The Press: Short Run

When Playboy Publisher Hugh M. Hefner and Playboy Huntington Hartford came onstage last summer with their new show-business magazines, Hefner airily dismissed the A. & P. heir as a competitor. “I don’t think Hartford would be too worried if I decided to put out a chain of supermarkets,” said he. As a matter of fact, Hartford had never worried about the affairs of the A. & P., and last week it turned out that he had little cause to worry about Hefner’s decision to put out a magazine. For a bargain-basement price (some $250,000), Hartford’s Show bought out Hefner’s Show Business Illustrated.

S.B.I. sought success as the Playboy of the performing arts, but in the new magazine, the spicy Playboy recipe that had cooked up a $10 million business for Hefner—a few intellectual tidbits in a meaty casserole of bare bunnies—went sour. Last month, with circulation running closer to 250,000 (mainly newsstand) than the hoped for 1,000,000, and with Hefner at least $1,500,000 out of pocket, S.B.I. switched from a fortnightly to a monthly, and pruned its staff by 50%.

Show aimed at a higher audience, settled for a lower circulation. It now sells 75,000 copies a month, hopes to pass 100,000 after it has mined S.B.I.’s subscription lists. Striving to stay afloat, it will also broaden its scope. Conceived as a magazine of the performing arts, it now plans to take on all the arts. The new look will appear in April—the same month that Hefner’s S.B.I. will quit the stage.