Washington (AFP) – Playboy said Wednesday its nude-free magazine would be offered for the first time as Apple and Google digital subscriptions, as the iconic brand shifts to win over a new generation.
The magazine, which recently threw in the towel on nudity as part of an effort to reach a broader audience, made its debut on the iTunes and Google Play stores.
“Since introducing a brand new vision for Playboy magazine earlier this year, we have expanded our distribution channels in many powerful ways, including higher visibility on an increased number of traditional and digital media platforms,” said David Israel, chief operating officer and chief financial officer of Playboy Enterprises.
“Inclusion in the iTunes and Google Play stores is an important milestone for Playboy as we continue to explore opportunities to introduce our content to new audiences all over the world.”
Playboy, which broke lifestyle taboos in the 1950s with bare-breasted pictures in a magazine for the mass market, unveiled “a top-to-bottom redesign” starting with its March 2016 edition.
Facing a deluge of online pornography, Playboy shifted its focus in a bid to offer lifestyle content that is “safe for work” and more widely distributed on social media.
Playboy still includes provocative pictorials of women, but without nudity, a major turnabout for the magazine which launched in 1953 with an edition featuring Marilyn Monroe.
The magazine also gained fame for its interviews of major public figures from Jimmy Carter to Fidel Castro, and fiction from writers including Vladimir Nabokov, Haruki Murakami and Margaret Atwood.
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