• by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, March 21, 2025

I think I have written this story ten times before. Playboy was one of the first magazines to go “Dotcom” on the "World Wide Web" in 1994, which is when I started covering Internet media. Since then, I have written about so many Playboy relaunches, pivots, near-deaths and mis-fired salvage operations in the past 30 years, it is a miracle the brand persists at all. And here we go again.

But good on them. If you were lucky enough to nab a copy of the sold-out Playboy magazine’s return to newsstands early this month you would have felt transported back in time. The issue really recalled a bygone day of the brand’s print heritage – deft design, a content cocktail of fun and seriousness, classically Playboyesque women, a quasi-celeb nude, centerfold, Interview – the works. But this follows other changes at the company that include the relaunch of Playboy.com with more robust content.  

Also there was a major investment from and partnership with entertainment company Byborg which will license Playboy IP and operate many of the online and offline properties.  

So is the Nth time the charm for the aspirational brand that helped define post-WWII manhood? We get into it with Playboy CEO Ben Kohn.