By BRIAN STEINBERG WALL STREET JOURNAL

NEW YORK -- Attention, readers of Maxim and FHM. Playboy knows you're out there - and wants to see you when you get a little older.

While executives from Playboy Enterprises Inc. (PLA, PLAA) have shied away from talking about direct competition with the host of "laddie" magazines - strongly male-oriented titles that cater to teenagers and twenty-somethings - that have landed in the U.S. in recent years, the gloves appear to be coming off.

Playboy's flagship publication is slated to get a buzz transfusion as it approaches its 50th anniversary and greets a new editorial director. As such, noted the company's top executive in a conference call with investors Thursday, Playboy might get a little more active in the general fray that has gripped the men's magazine market since Dennis Publishing's Maxim and Emap PLC's (U.EMA) FHM hit U.S. newsstands.

Maxim and FHM function as a "kind of entry point for young men who hadn't been magazine purchasers," said Christie Hefner, Playboy's chairman and chief executive, during the call. Playboy's opportunity, she added, is "to, in effect, market Playboy to them when they are ready to graduate."

Playboy hired James Kaminsky, a former executive editor of Maxim, in September, to succeed long-standing editorial director Arthur Kretchmer, who will stay on for the next several months.

Ostensibly, Kaminsky has a mandate to freshen up the magazine and recalibrate its sensibilities for the modern day. In interviews, Kaminsky has expressed a desire to change the art, the subject mix, even the gang of writers on the masthead. At the same time, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner still has a strong influence on the title.

On the call, Christie Hefner described the opportunity for Playboy magazine as "the most exciting" during "my tenure at the company."

The aggressive words came as Playboy posted a third-quarter loss narrower than analyst estimates amid cost-cutting efforts and improved online sales. Still, the company's publishing operations thrived mostly on cost controls, as revenue fell 8% to $29.1 million from $31.7 million. Magazine revenue came to $23.8 million, compared with $25.1 million in the prior year. The company said lower newsstand and advertising sales were partially offset by higher subscription revenue.

The idea of Playboy entering the fight against Maxim and FHM would place the Bunny in the mix of other publications that have had to contend with the laddie-magazines. Hearst Corp.'s (X.HRS) Esquire and Conde Nast Publications' GQ, part of Advance Publications Inc. (X.ADP), have also found themselves drawn into the struggle.

While GQ and Esquire position themselves as a more intelligent alternative to FHM, Maxim and even Dennis sister Stuff, Playboy seems to be brandishing its adult sensibility. The lad magazines "provide an entry point," said Martha Lindeman, a Playboy Enterprises spokeswoman, "and when you get beyond the beer and the brats, you can grow up to Playboy." Christie Hefner's point, she said, "is there are a lot of readers out there, and let's go get them."

As one might suspect, rivals are skeptical. "Good luck," said a spokesman for Dennis Publishing.