Playboy Launches Nudity-Free Magazine on Apple iTunes, Google Play
Playboy’s 63-year-old magazine — recently stripped of nude pictorials — is now also an app.
Playboy Enterprises is selling digital copies of the men’s magazine on Apple’s iTunes Store and Google Play stores. The digital version of Playboy is available for $17.99 per year or for $5.99 per issue. That’s the same as the current annual price for a print subscription, but a discount off the single-copy newsstand price of $7.99; Playboy is also offering a combo $19.99 print-plus-digital bundle.
The move is part of the company’s broader overhaul to boost digital revenue, centering the male-focused brand around lifestyle, entertainment and culture instead of photos of naked women. Playboy’s internet audience has grown steadily over the past year, as the magazine’s circulation has fallen from its 1975 peak of 5.6 million to less than 600,000 by mid-2016.
In 2014, Playboy.com eliminated nude photos from its website, conceding defeat to internet porn, and the Hugh Hefner-founded magazine dropped nude spreads earlier this year. That said, while it has quit publishing explicit nudity, Playboy’s content mix still prominently features women in various states of undress and come-hither poses.
Watch trailers plus free full-length movies on Yahoo View, available now on iOS.
Customers who download the app during the month of October will receive complimentary access to six 2016 issues of Playboy, beginning with the company’s redesigned, nudity-free March 2016 issue. The mag is distributing the digital version through the Zinio Pro platform.
“Inclusion in the iTunes and Google Play stores is an important milestone for Playboy as we continue to explore opportunities to introduce our content to new audiences all over the world,” said David Israel, COO and CFO of Playboy Enterprises.
The October “Renegades” issue of Playboy magazine features actor-musician Sky Ferreira (pictured above) on two separate covers. Other subjects profiled in the issue include comedy superstar Kevin Hart; comedian and “Fresh Off the Boat” writer Ali Wong; retired pro skateboarder Jason Dill; and Stoya, a ballerina-turned-porn-star.
The new Playboy magazine app joins other mobile app offerings from Playboy, including Playboy Now, a free companion app for the Playboy.com website, and Playboy Classic ($2.99 for 30-day subscription or $19.99 for one year), which features articles, interviews, “safe-for-work” galleries, jokes and cartoons from the company’s archive.
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