Serge, a neighbor of yours owns Penthouse

[Mike AI]

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald...7941375.htm?1c

Boca financier buys Penthouse magazine

A Boca Raton investor is leading the charge to remake ailing Penthouse into a softer, young men's magazine, akin to Maxim and FHM.

BY CHRISTINA HOAG

choag@herald.com


Boca Raton financier Marc Bell, a former Internet wunderkind turned real estate investor, has found a new pet project: publishing Penthouse magazine.

His plan is to soft-pedal the now bankrupt Penthouse's notoriously X-rated content and relaunch it as a young men's magazine akin to Maxim and FHM.

''We want to realign the magazine and take it to the center,'' he said. ``It's got very hard-core and lost a lot of readership because of that.''

Bell, who heads private equity firm Marc Bell Capital Partners, is leading an investment group that has amassed 89 percent of the magazine's approximately $45 million in bonds.

The group plans to invest up to $50 million to turn around the magazine, whose parent company, General Media of New York, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last August when it could not meet its bond payments.

Last month, a judge approved Bell's reorganization plan for General Media, which also owns several Penthouse spin-off magazines and adult-entertainment businesses. They include subscription Internet sites, video and DVD production and distribution, and licensing of the Penthouse brand on products such as gentlemen's clubs.

''There's a lot of value there,'' Bell said.

Under Bell's plan, Penthouse's flamboyant but aging publisher, Robert C. Guccione, would continue as publisher emeritus for the next decade.

Guccione now lives largely as a recluse in an opulent Manhattan town house with a multimillion-dollar art collection. He owns almost all of General Media's parent company, Penthouse International, which did not file for bankruptcy protection but no longer controls the magazine.

Guccione, 71, founded Penthouse in 1965. To gain an edge over competitor Playboy, his strategy was to make the magazine's photos and content more hard-core, running increasingly explicit pictorials -- sometimes photographed by himself.

Circulation during the magazine's salad days hit 5.2 million copies, but in recent years with competition from the Internet, porn satellite and cable channels, and the saucy but softer young men's magazines, it has sputtered badly. Circulation is now about 460,000, Bell said.

Analysts said the investment group faces a huge challenge to whitewash a brand whose image is so entrenched in raunchy nudity.

'When I say `Playboy,' what do you think of, even if there's not one naked picture in it?'' said Samir Husni, a University of Mississippi magazine analyst. ``It's going to be an uphill battle to attract a new audience and not lose the existing one. But Penthouse as it is, completely pornographic since December 1998, is not salvageable.''

Playboy, whose circulation is still fairly robust at about 3.2 million, took the opposite track from Penthouse to carve out a niche against today's 24/7 porn availability. ''It's more erotic than pornographic,'' Husni said.

Advertisers may also have a tough time taking to a new Penthouse simply because of the perception, said Steve Cohen, editor in chief of Media Industry Newsletter.

''Penthouse has a very negative image for a lot of people,'' he said. ``Mainstream advertisers won't touch them.''

Another option is to focus on leveraging the Penthouse brand through other products, Husni said. ''Print is not the medium of choice for porn anymore,'' he added.

In 1989 at the age of 21, Bell founded Internet firm Globix, one of the first Silicon Valley high-tech companies. He now invests in real estate and specializes in buying distressed companies' debt and turning them around, he said.

[Nickatilynx]

ummmm aren't Ibills and Penthouses ownership crossed too?

If so maybe Mr.Bell couls pay some clients of Ibill.

[Winetalk.com]

those pesky Boca Ratonians
;'-)))

I adviced him not to do it, but do children listen?

;-))))

[JR]

A Boca Raton investor is leading the charge to remake ailing Penthouse into a softer, young men's magazine, akin to Maxim and FHM.

That seems a little retarded to me. They failed at selling tits and ass. It would probably cost 100's of millions and take many years to change what "Penthouse" means in the minds of people. Its like saying Camel is not going to make cigarettes anymore... they are going to make ice cream. Penthouse means "Playboy but a little more hardcore" Thats what it is and what it always has been. It's not going to ever going to mean "Maxim" or "FHM" in my generation... and it would probably be next to impossible to distance themselves from the stigma of being a porn mag.

JMHO

[Jesse_DD]

Originally posted by JR@Nov 17 2004, 05:25 AM

That seems a little retarded to me. They failed at selling tits and ass. It would probably cost 100's of millions and take many years to change what "Penthouse" means in the minds of people. Its like saying Camel is not going to make cigarrets anymore... they are going to make ice cream. Penthouse means "Playboy but a little more hardcore" Thats what it is and what it always has been. It's not going to ever going to mean "Maxim" or "FHM" in my generation... and it would probably be next to impossible to distance themselves from the stigma of being a porn mag.

JMHO

Agreed. I think this is going to be a crazy uphill battle. I do think that it is much more diffifult to sell tits and ass in print nowadays when one can just use the Internet and get much more out of the experience. I think a better ploy would be to just focus on Penthouse on the Internet and use the brand for "hardcore" to sell online subscriptions. They still have a strong brand and trying to change that brand is going to be more difficult that actually using it properly.

[Mike AI]

First I think Penthouse Magazine is a different company then Penthouse Online ( or whatever the other company is called) - the one that bought IBill.

Second, I agree with JR - I think this guy is making mistakes. I think Penthouse could be turned around, but I doubt this guy knows what he is doing. But he is the rich one, so what do I know....