Playboy TV’s Plan for 2011: Less Boning, Better Lighting

Playboy TV was once the greatest television channel known to man. Now they are basically begging for female subscribers. What the fuck happened?

Remember when scrambled porn was the final frontier for curious 10-year-old boys? Playboy TV was once considered the Holy Grail of boobies and butts. It was cool because it remained relatively inaccessible, except for that inevitable rich kid who had every channel. He was never that cool, but everyone went to his sleepover parties in promise of the unscrambled glory. We left feeling vaguely uncomfortable, but we knew it was the start of something great.

10-year-old girls never joined the scrambled-porn party. Instead they spent time plotting the destruction of everything masculine. Today, their master plan is starting to take form—Playboy has announced their plan to make their content more female friendly.

The men’s magazine above all men’s magazines is now trying to appeal to women.

Playboy TV is stuck in a time when AOL “free trial” discs sat on every checkout counter, Sam Goody and Blockbuster were successful, and dial-up Internet clogged your phone line. But as Vint Cerf, largely responsible for creating the Internet, once said, “I’ve come to learn that pornographers are almost always the first ones to adopt new technology.” In the modern world, Playboy’s classic centerfolds are no longer risqué. In our over-sexed society Playboy is nothing more than PG-13. I’m pretty sure a character on “Yo Gabba Gabba” even showed full-frontal last week.

Hugh Hefner, the 100-year-old king of poon, is stuck in a real porn predicament. Does he lower his standards and shift from a soft to hardcore product and diminish his brand, or pull a rabbit out of a cooch?

The answer, according to focus groups, is to make their content more female friendly. Meaning less fake boobs and more intimacy. Also known as more estrogen. Sometimes referred to as boring.

Playboy is trying to change with the times with new reality shows like “Brooklyn Kinda Love,” which focuses on real couples relationships and how to build deeper intimacy—henceforth permanently ruining what was once the tied with ESPN and Animal Planet for best male channel on the television.

Now that dudes have largely followed pornographers in ditching TV to pursue their carnal impulses online, Playboy TV plans on adding six new shows before the end of the year in an effort to find a new niche and save the channel. Executives believe they have found an untapped target audience of couples who would enjoy their new programming.

However, I remain skeptical that there are enough horny couples out there willing to pay $15 a month for one channel, even if it now has better lighting and higher production values.

Playboy used to stand for something—it was entirely a men’s magazine, with content for men. It was a source of nostalgia for every man who once hid a magazine under their mattress, and a predestined calling for women with daddy issues. The Internet has changed the porn game forever, and Playboy is struggling to catch up.

It’s understandable that Playboy TV is trying to do everything possible to entice subscribers—but asking for women’s help? What’s next, stopping for directions when we get lost?