NEW YORK–Country Home magazine is the latest shelter book to fold. The Meredith publication’s March 2009 issue will be its last.
Meredith will incur a second-quarter charge of an estimated $16 million related to the closure of the magazine, as well as a companywide work-force reduction of about 250 employees.
“The recessionary economy has impacted both publishing and broadcasting advertising, which accounts for approximately 60 percent of our revenue stream,” said Stephen Lacy, Meredith’s president and chief executive officer, in a statement. “Trends indicate a continuing soft economy into calendar 2009 as well.”
This past year, Hearst publication’s O at Home, the Oprah Winfrey magazine; Time’s Cottage Living; and Hachette Filipacchi’s Home magazine all folded.