Playboy goes digital

Plenty of reports today (including this one) about the Playboy decision to produce a digital edition of their magazine.

Here’s the Playboy press announcement:

PLAYBOY MAGAZINE GOES DIGITAL
Playboy Enterprises Expands Its Online Offerings
to Tap into Growing Consumer and Advertising Market

NEW YORK, August 24, 2005–Playboy Enterprises, Inc. (PEI) (NYSE: PLA, PLAA) announced today that Playboy, the world’s best selling men’s monthly magazine, will launch a digital edition beginning with its October 2005 issue in conjunction with Zinio Systems, Inc., the worldwide leader in digital publishing and marketing services.

“Since the first issue in 1953, Playboy has been about lifestyles, and our readers have been among the earliest adapters to cutting edge trends and technologies,” said Playboy Founder and Editor-In-Chief Hugh M. Hefner. “The tens of millions of consumers around the world who consider Playboy to be the gold standard for entertainment for men will welcome our digital edition.”

Playboy Enterprises’ Chairman and CEO Christie Hefner added, “We see this as a natural extension of the Playboy brand. We have worked with Zinio over the last six months, offering subscription and single copies of our popular special editions, and the response has been extremely positive. By launching Playboy digital, we are offering consumers worldwide a digitized product identical in every way with Playboy’s print edition.”

Hefner continued, “The increased distribution and worldwide access will also increase our loyal advertisers’ reach to consumers, and provide additional advertising sales opportunities as we are able to meet the growing demand of companies to market online by offering ad sponsored links. From the company’s perspective, digital Playboy will be a much more cost-effective way to distribute our content and count toward ABC rate base. Moreover, because of our success with Playboy.com, we see significant opportunities for cross promotion and bundling between our Cyber Club and digital Playboy.”

Playboy readers around the world can buy a digital subscription or single copy by logging on September 13 to www.playboydigital.com or www.zinio.com. (Please note that the Playboy URL will not be live until September 13.) A subscription or single copy will be delivered instantly via the internet through a download to a PC, laptop or Mac. Digital copies will be received by subscribers automatically each month and can be read online or offline.

The digital edition will premiere on September 13, the same date that the print edition is available on newsstands in every market around the country. The issue includes the Girls of the Pac 10, a video game feature and pictorial of video game femme fatales, as well as the Playboy Interview with George Carlin.

“The preeminence of Playboy’s brand makes this a big moment for digital delivery,” said Scott L. Kauffman, President and CEO of Zinio. “The creation of Playboy’s digital editions is a strong endorsement of Zinio’s ability to generate new readers in this dynamic medium.”

With 62% market share, Zinio has over 2 million subscribers in nearly every country in the world.