Founded by Hugh Hefner and famed for its bunny girls, Playboy is now trying to widen its audience as it enters its 63rd year.The American edition, which has featured the likes of Marilyn Monroe and Madonna, now operates at a loss – although global copies still bring in a profit.
Playboy’s chief content officer Cory Jones told the New York Times the time was right for a move away from nudity, although women in provocative poses will still feature.
“You’re now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it’s just passe at this juncture,” he said.
He added: “Don’t get me wrong. Twelve-year-old me is very disappointed in current me. But it’s the right thing to do.”
Hefner, 89, reportedly agreed to the change proposed by Mr Jones last month.
The Times reported that Playboy’s print circulation, once measured in millions, is now about 800,000, according to Alliance for Audited Media.
When he created Playboy in 1953, Hefner wrote that the magazine and its content would appeal to men aged 18 to 80.
The Playboy brand has been “a tastemaker, an arbiter of style and a vanguard for political, sexual and economic freedom”, according to its website.
The bunny ears logo is as famous as the Nike tick and the McDonald’s golden arches, it claims.
Other editorial changes in the Playboy rebrand include a “sex-positive female” writing a sex column, art and more coverage of alcoholic drinks.
In 2010 it introduced The Smoking Jacket, a safe-for-work website designed to appeal to young men who could avoid nude images or key words which would cause the site to be blocked in a workplace.
Playboy is not the first publication to choose to tone down its content. 
This year the Pirelli calendar announced it would swap its usual risque photos of supermodels for pictures of powerful female figures including Serena Williams, Patti Smith, Yoko Ono and Amy Schumer taken by famed photographer Annie Liebovitz.
The Sun newspaper has also chosen to scrap its topless Page 3 models after 44 years and has opted for scantily dressed women instead.
Article Appeared @http://news.sky.com/story/1568581/playboy-to-drop-passe-nude-images-of-women