Penthouse Magazine
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The first U.S. issue of Penthouse, September 1969
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| CEO | Kelly Holland |
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| Categories | Men's, Lifestyle |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Total circulation (2012) |
109,792 |
| Year founded | March 1965 |
| Company | Penthouse Global Media Inc. |
| Country | United Kingdom United States |
| Language | English |
| Website | http://www.penthouse.com, www.penthousemagazine.com |
| ISSN | 0090-2020 |
Penthouse, an iconic men's magazine founded by Italo-American Bob Guccione, combines urban lifestyle articles and softcore pornographic pictorials that, in the 1990s, temporarily evolved into hardcore. Penthouse has been owned by Penthouse Global Media Inc. since 2016.
Although Guccione was American, the magazine was founded in 1965, in the United Kingdom, but beginning in September 1969, was sold in the United States as well. At the height of his success, Guccione, who died in 2010, was considered to be one of the richest men in the United States. He was once listed in the Forbes 400 ranking of wealthiest people (1982). An April 2002 New York Times article reported Guccione as saying that Penthouse grossed $3.5 billion to $4 billion over the 30-year life of the company, with net income of almost half a billion dollars.
The Penthouse logo is a stylized key which incorporates both the Mars and Venus symbols in its design. The magazine's centerfold models are known as Penthouse Pets and customarily wear a distinctive necklace inspired by said logo.
Penthouse magazine began publication in 1965, in the UK and in North America in 1969, an attempt to compete with Hugh Hefner's Playboy. Guccione offered editorial content that was more sensational than that of Playboy, and the magazine's writing was far more investigative than Hefner's upscale emphasis, with stories about government cover-ups and scandals. Writers such as Craig S. Karpel, James Dale Davidson and Ernest Volkman, as well as the critically acclaimed Seymour Hersh, exposed numerous scandals and corruption at the highest levels of the United States Government.
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