Playboy Pulls Out of DVDs – Sticks to Online

Playboy is to shut down its iconic DVD business in a bid to stop spiralling losses.

This is a part of the restructuring plan that was announced 2 months ago and which is hoped to save the company $12 million a year.

It is going to cost Playboy $2 million in restructuring charges and a loss of 80 jobs.

Playboy, like many other enterprises, is instead going to concentrate on getting content online.

Over the last 6 months Playboy Enterprises has reported losses – most recently a $2.1 million loss in Q2.

But, said Christie Hefner, the company’s chairman and chief executive, the company was hoping to return to profitability in 2009.

The ‘glamour’/’adult’ arena is generally a precursour to what happens later to the more general market.  It’s mainly due to this area that things like camcorders and home-video was brought to the mass market.

So could we see the end of DVDs/Blu-Ray in the not-so-distant future?

What do you think?