Text size:

Playboy Magazine to fold N.Y. office, bring new editorial director to Chicago

By Greg Burns | Tribune correspondent

January 23, 2009

Playboy Magazine is moving back to Chicago with a new editorial director after a six-year stint in New York failed to rejuvenate its sagging circulation.

The editorial changes come days before the scheduled departure of Christie Hefner, who last month announced plans to end her two-decade tenure as chief executive at parent Playboy Enterprises Inc. No successor has been named. Her father, 82-year-old company founder Hugh Hefner, continues as controlling shareholder and editor in chief of the magazine.

The company said it expects to post a loss for 2008 after writing down goodwill by more than $100 million and taking a $4 million cost-cutting charge. Playboy stock closed Thursday at $1.50 per share, down from a 52-week high of $9.13.

Like many publishers, Playboy has suffered as free online content undermined a business model based on subscription, newsstand and advertising sales.

The magazine has lost money for years as its paid circulation plunged to 2.6 million, less than half its 1970s peak of 6 million. At the end of 2002, Playboy hired an editorial director from Maxim, moving much of its editorial operations to New York from Chicago. But James Kaminsky lasted less than two years and has returned to Maxim.

His successor, longtime staffer Chris Napolitano, will stay in New York as Playboy's editor at large, making way for Jimmy Jellinek, another Maxim alum, who has served as senior vice president of digital content at Playboy.

The 34-year-old Jellinek becomes editorial director of print and online, which will be consolidated in Chicago, and within a few weeks he plans to launch a new Playboy.com Web site "more closely integrated with the magazine," the company said. Playboy will sublet its New York office and move an unspecified "small number" of positions to Chicago.

gburns@tribune.com