New Playboy CEO Cites Record Club Experience, Calls Self “Change Agent”

A brief but candid interview between Folio’s Jason Fell and new Playboy CEO Scott Flanders featured the following exchange:

FOLIO:: What about your experience at Freedom Communications, and elsewhere throughout your career, has prepared you to serve as chief executive at Playboy?

Flanders: I have operated in the media business my entire career and have taken on situations with businesses in transition. Everywhere I’ve gone I’ve been a change agent. In 1999, I joined Columbia House, which was a $1.5 billion marketer of music and VHF tapes right before Napster was released and DVDs emerged. We had a business that was over 50 years old, that started in the same timeframe as Playboy, that needed to migrate into the new model, including online. I think that singular experience is most analogous to the opportunities for Playboy.

It’s worth noting that Mr. Flanders facilitated a leveraged buyout of Columbia House by The Blackstone Group in June 2002. In conjunction with the transaction, AOL Time Warner and Sony Corporation each retained minority ownership interests. In May 2005, Blackstone sold the company to Bertelsmann in a transaction which closed in July 2005.

This begs the question — is Playboy officially on the market? Back to the interview:

FOLIO:: So, then, is Playboy on the block?

Flanders: The company, as a policy, does not comment on “rumors.”

We’ll let you be the judge.

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