Twenty-five-year veteran Sol Weisel, executive vice president of production and operations; Dan Smith, vice president of production for the Playboy Entertainment Group; and Tom Furr, vice president of on-air promotion were discharged last week, according to a report in Monday’s Variety.
Rumors swirled around the adult industry last week after Jossip.com reported that the company pared its broadcast unit.
“Anyone on staff is being released and freelancers don't know what’s going on yet,” the site blogged. “Playboy TV is dead."
But, until Variety’s story broke Monday, details of the reorganization remained tight-lipped. Playboy spokesman Matt Kalinowski told XBIZ on Thursday that the company had “no comment” on the personnel moves.
The firings weren’t unexpected, since the company three weeks ago reported a 20 percent dip in fourth-quarter profits.
And last month, three investment bankers downgraded Playboy’s stock.
UBS, Bank of America and RBC Capital Markers found fault with the TV networks division’s trouble in getting more cable operators to sell Playboy to their customers through subscription video-on-demand instead of pay-per-view, a more stable form of revenue.
Michael Savner, media analyst for Bank of America, said he downgraded Playboy's stock because even the company's management "does not expect to see domestic-TV revenue growth in 2007, due to increased competition and ongoing difficulties with the VOD transition."
Some cable companies are reluctant to offer Playboy TV to customers for a monthly subscription fee because they have to pay 30 percent to Playboy. With pay-per-view, cable operators pay Playboy 10 percent, pocketing 90 percent.
Playboy, which has seen numerous reorganizations in recent years, recently brought in Bob Meyers as president of media operations. Meyers’ hiring late last year was engineered to push out James Griffiths, president of the entertainment group, and Ned Nalle, president of programming.
