More on the Playboy "Strategic Repositioning" News: More Clubs

Chicago Tribune has an interview that fleshes out the earlier Folio: article in which new Playboy Enterprises CEO Scott Flanders said there'd be a strategic repositioning of the company, though print'd stay around.

The Trib article tells us where a big focus of the company will be going forward: Clubs. The one Playboy Club in existence, in Las Vegas, is apparently doing well, even in the recession.

Back in its heyday, Playboy had dozens of clubs, including huge (and musta-been expensive) resorts in New Jersey and Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Years after Christie Hefner shut them down, she was asked about that, and she noted that Playboy had a good run with clubs; it's hard to make clubs (restaurants and entertainment venues) work for long, and Playboy had more than two decades of success before the market changed. (In particular, the idea of "key clubs" went out of fashion, though the company was also hurt by losing its lucrative casino gaming licenses.)

So this strategic repositioning is probably a smart move, re-adopting something that worked in its past, and it could be successful if the company properly updates the concept to the modern day. It seems to have been a big success at the Palms in Las Vegas, and there are plenty of other destination cities around the world where a Playboy Club could do quite well.

As for the flagship magazine, though Flanders seemed clear in the Folio: interview that the mag was here to stay, the Trib article puts up some parameters: "Playboy has no plans to shut the magazine, but has hinted at drastic cuts in frequency, circulation and pages. Playboy TV has room to grow, Flanders said, and the company's subscription Web sites have held their own against piracy and competition from free sites."

Of course, just like in the 1960s, '70s and early '80s, a successful destination entertainment business can help fuel the print side. There can be positive feedback in both directions. So, a rising tide here could life the print boat. Hopefully.

New Documentary on Gay Rights and Hugh Hefner

Just one more social movement in which Hugh Hefner and Playboy were ahead of the times: gay rights. A new documentary, Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel, opens in September and includes details on his public stance for gay inclusiveness and against discrimination. For more, read the Advocate report.

The Advocate focuses on an incident early in the magazine's history, in the mid-1950s, when Hefner published a short story that had been rejected by (his former employer) Esquire about anti-gay discrimination. But if one reads editorial comments in Playboy over the decades, one can see that he was at the cutting edge of realizing homosexuality wasn't a mental illness, that gay love is no less worthy than straight love, and that discrimination was stupid in either case. Hefner's company has also put its money where its mouthpiece is in support of gay causes. (And Hefner continues to be vocal about supporting gay marriage.)

Matthew Hays, writing on The Daily Beast, focuses on Hef's gay rights pioneering work, but he also notes that the publisher was a vocal -- and courageous -- opponent of other types of discrimination:

He commissioned articles for Playboy from writers who had been blacklisted during the McCarthy era, including screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, one of the infamous “Hollywood Ten.” “I received a letter from Ronald Reagan at that time, requesting that I stop using writers who'd been identified by HUAC [House Un-American Activities Committee],” he says. His late-'50s TV variety show, Playboy's Penthouse, featured acts “that couldn't get on network television because they'd been blacklisted.”

Similarly, his television shows and his string of Playboy Clubs brought prominent African-American entertainers into the lives of many Americans who might not follow them otherwise.

And, to end by returning to the gay-rights theme, here's more from the Daily Beast article, and it says more about Hefner than his vocal critics either know or care to acknowledge:

“Without question, love in its various permutations is what we need more of in this world,” says the twice-married Hefner, who, unlike most of his peers, favors legalizing same-sex marriage. “The idea that the concept of marriage will be sullied by same-sex marriage is ridiculous. Heterosexuals haven't been doing that well at it on their own.”