# Speaking of Playboy, is it too soon for a death watch betting pool? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 9, 2009, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-playboy-is-it-too-soon-for-a-death-watch-betting-pool/509355 "2009-09-09T00:15:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Never\_Say\_Dice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ee59a6/32.png) [@Never\_Say\_Dice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Never_Say_Dice)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-playboy-is-it-too-soon-for-a-death-watch-betting-pool/509355/1 "2009-09-09T00:15:38Z")
Their advertising is down so bad, because 1. amateur internet pictures has put pressure on all professional photography, even news phototgraphers 2. ads are down all over print media as companies put a serious percent of ad money on the web 3. advertisers in general are cutting back due to slack sales and slim margins The result was that they had to produce a combined July / August edition. And my annual renewal was half what it cost last year. That’s not what solid publishers do. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-playboy-is-it-too-soon-for-a-death-watch-betting-pool/509355/2 "2009-09-09T00:25:47Z")
It croaks when Hef does. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-playboy-is-it-too-soon-for-a-death-watch-betting-pool/509355/3 "2009-09-09T00:34:41Z")
I think that they’ll continue to publish it, even at a loss, as a way to still seem a bit more prestigious than internet junk. Probably their best course of action would be to add to the depth of content, and try and become an alternative to something like The Economist. They’ll make something that any serious intellectual would want or even have to have, and win out over everyone else because it also has boobies. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-playboy-is-it-too-soon-for-a-death-watch-betting-pool/509355/4 "2009-09-09T00:39:23Z")
You’re right. As I wrote in the other Playboy thread, they’re suffering basically the same problem as the music industry, in that what you used to have to pay for you can now find for free online. And while with mp3s there might be some sound quality issues, the porn you find on the internet is often much more titillating (not to mention explicit) than any of the heavily airbrushed pictures in Playboy these days ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-playboy-is-it-too-soon-for-a-death-watch-betting-pool/509355/5 "2009-09-09T00:39:59Z")
I’d buy it if they just did re-issues of the 60s and 70s issues. Man, those were well before my time, but they’re so great. ---
**Author:** ![Windwalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/5e9695/32.png) [@Windwalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Windwalker)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-playboy-is-it-too-soon-for-a-death-watch-betting-pool/509355/6 "2009-09-09T00:42:46Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I think that they’ll continue to publish it, even at a loss, as a way to still seem a bit more prestigious than internet junk. > > Probably their best course of action would be to add to the depth of content, and try and become an alternative to something like The Economist. They’ll make something that any serious intellectual would want or even have to have, and win out over everyone else because it also has boobies. That won’t work, as people who read The Economist would also be embarrassed to be seen with a booby mag. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-playboy-is-it-too-soon-for-a-death-watch-betting-pool/509355/7 "2009-09-09T00:44:59Z")
> [@Windwalker](#): > > That won’t work, as people who read The Economist would also be embarrassed to be seen with a booby mag. Kindle. 😉 Though I’ll note that in any other country than the US, walking around with a newspaper with a topless girl on the front is de rigueur for most white collar men, regardless of whether they’re on the metro with a 10 year old seated besides them or not. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-playboy-is-it-too-soon-for-a-death-watch-betting-pool/509355/8 "2009-09-09T00:54:08Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I think that they’ll continue to publish it, even at a loss, as a way to still seem a bit more prestigious than internet junk. > > Probably their best course of action would be to add to the depth of content, and try and become an alternative to something like The Economist. They’ll make something that any serious intellectual would want or even have to have, and win out over everyone else because it also has boobies. The thing is they used to be that. Sure they were always known more as a nudie mag than anything else, but back in their heyday they also had a crack team of journalists. These days they’re more like Maxim with full frontal. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-playboy-is-it-too-soon-for-a-death-watch-betting-pool/509355/9 "2009-09-09T00:57:16Z")
If I don’t see it at [Magazine Death Pool](http://www.magazinedeathpool.com/) I don’t believe it. 🆒 I believe they would retire Playboy in “honor” of Hef’s death, but the guy is immortal. He’ll live as long as there are blonde 19-year-old twins in the world. So the magazine will have to go first. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-playboy-is-it-too-soon-for-a-death-watch-betting-pool/509355/10 "2009-09-09T01:17:22Z")
I stopped reading the rag when the POTM went from “Girl Next Door” to “Girl Next Door to a Plastic Surgeon.” If it vanished tomorrow I don’t think I’d notice. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-playboy-is-it-too-soon-for-a-death-watch-betting-pool/509355/11 "2009-09-09T01:44:50Z")
The brand name is too valuable to retire entirely; like **National Lampoon** , it’ll probably come out with greater and greater infrequency while the brand is slapped on increasingly dubious videos, websites and hardcover compilations of stuff from the glory days. I got a book a year or two ago that was a compilation of Eldon Dedini’s **Playboy** cartoons and enjoyed it a lot. I understand the packager, Fantagraphics, is doing something similar with Gahan Wilson’s **Playboy** output. The bones will be picked pretty clean before they’re interred. ---
**Author:** ![Jerseyman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@Jerseyman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jerseyman)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-playboy-is-it-too-soon-for-a-death-watch-betting-pool/509355/12 "2009-09-09T02:14:18Z")
It’s been well overtaken in the porn stakes but I remember when it was the only English-language publication apart from the four-page Communist-run daily ‘Morning Star’ (formerly ‘Daily Worker’) to criticise the VietNam War. It’s garbage of course. But be careful about lambasting the ‘pets’ because they are women and putting them down in my view always comes perilously close to Victorian moralistic contempt for sexually assertive women as ‘sluts’ and ‘no better than they should be’ too stupid to understand their infamy. I wouldn’t mind women fancying me as a ‘sex object’! (especially when far closer to sixty than sixteen 😃 ) Still, my boss at 62 is getting on fine with a lady of 48. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-playboy-is-it-too-soon-for-a-death-watch-betting-pool/509355/13 "2009-09-09T02:33:01Z")
The magazine is probably already losing money. It’s a loss leader for Playboy Enterprises - it keeps the brand known. So Playboy will last as long as its subsiduaries and licensings post enough profits to justify the cost of propping up the magazine. ---
**Author:** ![Frostillicus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-playboy-is-it-too-soon-for-a-death-watch-betting-pool/509355/14 "2009-09-09T02:34:44Z")
People still read Playboy? ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-playboy-is-it-too-soon-for-a-death-watch-betting-pool/509355/15 "2009-09-09T02:46:31Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Kindle. 😉 > > Though I’ll note that in any other country than the US, walking around with a newspaper with a topless girl on the front is de rigueur for most white collar men, regardless of whether they’re on the metro with a 10 year old seated besides them or not. Newspapers that carry pictures of topless girls aren’t generally read by white collar men in Britain or Ireland. They’re almost de rigueur amongst blue collar men however. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-playboy-is-it-too-soon-for-a-death-watch-betting-pool/509355/16 "2009-09-09T03:28:26Z")
The only hope for it is a young, intelligent, handsome young man with a fortune in the several-hundred million range buying it and carrying it forward. It would have to be someone with a reasonable intellect, a liberal social agenda, a gift with the ladies and with enough money to purchase it, but not so much that he didn’t have to invest his entire life into running the bloody thing, ala Hef. He’d have to, as I said, move it forward, past the Hef sensibilities and philosophies, and most especially, the Plastic Blonde fixation. Frankly, I don’t see it happening. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-playboy-is-it-too-soon-for-a-death-watch-betting-pool/509355/17 "2009-09-09T06:51:56Z")
Jerseyman writes: \> It’s been well overtaken in the porn stakes but I remember when it was the \> only English-language publication apart from the four-page Communist-run \> daily ‘Morning Star’ (formerly ‘Daily Worker’) to criticise the VietNam War. Say what? There were lots of American publications that were opposed to the Vietnam War. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2009, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-of-playboy-is-it-too-soon-for-a-death-watch-betting-pool/509355/18 "2009-09-09T08:46:20Z")
There is the old joke “but I only read it for the articles honey!” but that is partially true. It used to be very well written, put together, and entertaining. There weren’t even that many nudey pictures in it by page count. They will have to do something with the brand and someone will be able to figure it out.