Playboy Moves to Special Issue Print Publications Only, Ceases Quarterly Print Issues

CEO of Playboy Enterprises, Ben Kohn announced via an open letter on Medium that the spring 2020 issue will be its last. The magazine has recently been published as a quarterly, but the coronavirus crisis has prompted the decision to stop print publication entirely.

“As the disruption of the coronavirus pandemic to content production and the supply chain became clearer and clearer, we were forced to accelerate a conversation we’ve been having internally: the question of how to transform our US print product to better suit what consumers want today … [and] engage in a cultural conversation each and every day, rather than just every three months,” he said.

“We will move to a digital-first publishing schedule for all of our content including the Playboy Interview, 20Q, the Playboy Advisor and of course our Playmate pictorials,” he continued.

“It’s no surprise that media consumption habits have been changing for some time … [and] our content in its printed form reaches the hands of only a fraction of our fans,” he acknowledged. Moving forward from 2021, there will still be print offerings “in a variety of new forms”, such as “special editions, partnerships with the most provocative creators, timely collections and much more.

“Print is how we began and print will always be a part of who we are.”

Playboy magazine was founded by Hugh Hefner in 1953, publishing work from acclaimed thinkers and writers like James Baldwin, Joyce carol Oates, Margaret Atwood and Saul Bellow. In the days of the sexual revolution, Playboy became much better known for its nude centerfolds.