I'll bet it costs a fortune, given the upwards spiral of magazine prices these days.
Yet somehow the libraries still won't add it to their periodical holdings, and somehow people keep finding room for its subscription in their discretionary spending.
I wonder if Playboy still has the stigma that resulted in some people hiding it inside their copy of Fortune when reading it in public?
Now that Penthouse has gone out of business, I have to hide my copy of
Fortune inside an issue of Playboy...
The Playboy philosophy used to be leading edge. Do they still have any edge?
Are they attracting the new blood?
Despite all the jokes of just reading the articles, I think that's what's led to its death spiral. Stephen King reminisces fondly about Playboy paying better for short stories than anyone else-- if you could get paid by Playboy then you knew you could afford to buy the expensive antibiotics for your kid's ear infection. Unfortunately he's talking about the 1970s.
The same "new blood" of up-and-coming authors also used to be true for many other magazines. But now that anyone can get published online, and usually does, then no one will pay for free content. The up-and-coming authors have all moved over to Wired, Slate, and the Dollar Stretcher...
I'm looking for a library (free!) copy of Chris Anderson's
"Free". He attracted some [-]"free" publicity[/-] controversial attention for his unattributed sources and has incited the media mobs to shoot the messenger, but I think he's fingered a critical trend.
As for Playboy, I think it's going to figure out a way to screw (so to speak) the stockholders. It's a value trap, or a cigar butt without any puffs left. They'll start loading up with debt to make payroll, using their hard assets (so to speak again, I could keep this up all week) for collateral, and a few years down the road (as their stock price goes from $2.50/share to 50 cents) they'll go into liquidation. The mansion and the art collection will be sold to pay off the bondholders, leaving the stockholders clutching-- well, you get the metaphorical picture.
I wonder if Buffett's talked to Hef or Christine about their estate planning. Boy would that draw a crowd to the next Berkshire annual meeting.