Moving PMOY

Donna Tavoso dtavoso@earthlink.net
Sun, 20 Jul 2003 20:08:57 -0500 (EST)


Peggy wrote - 
> I was thinking of the last time we had an extended discussion about
> celebrities in PLAYBOY -- it was over the June issue, and Sarah
> Kozer's PMOY-usurping cover.  I remember being told by circulation
> director Larry Djerf that the the PMOY cover issues are consistently
> the lowest selling issues, year after year.  It occurred to me in
> remembering this now that there may be one flaw in their
> interpretation of the facts here.  Note that the PMOY almost always
> (with rare exceptions) is announced in the June issue.  How do they
> know that the low sales aren't seasonally related?  My understanding
> is that newsstand sales always slow down in the warmer months.  I
> would be interested in seeing if they moved the PMOY issue a month or
> (better yet) two earlier, if the sales would improve.

On the one hand, Peggy is correct, June is a soft month of magazines,
that's why Playboy probably orginally put what they felt was a strong
seller there -- but over the years it continues to not do well.  That
is where Peggy's theory doesn't work, moving it to another month will
not make the issue sell better when the fact is that the general
public just doesn't seem to care any more who she is they way fans and
subscribers do.

Donna