Country Weekly Magazine

Eric Kallgren    Boulder, Colorado USA

Posted at 2:50pm on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009

On January 12, 2009, Advertising Age magazine reported that Country Weekly will drop subscriptions and be available only at the newsstand:

"American Media is amputating about 80% of Country Weekly's paid circulation as part of a bid to keep the title publishing.

The company announced last Friday that Country Weekly will finally drop its counterintuitive biweekly schedule and return to publishing 52 times a year, cutting the cover price to $2.49 from $3.49 in the process to goose sales.

The company did not mention, however, that the 15-year-old magazine is simultaneously abandoning subscriptions, where it gets the vast majority of its paid circulation. Instead of guaranteeing advertisers a paying audience of 435,000 people, as it does now, Country Weekly will soon sell about 75,000 copies per issue -- exclusively on newsstands.

"This way we can continue publication," said Dave Leckey, exec VP-consumer marketing at American Media. More than 325,000 people subscribe to Country Weekly, but their issues dated Feb. 23 will be their last, he said. A cover wrap will give them the choice of refunds or substitute subscriptions to Star, Shape or the National Enquirer."