What You Don't Know About The PLAYBOY Brand

Playboy Enterprises, Inc. is a privately held global media and lifestyle company founded by Hugh Marston Hefner to manage the Playboy magazine empire. Its programming and content are available worldwide on television networks, Websites, mobile platforms and radio. Today, Playboy Enterprises, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the development and distribution of adult entertainment. The Playboy brand is one of the most widely recognized and popular brands in the world. The company is structured with three business segments: Publishing (which manages the magazine), Entertainment (which controls electronic assets), and Licensing (which licenses the Playboy name and bunny logo to third parties).

Sales of Playboy magazine peaked in 1972 at over 7 million copies. The company now derives only one-third of its revenues from Playboy magazine, with the other two-thirds from the dissemination of adult content in electronic form, such as television, the internet and DVDs. Much of this electronic revenue comes not from the soft nude imagery which made the magazine famous, but from hardcore pornography connected with the company's ownership of Spice Digital Networks, Club Jenna, and Adult.com

Playboy Enterprises, Inc. occupies the top office floors of 680 N. Lake Shore Drive (formerly 666 N. Lake Shore Drive) in Chicago's Streeterville neighborhood within the Near North Side community area. The company employed 782 full-time employees at the end of 2006.

Playboy owner, Hugh Matson Hefner

Brief history

Playboy Enterprises was created in 1953 as the HMH Publishing Co., Inc. for the purpose of publishing Playboy. The business quickly expanded and began to develop and distribute a wider range of adult entertainment. It went public in 1971. Christie Hefner, daughter of Hugh Hefner, was the President from 1982, and Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer from 1988, until she left the company in 2009.

The Age reported in October 2008 that, for the first-time ever, Hugh Hefner is selling tickets to his celebrity-filled parties to offset his cash-flow problems due to setbacks Playboy Enterprises has suffered, including decreasing Playboy circulation, decreasing stock value, and ventures that have yet to turn a profit. Christie Hefner released a memo to employees about her efforts to streamline the company's operations, including eliminating its DVD division and laying off staff.

Holly, one of Playboy's popular girls

Divisions

• Publishing Group:
• Playboy magazine
• Playboy Newsstand Specials
• Entertainment Group:
• Playboy TV (formerly the Playboy Channel)
• Spice Network (Consists of 12 digital networks)
• Playboy Online:
• Playboy.com
• Playboy.de
• Playboy.co.uk
• PlayboyStore.com
• Playboy Gaming
• Playboy Cyber Club
• Playboy Plus
• Playboy.net
• Playboy Radio
• Licensing Group:
• Handles Playboy trademarks on apparel, accessories, collectibles (like: trading cards, toy cars, dolls, etc.) and more
• College Division
• Playboy on Campus

Playboy also ran forty Playboy Club properties from 1960 to 1986. From 1981 to 1984, the company was a partner in the Playboy Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Playboy Enterprises was denied a permanent NJ gaming license and was forced to sell out to its partner, which changed the name of the hotel/casino to the Atlantis Hotel and Casino. The company is returning to nightlife business with the Playboy Club at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. And Playboy is hunting other casino licensing deals in Macau and London. Meanwhile, the company says it will open at least three Playboy stores in each of the next three years.

The company's Playboy Foundation provides grants to non-profit groups involved in fighting censorship and researching human sexuality.