You read Playboy for the articles, right?

Of course.

The magazine’s first issue, way back in December 1953, quickly sold the 700 000 copies printed, and Hugh Hefner’s empire grew to include clubs, a TV show, and merchandise sold around the world.

According to Business Insider SA, at its peak, “Hefner’s Playboy magazine generated $12 million in revenue, the equivalent of $73 million (around R1,1 billion) today”.

Over the last while, the business has seen an astounding fall from grace:

…today, Playboy is a mere shell of what it once was. With Hefner now gone the clubs have closed and magazine sales have shrunk to 4% of what they used to be…

By 1999 Playboy made the fatal mistake of not moving onto the internet fast enough. To offset its losses Hefner, sold the franchise rights to the Playboy logo which kept things afloat, especially in China where the magazine had been banned…

By the time Hefner passed away in 2017, the magazine was a fraction of what it had been in its hayday.

Here’s an eight-minute video that charts that rise and fall:

[source:businsidersa]