Playbill

Competition with Stagebill[edit]

For decades, Playbill concentrated on Broadway and Off-Broadway theaters, while Stagebill focused on concerts, opera, and dance in venues such as Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall.^[14] However, by the late 1990s, Playbill was highly profitable; Stagebill was not, losing millions of dollars annually by 1998.^[15] To increase revenue, Stagebill entered Playbill's turf. The truce was first breached in 1995, when The Public Theater quietly defected to Stagebill, and more noisily in 1997, when Disney contracted Stagebill for its musical The Lion King at its newly reopened New Amsterdam Theatre.^[16] The main point of contention in the latter case was control over advertising content: Playbill is distributed free to theaters, relying on advertising revenue that is completely under its authority, whereas Disney, per company policy, required a program without cigarette or liquor ads.^[17]


In response to Stagebill's upstart incursion, Playbill began to produce Showbill, a sister publication that conformed to Disney's advertising requirements for all publications distributed in its properties.^[14] Now with an alternative, Disney switched from Stagebill to Showbill for The Lion King late in its run at the New Amsterdam. (When the musical moved to the Minskoff Theatre, which Disney does not own, it was obligated to use Playbill, as are Disney productions at other theaters.^[14]) The Ford Center for the Performing Arts also commissioned Showbill for its inaugural production of Ragtime, presumably to exclude other automakers' ads.^[14] In a different circumstance, the producers of the Broadway revival of Cabaret wished to maintain the atmosphere of a sleazy nightclub at its Studio 54 venue, and insisted on handing out Playbills after the performance (instead of before). Playbill, sensing missed exposure for its advertisers, offered the show's producers "Showbill" instead.^[18]


Additionally, Playbill responded further by producing publications for classic arts venues, aggressively courting many venues that were once Stagebill clients. In the spring of 2002, Playbill signed a contract with Carnegie Hall; this milestone was bookended by the earlier acquisition of the valuable Metropolitan Opera program and the ensuing contract with the New York Philharmonic—both tenants of Stagebill's erstwhile stronghold Lincoln Center.^[16] With the acquisition of the programs for performing arts venues, Playbill broke from its typical format and began publishing completely customized programs in the vein of Stagebill.^[17] This, coupled with continuing fiscal troubles, signaled the end of Stagebill as a publishing entity; later that year, Stagebill became insolvent after five years of head-to-head competition with Playbill, which acquired the Stagebill trademark.^[19]