Playboy Getting Real

T&A from Playboy via RealNetwork’s OpenPass paid video service. The girls will also be popping up via video clips and photos on cell phones in Europe and Asia on Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchinson Whampoa’s cellular phone service:

Playboy Enterprises last week began offering a $25-a-month “Playboy TV Club” subscription as a new channel on RealNetworks’ paid video service.

….On its sign-up pages at RealNetworks’ site, Playboy TV Club promises access to “Playboy’s girls next door as you’ve never seen them before,” with a notice promising “parental controls” and “discrete [sic] billing.” The club seems awfully pricey at $25 a month.

It is one of nearly two dozen subscription channels available via RealNetworks’ “OpenPass” program

….It’s a little like cable TV, if you could pick what channels you wanted to pay for — and no cable TV network is complete without some adult channels, right?

Other OpenPass channels include JFK: The Proof, about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, for $11 a month; Motor Trend Auto Pass, about all things automotive, for $5 a month; and the Hawaii Network for $8 a month. [Washington Post]