James Kaminsky, who said he got his first glimpse of Playboy as a teenager growing up in Westport, is out as the magazine’s editorial director, according to AdAge.com.
Quoting a company spokesman, AdAge said Kamisky, who was brought into the post amid much publicity in September 2002, would move to an as-yet-unspecified inter-divisional role at the company.
Formerly the executive director of Maxim, Kaminsky had replaced Arthur Kretchmer, who had been Playboy’s editorial director for 30 years.
The move was widely seen as a bid to update Playboy’s formula and an effort to fend off stiff competition from magazines such as Maxim, the report said.
Update (April 23, 2004): The Chicago Sun-Times said Kaminsky, 42, is being given the job of vice president, special projects at Playboy Enterprises, according to the company.
In his new role, he will “explore brand expansions” and create spin-offs of the magazine into other media, such as television and movies, it said.
“Jim and our editors have done an impressive job in executing Playboy’s new editorial direction, a move that has generated results in the form of higher newsstand sales” and more ads, said Hugh Hefner, Playboy’s founder and editor in chief, the Sun-Times reported.
AdAge said for the last half of 2003, Playboy failed to meet its rate base, or circulation guaranteed to advertisers, of 3.2 million. However, newsstand sales rose 4.2% to 369,229.
In an interview last summer with Torontos Globe and Mail, the newspaper reported that ғKaminsky started reading Playboy when he was 15 and restless in the tony but boring Connecticut town of Westport.” (See WestportNow June 7, 2003)
It added, “(His dad left the mag lying around the house.) It gave him a view of a larger world.
Kaminsky’s father was the late Leonard P. Kaminsky, a former chair of Westport’s Planning and Zoning Commission and member of the Board of Assessment Appeals.
He died last Jan. 12 at the age of 76 while vacationing in Hawaii.
