Big question: Will the gatefold open from right to left?
Starting up a new edition of Playboy at this late date? When the circulation and revenues are dropping? In the middle of a strife-filed region simply overflowing with strict religious leaders of three major branches?
How can it possibly run into trouble?
No reason. As the article states, Playboy has been on sale there for years. I’m surprised there wasn’t one before this.
But it seems an odd time to be starting one up, when so many magazines are folding, and Playboy’s numbers are falling. I can’t see that this, alone, will make that big a dent.
Most of the foreign editions are essentially franchises. Some local publishing company pays Playboy for the rights to publish a local version of the magazine - they get access to Playboy’s material and Playboy Enterprises gets the licensing fees and a share of the ad revenues. In such a case, there’s really no risk to Playboy Enterprises. (The exception is the Polish edition where Playboy Enterprises is a partner in the local publishing company.)
…desperately emailing Mila Kunis and Regina Spektor that they need to pose for the Hebrew edition of Playboy to “help preserve the language of their people”:)…