-By Lucia Moses

Playboy Enterprises will continue to publish its iconic print magazine, but it needs to take “bold steps” to stem its profit losses, the company’s CEO said.
 
“We will remain a magazine publisher,” Scott Flanders said during a conference call Nov. 5 to discuss the company’s third-quarter results. “But we cannot continue to lose significant sums of money in this business.”
 
The company already announced that it would cut the magazine’s guaranteed circulation by 38 percent to 1.5 million in January 2010 and combine its January and February issues, a move designed to save on production and distribution costs.
 
But president Alex Vaickus said on the call that with the ad downturn continuing—ad revenue was projected to be down 38 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009—the circulation cut wouldn’t be enough to restore profitability to the magazine.
 
Flanders said the company was looking for other ways to grow revenue, via print-digital combo sales, social networks, mobile partnerships and games.