Rabbit Test: As Maxim and others squeeze Playboy’s popularity, can the bunny survive?

Kirk Baird

Monday, Oct. 21, 2002 | 8:22 a.m.

In the world of music, 30-year-old-plus bands such as Crosby, Stills and Nash, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles are tagged with the "classic rock" label.

Artists from the '50s are simply referred to as "oldies" or worse, "golden oldies."

So how do you classify Playboy magazine?

Quickly approaching its 50th birthday, for at least half of its life the groundbreaking men's magazine has pushed the boundaries of societal standards regarding nudity and sex.

Of course, there are the articles; well-regarded interviews with newsmakers and celebrities, short stories from both well-known and up-and-coming writers, fashion tips, jokes and film and music reviews.

Playboy has proven so popular over the years, it has spawned countless knockoffs, hard-core pornographic and otherwise.

But a recent wave of men's magazines are giving the Bunny a run for his money.

Maxim, Stuff, FHM (For Him Magazine) are all popular (and relatively new) male-oriented magazines. Similar to Playboy, the magazines feature provocative photo spreads from models and celebrities. Unlike Playboy, however, there is no nudity although that line is often blurred with very skimpy and revealing outfits.

And also similar to Playboy, Maxim, Stuff and FHM have a fair share of interviews, reviews, fashion tips and jokes. Lots of jokes.

In fact, the new style of men's magazines delights in the form of in-your-face irreverence so prevalent in today's comedies, sitcoms and humor books.

Examples include a dual guest advice column by an adult film star and Ted "Issac" Lange from "The Love Boat," an article on how to shrink a head and a pictorial pop quiz on "potbelly or pregnant?"

If Playboy is "Entertainment for Men," as it's billed, Maxim, Stuff and the others are "Entertainment for Guys."

"Playboy was never very funny," Stuff Editor-in Chief-Greg Gutfeld said in a phone interview while vacationing in San Mateo, Calif. "I grew up thinking Playboy was for older perverted guys. All Playboy was, is a dressed-up masturbatory book.

"Guys these days are brought up on The Simpsons' and South Park.' Humor is faster and more ironic, and magazines have to change."

In 1979 Playboy's circulation hit a high mark of 4.7 million. This year that number has dropped by nearly a third, to 3.15 million.

Still, the magazine remains the most popular monthly men's magazine in the United States.

"My favorite thing is that people say it's fallen (in circulation size)," said Michael Carr, president of the Playboy publishing group, in a phone interview from New York. "Fallen all the way to No. 1."

But Maxim isn't far behind.

Introduced in 1997, Maxim's circulation started around 500,000. It is now at 2.7 million, making it the second most popular monthly men's magazine in the nation. (Stuff is No. 3 at 1.1 million.)

So, it probably isn't just a mere coincidence that when Playboy was looking to hire a replacement for longtime editorial director Arthur Kretchmer, the magazine turned to its competition.

In what can best be described as a publication's equivalent of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," Playboy recently hired Jim Kaminsky, the 41-year-old executive editor of Maxim, to take over as its editorial director.

Kretchmer, meanwhile, will stay with the magazine to help with its golden anniversary edition in January 2004.

Kaminsky, who presided over Maxim's strong sales for the last 3 1/2 years, has also worked as an editor at Men's Journal and Women Sports & Fitness, among other publications.

But he said working at Playboy has always been his goal.

"I read this magazine as a teenager growing up in the suburbs of Connecticut. In a very real sense, that's what got me into magazines in the first place," Kaminsky said in a phone interview from New York. "It's always been a dream of mine to (work at Playboy), which I've told almost everyone I've ever worked with.

"I truly understand this magazine. I understand what I reacted to as a young guy and what I've reacted to over the years. It's a remarkable mix, one where you can have an amazing interview, next to a groundbreaking investigative journalism (piece), next to a beautiful woman, next to a piece on cars. It's an amazing pie."

Kaminsky's charge is simple: Keep the Bunny alive.

"He's 41 years old and of the culture," Carr said. "You don't take something that is performing as well as Playboy is and throw it away. His mission and mandate is to continue and grow -- keep who we have and grow."

And the new editorial director already has plans for how to do just that.

"What I bring to the party is new energy. A new set of eyes to look at everything and some new ideas when it comes to presentation of the magazine and the types of stories we run," Kaminsky said. "When we talk about presentation, I decided to open up a bit, more sidebars to open up features, more creative use of subheads -- the different tools of the trade to pull in the reader and make it harder to turn the page."

But it's more than just modernizing an American institution. It's also about increasing the nearly half-century old magazine's relevance in the face of competition from other like publications.

"When I look back at the issues I reacted to the most in the '70s, I look back at a magazine that had its pulse on America. Can we still do that today? Sure, we can boost the relevance, and that's one of my jobs: to make it in every way, shape and form a magazine of the moment as well as the ages.

"I will play with the tone a bit, make it funnier or clever. Will it be Maxim? Absolutely not. Maxim guys are loutish. Playboy guys are not loutish. Yet they are guys."

Bare rabbit

Even with a new, younger face behind the look and feel of the magazine, Playboy still very much belongs to its 76-year-old founder and Editor-In-Chief Hugh Hefner.

And maybe that's the magazine's biggest problem. As much as most every male may fantasize about Hefner's swinging bachelor lifestyle, taking up with a new Playmate or model whenever the fancy strikes, how many twentysomethings can relate? Or any age group, for that matter?

In the '50s and '60s -- even the '70s -- Hefner was still young enough to pull off his legendary promiscuity because he never seemed much older than the magazine's readers. Or, at least, he seemed to be more in touch with them.

Now he's old enough to be a great-grandfather, and it could be argued that Hefner is no longer the patron saint of bachelorhood. Rather, he's just another Viagra success story.

To his credit, Hefner is keenly aware of Playboy's predicament. The magazine has been getting by on its name for a while now. Meanwhile, increased competition for the coveted 18- to 34-year-old male demographic has become fierce.

In a recent interview with the New York Observer, Hefner acknowledged that today's world of sexuality is much different from the past two decades. And, he noted that Playboy's competition has picked up on the trend.

"It isn't something that I hear from a specific outside source," Hefner said. "It's something that I recognize ... explicit sexuality does not have the same kind of meaning that it had 20 years ago.

"Its one of the things you can see in Maxim and FHM and other magazines of that kind. You see that a non-nude or near-nude pictorial with celebrities can have the same kind of meaning as a nude pictorial."

In the interview Hefner was addressing his magazine's penchant for running pictorials of celebrities (usually of the B-list variety) in various states of undress.

This month's Playboy, for example, features Kristy Swanson, known best as the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer, before the campy horror/comedy flick became a cult TV fave starring Sarah Michelle Gellar.

In the interview, the pajama-clad icon even hinted at limiting the amount of nudity in the magazine, much like the Playboys from the '50s and '60s.

"I want us to pull back a little bit," Hefner said. "Pull back from the explicit nature of sexuality, to try and re-establish the connections for the reader and the advertiser that were there in earlier decades.

"We can compete (with hard-core pornography), but that would only erode the uniqueness of Playboy."

While a bold idea, it is also a frank acknowledgement that nudity is no longer the driving force behind Playboy. With free Internet pornography just a few mouse clicks away, the centerfolds and nude pictorials have lost their sense of "uniqueness."

If Playboy were to drop the nude centerfold in favor of a more Maxim-like scantily clad pictorial, it would be a bold move. And, perhaps, as Hefner said, redirect attention to the magazine's "other" features, such as the in-depth investigative reports that Kaminsky wants to showcase.

Gutfeld, however, does not see that happening. And the recent sales success of of "The Women of Enron" pictorial, which is being followed up by "The Women of Worldcom" next month, seems to indicate he may be right, at least for now.

"Perhaps Playboy will change, to the point where they don't have full-frontal nudity," he said. "But that goes against everything they've done."

As classic rocker Bob Dylan once sang: The times they are a'changin'.

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