Playboy Makes Move in India, but Without the Centerfold
By ANAND GIRIDHARADAS
Published: January 2, 2006
MUMBAI, India - In a little-noticed milestone for the world of sex-related
entertainment,
Playboy said last month that it would seek to do in India what it had never
done before:
publish a magazine with its usual fare, except for its name and its nudes.
This is quite a departure for us, Christie Hefner, the chief executive of
Playboy
Enterprises, told reporters in December.
One reason for the plan, still in its initial stages, is the usual
emerging-market strategy:
when profits flatten in the West, companies pivot to India and China. Whereas
Playboy's
United States magazine sales shrank by 1 percent in 2004, its foreign revenue
grew by 13
percent from 20 overseas editions published in countries from Brazil to Serbia.
Foreign magazines' interest in India is understandable. As media growth
flattens in the
West, India's is booming. It has nearly 200 million magazine readers and is the
second-
largest newspaper market in the world, behind China, with 79 million copies
sold daily.
The print advertising market is $1.5 billion a year and growing.
But there is another story behind Playboy's discovery of India. The magazine
once saw
itself as America's gateway to a sexual revolution. Now, with that revolution
won and its
societal impact fading, Playboy has a chance to renew itself as a magazine of
high living in
a country that celebrated sex in antiquity, then grew prudish, and is now
loosening up
again.
Ms. Hefner has said that an Indian version of the magazine would be an
extension of
Playboy that would be focused around the lifestyle, pop culture, celebrity,
fashion, sports
and interview elements of Playboy. But the magazine would not be classic
Playboy, she
warned. It would not have nudity, she said, and I don't think it would be
called Playboy.
Some see India in the 2000's as similar to America in the 1950's: on the cusp
of a sexual
revolution, with stirrings of changes in private that have yet to gain public
acceptability.
In an attitudinal sea change, one-quarter of urban, unmarried women have sex,
one-third
read erotic literature and half go on dates, according to a survey by ACNielsen
and India
Today magazine. Bollywood, a mirror of the Indian spirit, now does what it
refused to do
five years ago: show a kiss on-screen.
India is not only on the brink of a sexual revolution, it is also overflowing
with ambition, as
a small but growing class of young, urban, world-traveling men with disposable
income
find their way to a new upper class. The democratization of affluence is
creating would-be
male connoisseurs, keen for tutelage in ways of the high life.
Upwardly mobile. Reasonably affluent. He would be a sort of midlevel executive
upwards,
a man who probably already drives a car, said N. Radhakrishnan, editor of
Man's World,
an Indian publication that would be a competitor to a watered-down Playboy.
The December issue of Man's World is a window into the demographic: light on
the
lascivious, heavy on wisdom for the arriviste, like the latest iPod accessory
and an
admonition that Champagne be chilled but never iced. A few photos of scantily
clad
beauties appear in the back, almost as an afterthought.
India has yet to have its own 1960's, in which sexual change accompanied
broader
upheaval. In the city of Madras, the police recently shut down a nightspot
after local news
media published photographs of clubgoers kissing. Then came a judgment by
Mumbai's
highest court that films not rated U, for universal, could not be shown on
television;
among the disqualified films are the Harry Potter movies. More generally,
Indian
conservatives, including conservative Hindu political leaders, say the country
should resist
Western sexualization.
Indian law prohibits the sale or possession of material that is lascivious or
appeals to the
prurient interest and that is without redeeming artistic, literary or
religious merit. Soft-
core pornographic magazines are available in India, but are taboo. They lurk
behind other
publications at newsstands, available only by whispered request. They also
attract few
lucrative advertisers.
There would only be a few brands that would look at these magazines, said
Paulomi
Dhawan, who runs advertising for Raymond, a leading Indian apparel maker. We
would
probably be more in the business or news magazines or the male-oriented serious
magazines.
There is another problem: if you are 26, living with prying parents, where do
you hide your
stash?
In urban India, the concept of single men living alone is quite new, Mr.
Radhakrishnan
said. Here, most men, until they're married, live at home. Once you're
married, your wife
wonders what you're reading.
As Playboy wrestles with how to peddle its content here, some in India are
concerned
about the magazine's plans.
They are going to spoil our culture, said Venkatesh
