This project

[Peggy Wilkins]

>>>>> "Dan" == Dan Stiffler <calendar-girls@mindspring.com> writes:

    Dan> However, as Mr. Hefner cares, he cares in a way different
    Dan> than he used to--or at least that is the way it appears.
    Dan> Three recent statements and events support this idea.

    Dan> 1.  Mr. Hefner acknowledged that he doesn't pay much
    Dan> attention to the text of PLAYBOY anymore...

    Dan> 2.  Mr. Hefner also recently said that young men in America
    Dan> are no longer interested in "somebody's cousin."  This is
    Dan> apparently his reasoning for the magazine's persistent
    Dan> pursuit of celebrities, no matter their list status...

    Dan> 3.  The dropping of the PMOY cover had to have been, as Donna
    Dan> pointed out, approved by Mr. Hefner...

These are interesting points; I have a fourth one to add, and I think
this one outweighs all three of the above in its implications, where
the current direction of PLAYBOY as determined by Hugh Hefner is
concerned.

I happened to catch the start of Thursday night's episode of
"Scarborough Country" on MSNBC (thanks to Gretchen for passing on the
info).  Mr. Hefner was interviewed for about the first ten minutes of
the program.  I thought that his answers to all the questions were
wonderful, until the last one, which I will excerpt here (for the full
transcript, see http://www.msnbc.com/news/944091.asp):

  SCARBOROUGH: Now, PLAYBOY remains the biggest player in the men's
  magazine market. And I'm going to show the audience these facts. With
  a circulation of more than three million a month, your closest
  competitor is Maxim, selling 2.5 million. And the classic men's
  magazines, GQ and Esquire, sell less than 1 million issues a
  month. And, again, Penthouse, which once thought they were going to
  take over your market share, is now reported to be on the verge of
  going under.  What do you think it says about PLAYBOY's success and
  magazines like Maxim's success? What does that say about tastes in
  American culture, specifically men's tastes, as we go into the 21st
  century?

  HEFNER: Well, I think it's obvious for a lot of reasons that there is
  a certain dumbing down of society.  We get our news and information
  now by sound bites, the briefest kinds of moments on television and
  radio and on the Internet.  And I think the nature of things also is
  that the younger generation has a shorter attention span.  You see
  that reflected not only in magazines like Maxim, but you also see it
  in changes that have taken place in PLAYBOY.  In other words, readers,
  by and large, are not as given to a thoughtful, extended periods of
  time with fiction or nonfiction. I think we're bombarded now by so
  many different sources of information, that it's kind of pick and
  choose.

What concerns me here is that he specifically said two things, and
these two things are now holding sway over his editorial decisions:

  1. Society has "dumbed down";

  2. People today have shorter attention spans and won't spend time
     reading.

For someone who produces a print publication, this is potentially an
unfortunate belief.  Sure, we've talked about it ourselves, but never
before have I heard these words come directly from Hugh Hefner (or if
I have, I haven't noticed it with the force it was due).

I think this is a breakthrough.  We can now see much more clearly why
PLAYBOY has gone in the direction that it has -- it is because its
founder and Editor In Chief believes (either on his own or because he
was convinced by others, it doesn't matter which) that society has
changed in this way, and that the way to address this change is to
dumb down PLAYBOY.  This is partly an oversimplification, but I think
it is true at the core, and it makes a large portion of our task here
much more clearly defined: we must try to convince him that while
society has indeed changed (the observations he makes are undeniable),
the way to approach those changes in a new PLAYBOY is not to dumb it
down.  This dumbing down is losing PLAYBOY's longtime and loyal
audience, even while it attracts a new one.  It is diluting what has
always been PLAYBOY's uniqueness and strength.  Is there a way to
bring the two audiences, old and new, into harmony, and not reduce
PLAYBOY to catering to the lowest common denominator?  I think and
feel that there is.  The challenge will be in clearly articulating
this issue, and in coming up with positive, practical approaches to
finding a new direction with this in mind.

    Dan> It is my opinion that Mr. Hefner's magazine is not as good as
    Dan> it once was.  This is an opinion shared by many observers,
    Dan> fans and professionals.

If they continue along with their current beliefs, this will not only
be unlikely to change, but also likely to worsen.

I will be giving this much thought in the coming days (or weeks, or
however it works out).  This is a very big challenge.

Peggy Wilkins
mozart@lib.uchicago.edu