New York – Penthouse, the major rival of Playboy, has announced on Friday it will stop its print edition after 50 years and will now just offer its content in digital format leaving 80% of their staff without a job.
Penthouse has undergone through difficult situations over the past decade since its founder Bob Guccione filed for bankruptcy in 2004, losing control of the company. FriendFinder Networks, which also operates a variety of adult social-networking sites, took control of the company in 2013. Now the publishing network has announced that due to declining sales attributed to the adult content easily found on the Internet, it will shut down the print edition as a way to keep the magazine up to current tendencies.
“Reimagined for the preferred consumption of content today by consumers, the digital version of Penthouse Magazine will combine and convert everything readers know and love about the print magazine experience to the power of a digital experience,” publisher FriendFinder Network said in a statement.
FriendFinder CEO Jonathan Buckheit said in the statement that the move would keep Penthouse competitive in the future and it would combine the pictorial features and editorial content with the video and broadcast offerings.
So, the move won’t come as a total shock for its loyal reader. The company also announced that there will be a transition period before stopping print publication altogether.
The company is also shutting down its New York offices and will be relocated in Los Angeles, where current publisher FriendFinder is located.
The decision comes just months after Playboy announced a big move of its own. The world’s most popular men’s lifestyle and entertainment magazine would no longer publish nude photographs as part of a broad redesign that will be revealed in March this year. Playboy now has a circulation of about 800,000 down from a height of 5.6 million in 1975, according to the Alliance for Audited Media.
Source: Wall Street Journal