doing away with their Test Bedrooms too? Damn. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heff-says-no-more-thread-bare-hare/734518/45 "2015-10-14T00:19:46Z")
Honestly, it’s all for the best. It’s been many years since any of the pixels that made it to the page were actually generated from light that actually contacted the models. The amount of Photoshop and/or airbrushing involved (plus the odd tinting choices) meant that the pictures had surprisingly little erotic or artistic appeal. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heff-says-no-more-thread-bare-hare/734518/46 "2015-10-14T00:35:32Z")
[You were beaten to it.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=772003) ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heff-says-no-more-thread-bare-hare/734518/47 "2015-10-14T00:35:56Z")
Well, most guys read it for the articles anyway. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heff-says-no-more-thread-bare-hare/734518/48 "2015-10-14T00:44:11Z")
Merged **Urbanredneck** ’s thread with the already existing thread. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heff-says-no-more-thread-bare-hare/734518/49 "2015-10-14T01:01:35Z")
It’s the end of an era. Playboy declares nudes are passé and will stop publishing them in the print edition of the magazine. (Apparently its website dispensed with nudes some time ago. Who knew?) > **[Nudes Are Old News at Playboy (Published 2015)](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/13/business/media/nudes-are-old-news-at-playboy.html?_r=1)** > > With the digital cornucopia of pornography, Playboy’s raison d’être has vanished. Its website dropped nudity last year and soon its magazine will still feature women, but not fully nude. So now you really will be reading it for the articles. ---
**Author:** ![northporlarbear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7bcc69/32.png) [@northporlarbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/northporlarbear)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heff-says-no-more-thread-bare-hare/734518/50 "2015-10-14T01:02:55Z")
Women actually look hotter when they have some clothes on. Like hot pants? It looks hotter when it is a normal hot pants. When it is a micro hot pants that you can see almost the entire buttocks, it actually looks… not so hot. I’m more into that alluring furtive skin exposure rather than completely freely give-away exposure. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heff-says-no-more-thread-bare-hare/734518/51 "2015-10-14T01:19:37Z")
[Already being discussed](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=772003). ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heff-says-no-more-thread-bare-hare/734518/52 "2015-10-14T01:22:53Z")
“Where the Hell is June…?” _finds it_ “Yolanda, baby!” ---
**Author:** ![JKilez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e5b9ba/32.png) [@JKilez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKilez)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heff-says-no-more-thread-bare-hare/734518/53 "2015-10-14T01:30:30Z")
If they turned it into a _GQ_ or _Men’s Health_ for heterosexuals, or a _Maxim_ or _FHM_ for adults, they could have something. By today’s standards, _Playboy_ is already pretty tame and the photo layouts are a small part of the magazine. They could still make it as a lifestyle guide. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heff-says-no-more-thread-bare-hare/734518/54 "2015-10-14T02:05:11Z")
In other news, Larry Flint is turning _Hustler_ into a ladies’ society reading circle guide. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heff-says-no-more-thread-bare-hare/734518/55 "2015-10-14T02:15:04Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > I never cared about Playboy except for the occasional newsworthy item, e.g., a specific starlet featured, or the Lennon interview. On looking it up, the last Playboy I purchased was in 1993 - for the Frank Zappa interview. But I’ll admit to looking at the pretty pictures as well ;). ---
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heff-says-no-more-thread-bare-hare/734518/56 "2015-10-14T03:11:18Z")
Merging another thread in. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heff-says-no-more-thread-bare-hare/734518/57 "2015-10-14T03:29:32Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Playboy is a dead brand. Pretty much a zombie company that will go bankrupt the moment Hef dies. Not at all. From the link in the OP: > [@](#): > > The company now makes most of its money from licensing its ubiquitous brand and logo across the world — 40 percent of that business is in China even though the magazine is not available there — for bath products, fragrances, clothing, liquor and jewelry among other merchandise. In the developing world, the brand symbolizes luxury and the high life. The logo is all over the place in Panama. It can continue to make money as long as people in the third world see the US life style as something to aspire to. That will continue to be true regardless of what happens to the magazine. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heff-says-no-more-thread-bare-hare/734518/58 "2015-10-14T03:48:30Z")
> [@ekedolphin](#): > > “Where the Hell is June…?” > > _finds it_ > > “Yolanda, baby!” “Go to sleep, Lewis or I’m telling Mom about your Playboys!” ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heff-says-no-more-thread-bare-hare/734518/59 "2015-10-14T04:02:15Z")
> [@Idle\_Thoughts](#): > > Merging another thread in. This may never end. I blame **Czarcasm** ’s horrible thread title. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heff-says-no-more-thread-bare-hare/734518/60 "2015-10-14T04:38:35Z")
Wait, I thought a woman ran Playboy? Hugh Hefners daughter? Well imagine now Playboy being available at doctors offices? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heff-says-no-more-thread-bare-hare/734518.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heff-says-no-more-thread-bare-hare/734518.md?page=4)