NEW YORK, NY – Playboy Enterprises Inc. announced Tuesday that the company’s fourth quarter earnings fell 20-percent as the magazine division of Playboy continued to lose money, and earnings dropped for the TV division.According to reports from the Associated Press and Reuters news services, Playboy’s net income dropped to $3.7 million, approximately 11 cents per share, in comparison to net income of $4.6 million and earnings of 14 cents per share, in the same quarter for the previous year.
“While the year clearly has been challenging for the domestic TV and magazine businesses, growth in our licensing, online, international TV and mobile initiatives support our belief that these businesses will drive the company’s performance going forward,” Playboy Chairman and Chief Executive Christie Hefner said in a statement released Tuesday.
“Magazine trends, which include a weak newsstand market and competition for advertising from non-print media, are well documented,” Hefner added, also noting that the company’s television business also saw a decline in market share.
Playboy’s reported revenue fell 5.3-percent, from $91.0 million in the fourth quarter last year to $86.2 million this year. According to Reuters Estimates, analysts were expecting revenues of $93.8 million, a shortfall of just over 8-percent.
Playboy’s domestic television revenues dropped by approximately 18-percent for the fourth quarter, with higher revenue from its video-on-demand and Playboy TV subscriptions getting offset by lower cable and satellite pay-per-view revenues, the company reported Tuesday.
Revenue from Playboy’s publishing division dropped by over 5-percent, to just over $25 million, according to Reuters.
The licensing division, which generates approximately 10-percent of Playboy’s overall licensing, was one of the few bright spots in the reporting for the fourth quarter; revenue for the division totaled $8.9 million, compared with $7.5 million in Q4 last year.
Tuesday’s reporting led to a decline of over 5-percent in Playboy’s shares, as the stock closed at $10.30 Tuesday, down from a Monday closing price of $10.87.
