Update: A reply from Hugh Hefner

[Peggy Wilkins]

I received the following letter, dated April 8, 2004:

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Dear Peggy,

I appreciate your letter and the 50th Anniversary Playboy Roundtable
report.

The need to contemporize the magazine seems obvious to everyone, but
everyone has their own personal views on what the new PLAYBOY should
be.  What Kaminsky brought to the magazine was a younger sensibility
that has prompted a positive reaction from advertisers, but that's
only a beginning.

What I hope to create is a new, contemporary version of the original
PLAYBOY--with all that that implies.  You get some hint of that in the
50th Anniversary issue, but the magazine is in a real state of
trasition that will become in time, I hope, something that will
reflect the best of what the magazine has been in the past.  But done
in a way that will appeal to new readers and old readers as well.

Dedicated fans remember the magazine in terms that they can never
experience again, because it changed their lives.  I hope that a new,
more contemporary version of the magazine will have that same effect
on future generations yet unborn.

I think it is important for everyone to understand that the magazine
remains, for me, the most important thing in my life and I'm dedicated
to making it the very best that it can be.

Sincerely,
Hugh M. Hefner
(signed "Hef")

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I think the suggestion that what we're seeing in PLAYBOY now is an
intermediate state is very interesting, though I don't quite
understand why they're taking it so slow.  I did largely like the 50th
anniversary issue (there was much to be happy about in it), which he
suggests is more in line with what he ultimately wants.  But then he
talks about contemporizing and "all that that implies" so that makes
it sound like what we might call the "smartass" attitude may be
staying.  But the latter is just speculation.

I really do disagree that we can never experience what we remember
again; just because I'm older and the world has changed doesn't mean I
can't be charmed by PLAYBOY anymore, if they would try to charm me
with great content.  I really don't understand where he's coming from
here.  I have changed with the times myself, I don't expect PLAYBOY to
be the same as when I first saw it 25 years ago, and I don't expect
them to recreate the past.  What I do want to see is a magazine that
consistently makes me react very postively, because it has good,
exciting content.  I would like to see them widen the magazine's
editorial scope again, and provide really useful services for readers.

The best of all is to read that the magazine is still "the most
important thing in my life".  Some of us had wondered about that.  I,
too, want PLAYBOY to be "the very best that it can be".

It will be very interesting to see how things develop over time.  I
have no idea if this project will have any direct effects, or even how
to tell if it does; but I do know that I did what I wanted to do,
which was speak up about something that was important to me (and
others), and be heard.  Where exactly that may ultimately lead, I
don't know.

plw