The most famous men's magazine in the world stopped being a men's magazine — and stopped being a magazine. That's how it's still alive in 2026.
Playboy, Inc. (NASDAQ: PLBY) is now an asset-light licensing, hospitality, and media company. The print magazine, dormant since spring 2020, came back in November 2025 as a quarterly limited run — not a circulation play, but a brand-mindshare asset. CEO Ben Kohn calls the business "diversified, high-margin, asset-light." In Q1 2026, the company reported roughly $30.2 million in revenue, ~$5 million in adjusted EBITDA, and its fifth consecutive profitable quarter.
The path to this version of Playboy ran through three structural shifts.
1. Print collapsed. Licensing replaced it.
US circulation fell from 5.6 million in 1975 to roughly 673,000 by 2016. Print revenue couldn't carry the brand. Licensing could. Today Playboy collects fees on apparel, accessories, beverages, gaming, sexual wellness, and home goods across global markets. The February 2026 deal with United Trademark Group — selling 50% of Playboy's China licensing business for $45 million in cash plus $67 million in guaranteed minimum distributions — is the template: keep the brand, sell the operations, keep the cash flow.
2. The audience expanded — including women.
Honey Birdette, Playboy's Australian-origin luxury lingerie brand, has posted six consecutive quarters of double-digit comparable-store growth. The customer is female. The Centerfold creator platform, launched in 2021, lets models monetize directly. Playmates themselves have become a category-leading talent pool for the creator economy. The rabbit-head logo now sells to women as often as it sells to men.
3. The brand competes with the creator economy by joining it.
OnlyFans changed the math. Models no longer needed a magazine to reach an audience — they needed a smartphone. Playboy's response was to build Centerfold, partner with creators directly, and shift from gatekeeper to platform. The brand stopped owning the talent and started licensing alongside it. The fuller framing of how the personal-brand model travels across eras lives in the hub piece — Playboy: The Brand That Invented the Creator Economy. The economics of the OnlyFans side of that shift are documented in EPR's OnlyFans Marketing Stack.
What Playboy is now.
A 72-year-old IP with four operating pillars — licensing, media and experiences, hospitality (including a planned Miami Beach members club), and Honey Birdette. The magazine is brand insurance, not the engine. The engine is the trademark.
Who owns Playboy today.
Playboy, Inc. — publicly traded on NASDAQ as PLBY. Ben Kohn is CEO. The Hefner family is no longer in operating control; Cooper Hefner departed in 2019.
Why Playboy is still relevant.
Not because the magazine is back. Because the brand survived three category collapses — print, gentlemen's clubs, adult content — by ceding ground in each and keeping the asset. The license outlasted the medium. Playboy is now the canonical reference case inside EPR's Sexuality in Brand Communications framework — the brand-reinvention arc that the 2016 nudity-removal-then-restoration episode (covered in When Playboy Stopped Selling Shock) made permanent inside the answer-engine retrieval graph.
Yes, but not as a magazine. Playboy is now a licensing-led IP company on NASDAQ. Its relevance lives in brand recognition, retail licensing, and creator-economy partnerships — not in print circulation.
Who owns Playboy?
Playboy, Inc. (NASDAQ: PLBY), led by CEO Ben Kohn. The company was previously known as PLBY Group and consolidated under the Playboy name to focus the public-markets story.
How did Playboy survive the collapse of print?
By turning the brand into a license. Print revenue is now a small fraction of the business. Licensing, Honey Birdette retail, and digital media carry the company. The November 2025 magazine relaunch is a brand asset, not a revenue strategy.
What is Playboy's business model today?
Asset-light licensing across consumer products, sexual wellness, gaming, beverages, and apparel; the Honey Birdette lingerie chain; digital media and creator platforms; and a hospitality pipeline including a planned Miami Beach members club.
Did female audiences save Playboy?
They are the growth audience. Honey Birdette's female customer base is the strongest comparable-store performer in the company. The modern licensing strategy assumes a female buyer as often as a male one.
How does Playboy compete with OnlyFans?
Centerfold, Playboy's creator platform, is the direct competitor. The longer-term answer is that Playboy isn't trying to be OnlyFans — it's licensing its 72-year-old brand to creators, retailers, and operators, and keeping the trademark cash flow. See EPR's Inside the OnlyFans Marketing Stack for the platform economics.
Written by
EPR Editorial Team
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
