Playboy to stop publishing images of naked women

Playboy magazine is to stop publishing images of naked women as part of its redesign, international media claim.

According to the New York Times, the magazine’s US owners say the internet has made nudity out-dated, and pornographic magazines are no longer such a commercially viable option.

The BBC reports that Playboy's circulation (founded in 1953)  has dropped from 5.6 million in the 1970s to the current 800,000, but the magazine will reportedly still feature women in provocative poses.

The decision was taken last month at a meeting attended by Playboy founder and current editor-in-chief, 89-year-old Hugh Hefner, and magazine executives admitted that the magazine had been overtaken by the changes it pioneered.

The BBC adds that Playboy's website has already done away with nudity, partly to give it access to social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and its popularity has soared with web traffic quadrupling.