Playboy enters music streaming
Iconic men’s magazine Playboy has entered music streaming. The Playboy Music app, at US99 cents a month, will offer live music to racy footage of women posing, acting and lounging about.
Its music highlights lesser known acts as the experimental electronic artist The Flashbulb, folktronia act Blackbird Blackbird, US indie band Geographer and Colombian jazz fusion outfit Monsieur Perine.
The app is administered by the music distribution company BAMM.tv. It specialises in music curation, video production and content distribution to a global network of mobile, cable and internet TV platforms.
Jeff LaPenna, Creative Director of the Playboy Music app at BAMM.tv says, “Playboy Music celebrates the diversity of female sexiness with a curated playlist of songs framed within beautifully crafted videos, The models are more than just sexy – they are the focal point of a narrative that connects beauty with music in a way that men will enjoy and women will find empowering.”
The app also presents exclusive new video and photos of the latest Playmate of the Year, Eugena Washington, an actress from California who is also on the cover of the magazine’s June 2016 issue.
Set up by Hugh Hefner, Playboy Magazine was not just part and parcel of the sexual and literary revolution of the past 60 years. With a diet of nudes and highbrow articles –including those of music stars and pop culture – the print peaked at a global circulation of 7 million in 1972. By this year it had declined to 800,000 (the print edition ended in March/April). But the company claims to reach more than 150 million consumers per month online and on social media.
“Playboy has a long and noteworthy history with music that begins with the magazine’s very first issue in 1953 and continues today with its world-renowned Playboy Jazz Festival,” says Chris Hansen, CEO of BAMM.tv. “We’re proud to help them continue this legacy by expanding Playboy’s musical association into the digital arena.”
Playboy, which scrapped full nudity for its models in 2014, has rebranded itself as a digital entertainment and quality journalism platform aimed at an audience which is 80% millennial male audience. Most of its advertising comes from digital.
Over the northern summer, it is launching a slate of new shows and documentaries covering comedy, food, tech, travel, talk and gaming. It is also setting up Playboy Studios, an in-house branded-content studio.