The pornographic lifestyle magazine Playboy is ending the printed version of its magazine after the coronavirus damaged the publication’s content production and supply chain.
Playboy Enterprises CEO Ben Kohn announced the move in a Medium post on Wednesday. Kohn said that, while the magazine’s management was considering killing the print edition eventually, the outbreak of the coronavirus expedited the decision.
“Last week, as the disruption of the coronavirus pandemic to content production and the supply chain became clearer and clearer, we were forced to accelerate a conversation we’ve been having internally: the question of how to transform our U.S. print product to better suit what consumers want today, and how to utilize our industry-leading content production capabilities to engage in a cultural conversation each and every day, rather than just every three months,” Kohn wrote.
“With all of this in mind, we have decided that our Spring 2020 Issue, which arrives on U.S. newsstands and as a digital download this week, will be our final printed publication for the year in the U.S.,” he continued.
Kohn said that the magazine would continue to have printed content that would be developed and finalized later but the magazine would move largely to an online only product.
“Print is how we began and print will always be a part of who we are,” Kohn said.
