Playboy TV review

Playboy TV is a large subscription-based paysite that just got a brand new, modern website. It offers its members unlimited access to watch over 2600 episodes from the brand’s erotic series, TV shows, and couple-friendly sex videos.

It’s hard to imagine a more iconic name in adult entertainment than Playboy. Certainly, adult entertainment existed before Hugh Hefner founded Playboy in 1953, but I’m not aware of any brand that brought tasteful sexuality to the public prior to Playboy. Playboy TV is itself iconic for people of a certain age. While I was a bit too young when The Playboy Channel launched in 1982, and Pay TV wasn’t widely available where I lived, my friends and I knew that such a thing existed and dreamed about seeing naked women on our TVs as we flipped through our grubby and well-used magazines.

With the widespread availability of VHS tapes, eventually DVDs, and eventually the internet, magazines like Playboy and its contemporaries such as Penthouse, struggled to remain relevant. On top of this, for better or worse, Playboy stuck by its original premise of being offered to discerning “gentlemen” rather than following the path that other magazines did in going hardcore. So how has the iconic brand of Playboy and Playboy TV held up? Is the Playboy TV site something that the average porn subscriber/collector should consider? I’ve got some thoughts on that, and I’m happy to share them in this review.

I don’t think I’ll get a lot of push back when I say that PlayboyTV isn’t like most other porn sites and likely won’t appeal to people looking for “harder” hardcore found on thousands of other sites. While “porn for couples” is widely available, it does tend to be less common than the mainstream porn that features hard sex, anal, facials, etc. Playboy TV, whether they intend to serve the couples’ market or just intend to stay true to their philosophy of appealing to “gentlemen,” does find itself in a niche outside of the mainstream.

What subscribers will find in PlayboyTV is a broad collection of different “shows” and “episodes”. Obviously, even using those labels harkens back to the original Playboy Channel. The site currently lists over 2624 episodes across 129 different shows. Putting this into the language of most mainstream porn sites would mean that there are 2624 individual scenes and 129 theme-based series or channels. (The scene count isn’t accurate, and I’ll explain why below. Playboy TV has sold itself short because there are many more hardcore scenes than what they count.)

Since the “shows” are theme based, subscribers will see themes ranging from interviews (most of which are taken from the well-known video talk show, the “Playboy Morning Show”), through reality-style shows, to shows featuring beautiful women in bikinis, to shows focused on fantasy fulfilment, and many others. Each of these shows may have multiple seasons, each with multiple episodes.

The show thumbnails have various genre labels written on them, such as “reality”, “drama”, “lifestyle”, “comedy”, “erotic series”. There are even some fun shows with sex education. Playboy TV movies also appear between the shows with the label “movie” - I guess they didn’t want make the website more complex and create a separate collection for the full-length movies.

As for updates, there is good news and bad news. While there doesn’t appear to be a set update schedule, multiple scenes are uploaded each week. In the month prior to me writing this review, for example, nine new scenes were uploaded. The bad news is that the Playboy TV probably doesn't produce any of their really original series they were once known for. Many of the latest updates are from older productions, and some are licensed from other studios.

While everything on Playboy TV’s site is sensual and sexy, much of it is sexy entertainment or softcore nudity rather than overt sexuality and sex. The softcore scenes feature a beautiful woman or women frolicking around as a subscriber would expect to see. Most of it is produced by Playboy, but there are also some guest scenes from other top brands such as Met Art.

The site also has lesbian scenes, there is no easy way to find them though. The best way probably is to browse the Shows list, and guess from the titles and covers which ones could have girl-girl content.

In recent years, Playboy TV has certainly expanded into hardcore and much of that is available here. Some of the hardcore scenes are branded as being produced by Playboy TV, but there are also some licensed hardcore scenes from other highly-regarded studios that fit the polished style from Playboy, for example scenes produced by Marc Dorcel from Dorcel Club and scenes from Erika Lust's XConfessions.

The Playboy TV produced hardcore scenes do have some distinct differences from what many porn subscribers find on other hardcore sites. As noted, Playboy TV easily and obviously falls within the “couples” niche, which tends to be softer. That’s understandable. Many women will be more attracted to seeing an emotional connection between the partners than watching women gagging on massive cocks or closeup shots of anal sex. Playboy TV offers softer hardcore with beautiful men and women making love and exploring an emotional connection, or trying out some hot but tasteful taboos.

One other distinct difference between the hardcore scenes at Playboy TV and more mainstream (i.e. harder) scenes, and even something that distinguishes this site from many other couples-friendly porn sites, is that Playboy TV doesn’t show the “money shot”. Even in scenes they’ve licensed from other sites, the money shot is edited out. I think it’s a reasonable assumption to say that this is a conscious decision to keep the brand’s soft image, as well as to market the site to women who are more interested in romantic porn than explicit, graphic porn.

[The Playboy TV choice to not show ejaculation is unusual in adult entertainment. My understanding is that the explicit display of the cum shots is a holdover from the days of 8 mm films where it became standard for the producers, directors, and talent to “prove” that the sex was real by showing the man ejaculating. That seems logical to me, and apart from sites, movies, and scenes that specifically market themselves as featuring “creampies”, most scenes on other sites conclude with the male talent ejaculating somewhere on the woman’s body.]

While the sex scenes at Playboy TV aren’t especially hard, subscribers will find lots of B/G scenes, as well as some G/G and some B/G/G scenes, and even swinger & group sex fantasies. As someone who primarily subscribes to sites with harder porn, I can say that I found the B/G sex scenes here to be hot. Seeing what is either genuine chemistry or very good acting in the scenes adds an element that the harder mainstream sites don’t have. I think this really makes Playboy TV stand out.

Given Playboy’s reputation, it’s no surprise that the production values here are exceptional, whether they are produced in-house or by an external studio. Everything from pre-production through to post-production contributes to scenes that look good. Readers should keep in mind that my assessment of production values doesn’t really apply to the scenes shot as part of the Playboy Morning Show, which is mostly just a camera pointed at the people presenting the show. But when it comes to solo, softcore, and hardcore, those high production values are evident.

As for the models at Playboy TV, it won’t surprise any reader that this site features some stunningly beautiful women. The soft content features many former or current Playboy models, and I don’t think anyone will disagree that Playboy has a reputation for featuring some of the most beautiful women in the world.
The B/G scenes on the site, however, don’t feature models who are known for nudes or softcore. The hardcore scenes tend to feature known porn stars, either from the US or Europe. The models selected for the hardcore scenes certainly meet the high Playboy standards for beauty.

There isn’t a lot of diversity in the models. For ethnicity, most models are white. There is some diversity in ages. Playboy doesn’t push the 18-21 age group as much as a lot of mainstream porn sites. While Playboy TV isn’t a MILF site, but it’s not uncommon to see models in their late 20s or early 30s.

The site currently lists scenes featuring 177 models. As with the number of scenes being inaccurate, so too is this count. I’m not sure how many models have scenes here, but it’s a lot more than 177. I’ll explain that below.

Playboy TV allows the models to be sorted among several categories. These are, Playmate, Cybergirl, Coed, Amateur, and Celebrity. The model categories are not really comprehensive, many models are missing from the model index. For example, there are real amateurs in some of the reality series, unlike the professional looking models that the Amateur model category shows. The five “Celebrities” listed in that grouping are actually A-list porn stars such as Elsa Jean, Alina Lopez, and Ana Foxxx. I’d rather call some of the Playmates celebs instead.
Additional filters for models would be helpful, and a few more options for sorting - the models are randomly grouped and can’t be sorted by name, for example.

All the videos at Playboy TV are available for streaming and downloading, unless you purchased a streaming-only membership. All files, whether streaming or downloading, are available in multiple resolutions. The higest resolution is 1080P Full HD, the site doesn’t offer 4K.
While the scenes all have professional production qualities, the video quality is often just good, not exceptional. Maybe this is because many updates added as new ones were actually recorded years ago.
We’ve listed the video options in the Videos box of this review, but readers should note that those of the resolutions available across the site and not necessarily on every scene. In the older scenes, for example, don’t expect 1080p resolution.

Photo collectors should note that Playboy TV members area offers no pictures, not even screencaps. At first, this seemed like an unusual decision to me. Why would a brand known for high quality photos of beautiful women not offer that on one of their flagship sites? I think the obvious answer to this question is that this is the Playboy TV site, and while the Playboy brand is known for quality photos, the Playboy TV brand is all about videos. (I think my hypothesis holds water when you consider that another Playboy paysite, Playboy Plus, does offer photos.)

Let’s discuss the website’s members area and usability. The basic stuff like page loads, video streaming, and downloads work smoothly at PlayboyTV, and it’s nice on both computers and mobile screens.
Playboy TV does have some flaws when it comes to searching and filtering. Given that this is such a large site offering a broad range of themes, it seems unusual that the site doesn’t use tags. Apart from the text search function, which has its own serious limitations, it’s difficult for a subscriber to find anything specific. I have my own interests, and when I did a deep dive into the site, I found things that interested me more out of luck than with assistance from the site.

Another unusual choice made by Playboy TV is that it doesn’t list the models appearing in the scenes. If you see a thumbnail that interests you and you click on it, that scene’s page gives no indication as to who stars in it. As someone who collects porn based on models, having no easy identification is frustrating. However, there is some good news. If you watch the entire video or scrub forward to the end, there are credits listing the models. It’s a roundabout way to get information that other adult sites give up front, but at least it is available.
You could also browse the site from the model index instead of the scene list, but that’s a hit and miss, as many models are missing from the model index.

I noted above that I think that the number of scenes and models listed at Playboy TV are incorrect and much lower than what is really available here. The reason for this seems as unusual as the choice to not use tags. For most of the hardcore episodes, if not all of them, each episode video contains two separate and distinct scenes. If a subscriber could sort for “hardcore” scenes (but there’s no tag for that) the result might show 800 being available. But given that every hardcore episode I watched or scrubbed through, which was a lot, had two distinct sex scenes within it, that 800 number could easily be 1600. (Readers should note that my example of there being 800 hardcore scenes was just as an example and can’t be relied on as a stated fact.)

How this affects the model count is that the “Celebrity” category on the model page lists five models, all known porn stars. But as I scrubbed through dozens and dozens of hardcore scenes, I encountered dozens and dozens of known porn stars who get no credit on the website except at the end of the video, and who aren’t listed on the model pages either.

To give an example, a European model I like and have followed for several years is Amirah Adara. Ms. Adara appears in multiple hardcore scenes here but isn’t credited and isn’t listed as a model. If Playboy TV followed the lead of other porn sites, any model appearing in a scene would be linked to her model page. Using my example, as someone who collects Ms. Adara’s scenes, if I want to add what she has here to my collection, I’m going to need to go through every hardcore scene to find her.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that without trying hard, I found dozens of known porn stars with scenes here at Playboy TV who are uncredited.

Shifting gears back to the positive elements of PlayboyTV, one that may seem to be a mere technicality is that the site now falls under the Gamma Entertainment umbrella. I know many readers will wonder why they should care about that, and that’s understandable.
Over the past several years, Gamma Entertainment has been either buying out or becoming affiliated with many formerly stand-alone sites. Gamma brings an added level of professionalism, and while it would take a lot of effort, it’s possible that the lack of tags and the uncredited model problem may be solved under their leadership.

But there is a more important reason for subscribers why being owned by or affiliated with Gamma is good news. When I joined Playboy TV back in 2015, I had membership problems and difficulty cancelling. In researching to write this review, I came across several other billing complaints dating from the pre-Gamma days. Gamma Entertainment uses its own in-house biller, operating under several different names. I’ve subscribed to dozens upon dozens of Gamma sites even over the past few years, and I’ve never had a billing issue ever. My credit card information has never been compromised, and I’ve never had a problem cancelling a membership.

The bottom line is that for subscribers, coming under the Gamma Entertainment umbrella makes a membership here significantly safer for us.

Another advantage that Gamma Entertainment brings to subscribers is the transparency in choosing which membership level works best for each of us. While many porn sites are now offering streaming only as part of a basic membership and are less than open about the availability and cost of adding downloads, Gamma, including Playboy TV, provide subscribers with a clear menu regarding access levels and costs when signing up. As someone who collects porn, downloads are important for me when joining a site and I appreciate that Gamma, including Playboy TV, not only make downloads available at a low cost, but are upfront about membership levels.

Before moving on to my final words in this review, I’d like to repeat that Playboy TV doesn’t have any photos. If you’re interested in the Playboy photography, you should check out Playboy Plus, which is also managed by Gamma now.

The bottom line for me is that for the right subscriber who likes the Playboy late night TV shows, erotic reality series, sexy softcore videos, and tasteful soft porn, I have no hesitation in highly recommending a membership at Playboy TV. All porn is subjective in that if you aren’t interested in a specific niche, then it won’t matter how well it is done. Someone interested in extreme porn for example, will probably find Playboy TV to be boring, and I get that. However, someone looking for light sexy entertainment, or a couple looking to add some spice to the bedroom, might find Playboy TV to be the perfect addition.

I’ll also freely admit, that as someone who leans to the harder edge of hardcore, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed what’s offered here. I found some of the interviews to be interesting, I enjoyed a lot of the solo scenes, and I especially enjoyed the sex scenes. The chemistry between the models adds so much to each scene that is usually lacking in most of the harder scenes I normally watch.

Admittedly, Playboy TV could use some structural improvements on their site. If I had joined PlayboyTV without knowing of these flaws, I would have been frustrated, but I would still be a satisfied customer. What’s offered here is some amazing and diverse porn featuring some of the most beautiful women in the world, including known porn stars and Playmate models. Everything here is offered in streaming and for downloading and in multiple resolutions. The site is large and is updating frequently. Playboy TV is a fun site to spend some time with, and I highly recommend doing so for the right subscriber. If you use our link at x3guide to subscribe to Playboy TV, you’ll get a 50% discount, making this a great value.