Playboy is the only magazine that will be affected by the ban on tobacco advertising. As a result of the new Ministerial order, the distribution of the men's magazine will be reduced by one-tenth, leaving the distributors trying to decide which newsagents around the State will get even a limited supply.

Since the lifting of the ban on the magazine, Playboy has proven to be extremely popular in the Republic. It has a circulation of nearly 10,000 copies per month - making it the most popular import after Time and Newsweek.

The new order which came into effect last July applies to magazines which have a circulation of 1,000 or more copies so Playboy's circulation will have to be reduced to 999 to comply with the new regulations.

In practice the order only affects US magazines as the vast majority of UK and Irish magazines have been phasing out tobacco advertising over the past two years and now only a handful of specialist magazines still accept them.

Both Newsweek and Time have circulations of more than 1,000 in Ireland but last month both dealt with the new regulations by printing English-language European editions without tobacco advertising. Playboy, which is printed in the US, has only one print run per month of five million copies and like most US glossies, it relies heavily on tobacco revenue. However, it would clearly not be commercially worthwhile to do a special Irish run of 10,000.

Distribution of the 2,500 magazines on Irish news-stands is divided between two distribution houses, Newspread and Easons. It is the responsibility of these distributors to ensure that they do not circulate magazines with tobacco advertising content. They also have to apply for exemptions for those publications which are under the 1,000 threshold and to date Easons has applied for 1,500 exemptions and received clearance on them all.

In an interview this week on RTE radio, the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, caused some confusion when he stated that the new regulations would apply to publications with a circulation of less than 10,000.

However, the figure is 1,000 and the Department is to issue a statement clarifying the issue.

The Minister's order does not apply to magazines bought by subscription which might be of comfort to Play- boy's 9,000 Irish fans, who will be disappointed next week when the few copies of the November issue hit the Irish newsstands.