News recently broke that Playboy will be phasing out DVD productions, both XBIZ and AVN ran stories about the Playboy changes including their plans to layoff about 80 employees. So al of this got me curious how such a thing would effect other Playboy holdings such as Jenna Jameson’s Club Jenna, who obviously is big into DVD sales. And if Playboy does plan on cutting ALL DVD production, including that at their owned asset Club Jenna, what will they do with all those contract girls. Will they be in the business of making only Internet porn?
I had once heard a rumor that Playboy wasn’t happy with their purchasing of Club Jenna because they weren’t quite a profitable as they thought they would be, so maybe screwing them wouldn’t really matter so much to them.
“Our goal is to return the company to solid profitability in 2009,” CEO Christie Hefner wrote in a letter to employees. “When we reported earnings two months ago, we indicated that we expected to reduce expenses by $10 million, with approximately half coming from corporate and other overhead and the other half from the publishing and television businesses. Today we are announcing the specific actions being taken to achieve those goals.“
Hefner said that Playboy will continue to increase its focus on Internet content delivery and other digital media platforms while phasing out DVD production over a period of several months.
This news didn’t come as a big surprise to investors because earlier this year she was quoted as having said, “Traditional media are facing a secular shift as a result of changes in consumer behavior and the migration of advertisers to new platforms. This has created a challenging environment for our print and TV businesses, which has been compounded by the current macro-economic climate. However, we believe that the changing media business model also creates a number of opportunities for us, both because of our globally recognized brand and our profitable existing digital businesses.“
I made a call to the Playboy offices today to see if I could find out companies like Club Jenna. Club Jenna does have a popular website but it also makes a good portion of their money through DVD sales, so how would this decision effect their business operations? I had a hard time finding anyone to actually speak with about it that knew the answer to my questions. To be frank, it wasn’t that they didn’t want to speak with me because to be honest, I found everyone that I spoke with to be extremely friendly and upbeat and keep in mind I spoke with abotu 12 people over at the Playboy offices throughout the course of this investigation. So when I finally got the right person he said that even he wasn’t sure and wanted to confirm before telling me something that may not be accurate. He made a few phone calls on his own and the final verdict is that in fact Club Jenna, Spice TV, and Playboy itself will no longer be producing any more DVDs.
Our source over at Playboy said it’s not something that will happen over night but in time, Club Jenna will like all Playboy owned entities be ceasing their DVD productions. DVDs are a thing of the passed. The Playboy rep confirmed, It’s all about digital distribution now.
As far as the Club Jenna girls go, as of right no there are no plans to phase them out. Club Jenna will continue production of movies only the distribution model will change.
Dude, ever thought about running your posts through a spellcheck? Your grammar and spelling are atrocious and annoying…..that is all