Ladies' Home Journal to Cease Publishing After 130 Years

Posted on April 24, 2014

<>Meredith has announced it will cease publication of the Ladies' Home Journal. The magazine, first published in 1883, has been published for 130 years. Bloomberg reports that the Meredith will only use the brand online and to publish special stand-alone newsstand issues. July will be the last regular issue of the magazine. An image of the magazine's April issue is pictured.

Ad Age reports that the entire staff of 35 people were let go this morning. Ad Age says the magazine hit a circulation peak in 1968 of 6.8 million. The current circulation for Ladies' Home Journal is about half that at 3.2 million, which is still a large number of subscribers.

The subscriber number was not the problem. It is the tough advertisement environment that is being blamed for the magazine's demise according to AdWeek. A spokesperson for Meredith says, "You've got a women's lifestyle field that has expanded from the original Seven Sisters to a much broader field competing for limited ad dollars. When we looked at our brands, Ladies' Home Journal unfortunately had a higher median age than other titles in that field."