Record early pledges reduce HPR goal

The “Celebration 2015” fall fund drive at Hawaii Public Radio began today following the stations’ receipt of a record number of early donations.

The goal for the drive is $825,000, down from the initially set target of $978,000, due to early donations and the growth of the nonprofit operation’s Sustaining Membership program.

It enables members to support the stations with automatic monthly donations, which are tax-deductible.

The stations have more than 3,300 sustaining members and received early gifts from 958 donors, officials said in a statement.

Listener pledges will be called into the station daily until the fundraising goal is attained.

Hawaii Public Radio’s two program streams, each broadcast on seven frequencies, are heard across the state.

Playboy to drop photos of nude women

Last month, Cory Jones, a top editor at Playboy, went to see its founder, Hugh Hefner, at the Playboy Mansion.

Jones nervously presented a radical suggestion: The magazine, a pioneer of the revolution that helped take sex in America from furtive to ubiquitous, should stop publishing images of naked women.

Hefner, 89, still listed as editor in chief, agreed. As part of a redesign that will be unveiled in March, Playboy will still feature women in provocative poses. But they will no longer be fully nude.

Its executives admit that Playboy has been overtaken by the changes it pioneered. “That battle has been fought and won,” said Scott Flanders, the company’s chief executive. “You’re now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it’s just passé at this juncture.”

For a generation of American men, reading Playboy was a cultural rite, an illicit thrill consumed by flashlight. Now every teenage boy has an Internet-connected phone instead. Pornographic magazines, even those as storied as Playboy, have lost their shock value, their commercial value and their cultural relevance.

Playboy’s circulation has dropped from 5.6 million in 1975 to about 800,000 now, according to the Alliance for Audited Media. Many of the magazines that followed have disappeared.

In August last year, Playboy’s website dispensed with nudity. As a result, Playboy executives said, the average age of its reader dropped from 47 to just over 30, and its Web traffic jumped to about 16 million from about 4 million unique users per month.

The magazine will adopt a cleaner, more modern style, said Jones, who as chief content officer also oversees its website. There will still be a Playmate of the Month, but the pictures will be “PG-13” and less produced.

Investors tying Madoff losses to auditors

SEATTLE >> Nearly seven years after Bernie Madoff’s investment empire was revealed to be a $17.5 billion fraud, the battle by investors to recover their losses ramps up in a case that goes to trial this week in Seattle.

A Washington state investment company is seeking to pin about $100 million of its losses from Madoff’s crimes on auditor Ernst & Young.

FutureSelect Portfolio Management of Redmond and some related firms lost a total of about $129 million in the scheme. In court papers, the company alleges that Ernst & Young would have uncovered the scheme if it had taken even the most basic steps to verify Madoff’s assets — something the firm denies it had any obligation to do.

ON THE MOVE

The Kahala Hotel & Resort has promoted Joe Ibarra to director of rooms from director of front office. His responsibilities include managing and overseeing the housekeeping and front office departments. Ibarra has more than 10 years of hospitality experience, including as front office and event manager at JW Marriott Ihilani Resort & Spa; assistant front office and reception manager at the Waikiki EDITION Hotel; and front desk manager and front office supervisor at Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort and Spa.

OmniTrak Group has announced that Wenli Lin has joined the firm as president and chief executive officer. Her experience includes chief marketing officer and executive committee member of AIG/Farmers Insurance, director of marketing and market research at DFS Group, and senior vice president of marketing at City Bank in Hawaii.