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"Traditional Home" Magazine Is Out of Business (Print)

Aphaea
4 years ago

I am really mad. I subscribe to a few shelter magazines--the ones that haven't become boring--and one of them, Traditional Home, is no longer publishing its print edition. The company wants me to subscribe to BHG instead but I turned the "offer" down cold and requested a refund..


They are all going this way. My former favorite, House Beautiful, has been gutted. The current editor is a wimp and the pages reflect that. I know that it and others are headed online only but I will not pay for online stuff. And I deeply mourn the loss of all those publications that I read and kept and read again and again. Unfortunately, the ones I loathe like BHG and Martha Stewart Living seem to be alive and kicking.

Comments (48)

  • PRO
    Patricia Colwell Consulting
    4 years ago

    This is the wave of the future it is your choice to go or not I have to tell you I love not having a stack of magazines taking up space when there are probably 5 things I want to see. This really goes for food magazines which have now become 80% advertising so online I get the recipe and none of the advertising.

  • petula67
    4 years ago

    Getting my new issue of Traditional Home or Southern Living or Victoria used to be such a thrill! I haven't subscribed in years, so it's probably partly my fault that print magazines are dying, but the online experience just isn't the same. Sure, maybe it's better in some ways, but not in others. I still love looking at my Victoria magazines from the 1990s.

    Aphaea thanked petula67
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  • Aphaea
    Original Author
    4 years ago

    I know online is the future, Patricia, but like he1967910, I like the thrill--and she is right, it is/was a thrill--of a print publication There's something solid and even hefty about it that pages bring and online simply cannot replicate regardless of what they do..


    Houzz and Apartment Therapy and some home decor blogs are wonderful. They add immensely to the enjoyment I get from reading about design and so on. They have an immediacy and an interactive-ness that print cannot offer. But they will never provide solidity; they tend to be ephemeral and I notice the "content" (rather than the writing) flits through my mind enjoyably but unfortunately quickly.


    I do think there is room for both but I also think that ten years from now we may not have both. And that will be a big loss.

  • PRO
    RappArchitecture
    4 years ago

    Try Dwell

  • tartanmeup
    4 years ago

    Aw, phooey. I'm a magazine addict (trying to reform) and just bought the current issue of Traditional Home yesterday. Guess that will be their last issue? I'm not surprised but still disappointed. Looking at decor stuff online does not have the same appeal to me as magazines or books. I'm so glad I kept a few issues of House Beautiful over the last few years!

    Aphaea thanked tartanmeup
  • tartanmeup
    4 years ago

    Isn't Dwell more modern, @RappArchitecture?

  • Rory (Zone 6b)
    4 years ago

    I do like getting Traditional Home and BH&G as hard-copies. I need something to read while eating breakfast aside from my phone. Popular Mechanics is interesting (sometimes a bit weird) and easy to page through while eating breakfast.

  • PRO
    RappArchitecture
    4 years ago
    last modified: 4 years ago

    Yes, Dwell is modern. The OP didn't say she was only looking for traditional as a style

  • calidesign
    4 years ago

    What annoyed me was that they accepted a new subscription from me only one month before they went out of business, and then tried to convert it. And the one issue I did get was more like a pamphlet than the magazine they used to be. You can find so much more online now, but it was a great magazine about 20 years ago!

  • tartanmeup
    4 years ago

    I just wanted to clarify as I've never bought Dwell magazine. Only seen it on the newsstands. :)

  • PRO
    Patricia Colwell Consulting
    4 years ago

    When I moved I got rid of probably cloose to 2000 design magazines I bundled them in batches of 100 and left them on my sidewalk for free they all disappeared so obviously many people like the printed version some of mine were 20yrs old. I guess I just realized then how little I really went back to most of them. I also got rid of about 400 cookbooks and I have not missed those either as I find recipes on line so much easier to look up.

  • PRO
    JAN MOYER
    4 years ago
    last modified: 4 years ago

    To some degree I feel your pain.

    Once upon a time..........( I'm talking the 1980's/90's here ) there was NOTHING BETTER ON EARTH...than a Friday night heavy snowfall, a new Traditional Home in the mailbox, or just as good, the old House Beautiful , ( not the junkyard it became ).

    While it is true that they are all going the way of the dodo bird, Traditional Home is going that way because they veered too far from their base audience. They lost their niche. Some is market driven as in just how many gray rooms can one feature? How does one attract the advertising that allows the editorial to thrive? It's nearly impossible as publishing costs went up, adverisers wouldn't pay, and subscribers went down.I ditched mine for another reason! I don't want to be last in in line, but first. I got sick and tired of seeing it in Barnes and Noble and waiting two weeks for something I had already flipped through.

    Still love Veranda, Canadian House and Home, Southern Accents. I flip Elle Decor, and Architectural Digest in Barnes and Noble.. The Design Center has Luxe piled up, free to take.

    Frankly, they are allllllllll ad's with a half dozen pages of editorial. Sigh.

    My shelves are loaded with a multi thousand dollar collection of coffee table tomes......those will be next to disappear entirely.

    But that magazine, in bed, the snow, the mug of cocoa...........was heaven on earth. Delicious.

  • drdeb1234
    4 years ago

    Yes Jan, Canadian House and Home is terrific!
    Style at Home is also very good (and Canadian too), especially their High/Low feature.

  • PRO
    Diana Bier Interiors, LLC
    4 years ago
    last modified: 4 years ago

    Wow, I did not know this, but I'm not surprised. At one point in the last few years I was receiving THREE free copies of TH every month. They didn't care as this increases their circulation numbers which attracts advertisers. But they have finally hit a tipping point. And yes, Jan, they definitely are far from their original mission of true "traditional" homes. Most of the homes they feature are gray, gray and more gray, and much more modern than they used to be. In fact I believe they originally were "Colonial Homes," then "Classic American Homes," then "Traditional Home." I loved Colonial Homes.

    But is it true about House Beautiful? And I thought Southern Accents went out of business a few years ago? Coastal Living as well.

  • lolokz
    4 years ago

    I have enjoyed Trad Home and have kept some favorite issue back to 2006. I wasn't aware that the Sept/Oct issue was their last print issue; I will miss coming home from work and relaxing with a mug of tea or a glass of sherry and the magazine. To the OP, look at Veranda - beautiful homes, high end accessories, and printed on heavy paper.

  • Aphaea
    Original Author
    4 years ago
    last modified: 4 years ago

    I am glad to see I am not the only one mourning this loss. I've tried Dwell and disliked it intensely. I used to subscribe to Veranda; yes, the homes are fantastic, a kind of AD without the stupid celeb stuff. (And, LOLOKZ, you are right, the physical quality of the publication is fantastic!) But better. I stopped taking it about a year ago, though, when I found that several issues in a row weren't worth more than a rather quick trip through the issue once. Maybe I should try again.

    I loved HB with the last several editors; the final one who was good was Sophie Donaldson. But she was rather publicly canned so the management could bring in the current editor who is apparently tasked with building up the online publication, no doubt part of the preparation for getting rid of that print version too. And frankly I find her changes boring and uninteresting. She got rid of some good things and brought in, in my opinion, ersatz stuff. The publication itself is also smaller in size and noticeably thinner in pages. I still subscribe to what was for so long my favorite publication but am losing heart over this one too.

  • Kendrah
    4 years ago

    Damn. I hate flying and loved reading Trad Home as a distraction on the plane. BHG is so trashy, hardly a substitute. I agree that hard copy mags are great. You don't have to horde 2,000 of them like Patricia. One can read, enjoy and then pitch when the next month arrives. I love going to vacation rentals that have stacks of home decor magazines. So relaxing to unplug and look at pics offline. Terrible that they renewed your subscription too.

    Aphaea thanked Kendrah
  • mjkjrobinson
    4 years ago

    I love my magazines and I don"t like letting go! I have so don"t freak on me, but there are some that I say NOWAY!

  • Donald
    4 years ago

    TH isn’t out of business, it’s still there, and they will continue to print magazines, just won’t be a regular subscription based magazine. They are going to print special issues sold in retail outlets. Meredith (the publisher) does several of these types of specialty publications. But yes, the TH you are used to is changing.

    I think they are giving me some Martha Stewart title to fulfill the rest of my subscription, since I already subscribe to every other title they own.

  • PRO
    Patricia Colwell Consulting
    4 years ago

    Me too my hubby says we could have bought a new car .

  • Brown Dog
    4 years ago

    I'm the same as you guys. I miss cozying up with a good interior decor mag. But I haven't bought one or subscribed to one in about 10 years. I found they started to go light on editorial & heavy on advertising. Good content got skimpy. It's the same old story. Instead of these great publications being run by design professionals who love their industry, the suits took over with their eye on profit. And now mags are what they are. These days I see more one-off specialty mags for sale and they look really interesting but the cover price is way too high. Almost the same price as a book In some cases!

  • ladybug A 9a Houston area
    4 years ago

    Sigh, I have/had a TH subscription and am going to miss it. Online content is not the same...

  • Aphaea
    Original Author
    4 years ago
    last modified: 4 years ago

    Brown Dog, me too I always pick up those special issues in the store but regardless of how appealing they are I am NOT paying $10-$15 (or worse) for what is essentially a single issue magazine. It does make me wonder if there are enough people like you and me that eventually "the suits" will see that such a move is not paying off the way they hoped. We shall see . . .

  • M Miller
    4 years ago
    last modified: 4 years ago

    I am coming to this thread late, but just regarding hoarding magazines, I recently got rid of about 30 that I was keeping (I cannot imagine keeping the number that Patricia Colwell did). I did a day-long project of going through them, and seeing the few photos or product credits I liked in each magazine. Then I searched them online, found the photos of those things, and saved them on my Pinterest account.

    Now they are so easy to see - no need to leaf through pages and pages to find that dimly-remembered photo. I am also amazed how everything is available on Google Images, and/or the magazines’ websites, and/or the manufacturers websites. Another advantage - when I talk to an interior designer for my next project, I can just point her to my Pinterest account. I have everything organized in Pinterest Albums I created like “bathrooms”, “wallpapers”, “lighting”, “kitchens” (with several sub-folders for kitchens!), etc.

    I am still buying shelter magazines, particularly Architectural Digest and Luxe (which has different editions for different cities), but I no longer have to clutter my home with saved magazines.

  • Aphaea
    Original Author
    4 years ago

    HU-118390149, I will be giving you a call. It looks sufficiently interesting to try it out for one year. Too bad it's only quarterly but that's the way it is. Thanks!

  • PRO
    JAN MOYER
    4 years ago
    last modified: 4 years ago

    I leaf them in the store. I have cut myself off from buying them, for the most part. I have long ago cut the subscriptions to any and all.

    I realize they're hideously expensive to produce. But when you fill it with 90 pages of advertising and four pages of editorial ? That is what happens. You lose the reader. Entirely.

    I'd have gladly paid double or triple for the subscription , long ago, for a real product. Instead.......was the very slippery slide to no real product at ALL.

    It's a shame, really. Nothing like taking a brand new shelter mag to bed, or to lunch at an outdoor table with a glass of wine.. I still pop for a Veranda now and then. Usually end up disappointed.

  • drdeb1234
    4 years ago

    Jan, I think those two Canadian mags I mentioned are still pretty great

  • PRO
    JAN MOYER
    4 years ago
    last modified: 4 years ago

    Not great enough to buy. House and Home USED to be fantastic, until they started too many images to a page, and got cluttered, : ) In the same way House Beautiful was wonderful thirty years ago, ruined by the same thing, and the loss of one fabulous editor in JoAnn Barwick. That began the slide to a junk yard : (

  • HU-641619785
    4 years ago

    FYI - I just saw a Spring 2020 issue of Traditional Home at the supermarket. It was printed as $12.99 US for the single issue. I'm appalled that they sent me to BHG in lieu for my subscription under the guise that it would no longer be published. At that price, they're simply putting the nails in the coffin for some reason I don't understand.

  • M Miller
    4 years ago
    last modified: 4 years ago

    If you go to Traditional Home’s FB page, there are tons of posts by the magazine about their current Spring issue. No mention of going out of business or “We’re back” or anything like that. From the comments, it appears they are no longer offering mailed subscription magazine. It’s newsstands only at the $12.99 price you mentioned.

    Here’s one of the FB posts.

  • Aphaea
    Original Author
    4 years ago

    TH can go suck an egg. I will not pay $13 for a single issue of ANY magazine.

  • Kim Palmer
    4 years ago

    So sad- thought My subscription had lapsed! i, too, feel they abandoned their audience- “Traditional” is not the same as expensive - too many modern rooms in the recent issues for my taste. Very sad indeed.

  • Sherri
    3 years ago

    Hello all - I was wondering if anyone had an old issue from what I believe is December or Holiday 2019? It had a piece on a Michigan Home that I was really needing to get a copy of the article for more research on this for building a home that we are working on. It was under Neutral Palette: Exhuberant Holiday in the Design section. Ive been trying to find the article or story on line for quite some time, but only a few Pinterest pics pop up. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks a bunch!!

  • Lynn Labonty
    3 years ago

    they are still selling as issues on line thanks for the heads up

  • tartanmeup
    3 years ago

    Sherri, I hope you found the story you needed. Did you write the magazine directly? Seems my latest TH issue is the Sept/Oct 2019 one. Just in case, I checked the TOC and your story isn't in it.


    The TH issue I spotted on the newsstand yesterday was $15.99 Cdn. A bit rich for me right now considering I'm already overdosing on free web content.

  • PRO
    JAN MOYER
    3 years ago
    last modified: 3 years ago

    Sheri.........winter 2019 AND 2018 To order/link

    https://www.zinio.com/traditional-home/console-4803-146954-i426698




  • HU-642883715
    3 years ago

    I subscribed to Traditional Home for years. Then, not so very long ago, I received a letter saying that Traditional Home would no longer be in production. I am receiving Better Homes and Gardens and Living until my Traditional Home subscription runs out. Those are OK, but they are different from Traditional Home as you say, and I still prefer Traditional Home! Now, I am seeing surveys and advertisements that include new issues of Traditional Home from 2020! I do not understand exactly what is going on with this, but I am checking it out. Maybe you should check on this as well.


  • My3dogs ME zone 5A
    3 years ago
    last modified: 3 years ago

    Here's an article that may be of interest - https://businessofhome.com/articles/traditional-home-returns-to-mailboxes

    First paragraph from the article linked above -

    A little over one year after pivoting to a newsstand-only bookazine model, Meredith Magazines has announced that starting with its fall issue, which debuts July 30, Traditional Home will once again be available for home delivery. Though the content has remained largely the same throughout changes in the magazine’s distribution, its business model has completely transformed. In a tumultuous print media landscape, the brand’s return to subscriptions demonstrates how Meredith has found an avenue to give beloved brands a second life—even in a challenging advertising environment.

    Later on in the article -

    Success looks much different for Meredith’s revamped high-end quarterlies. The company had been putting 360,000 issues of Traditional Home on newsstands to test its appeal; as the magazine shifts into its next phase, that number will stay roughly the same. Newsstand buyers will still see a $12.99 price on each issue; subscribers will get a full year for $20—a savings, but a far cry from the deep discounts of the previous model.

    I just subscribed for the 4/year issues for $20 here - https://www.magazine.store/traditional-home/?search=traditional+home&_requestid=187799

    It also included access to the digital issue which was a surprise. It will renew at $20 per year unless you request it to stop.

  • kitsi715
    3 years ago

    I completely agree!!!!

  • lizzierobin
    3 years ago

    My3Dogs - I wrote my check out about an hour ago for a two year subscription but heck, I am tearing that baby up and going online like you did. Thanks for the info!

  • PRN
    3 years ago

    The only print magazine I still get (it's given to me as a gift each year by my sister) is Martha Stewart Living and I can go through an issue in 5-10 minutes as there is so little content. From what I see at the supermarket magazine rack, that's the norm. Total waste of money. I get more pleasure and information online for free.

  • lizzierobin
    3 years ago

    I too get Martha Stewart, and get through it as quickly. I can only hope the new TH is as good as it used to be.

  • PRO
    Diana Bier Interiors, LLC
    3 years ago

    Don't get your hopes up. "Traditional Home" is anything but traditional. It morphed from "Colonial Homes" to "Classic American Homes" to "Traditional Homes" and lost any reference to the past. Most of the homes featured in these magazines are colorless cookie-cutter or way-out fantasies of designers hoping to make their mark.

    I just got an "invitation" to get a year of THREE magazines for $8.97! House Beautiful, Veranda and Elle Decor. I'm going to pass after viewing what they feature on their websites. Not worth having to recycle the paper.

  • tartanmeup
    3 years ago

    Certainly a lot of truth in your words, Diana. "Touches of traditional" was more like it. I saw the three magazine bundle in a local store last week - $15 something here in Canada (for 3 issues, not a year subscription). I passed because I had already bought the House Beautiful issue and know Elle Decor to be feature-skimpy.


    I do miss magazines though. I get nostalgic for their finite format allowing me to appreciate it at my leisure. All this infinite online content is often just too much for me. Addictive endless scrolling that's often pointless. But man, have I spent a small fortune on magazines in my life! No need to get back to that. :(

  • Mari Romeo
    2 years ago

    We keep all the old ones and keep reading them over and over.

  • PRO
    Diana Bier Interiors, LLC
    last year

    I totally understand what you are saying @pkatzzz and respect your experience in the advertising industry. As a CPA and a designer (yes, an unusual combination) I understand economics, business, cost structure, and the profit motive.

    Riddle me this, then. I have a second home in a high end vacation area on the East End of Long Island. Despite the incredible wealth of many of the homeowners out there, there are LOTS of free magazines that everyone reads. They are delivered to homes, and stacked in front of tony restaurants, retail stores, and real estate offices. And these are not flimsy, thin, cheap publications. Just to give one example (there are many more), Hamptons Cottages and Gardens is a glossy shelter magazine featuring homes of celebrities, high-end designers, and builders of $$$$$ homes. The advertisers include real estate companies in Manhattan, Bel Air, and Palm Beach in the US, and many more in Europe. Other magazines focus on celebrities, travel, beauty, and fashion and feature advertisers like Fendi, Tiffany, Cartier, Jimmy Choo, etc. etc. I'm guessing that this is a rarefied market that just doesn't act like those in more normal neighborhoods.

  • Patricia Okkerse-Memsic
    last year

    On the subject of the "NEW" Traditional Home, I am disgusted. I bought a subscritpion to TH in 1989, when the magazine first began. I continued my subscription through 2019. Within 1 month after I renewed my subscription to TH, they sent me a letter, telling me that TH was no longer available by subscription. I asked for a refund, and they refused. They offered me a transfer subscription to some magazine I did not want, nor was it of the same value as TH. The fight went on for 5 months. They sent me $3.14 in the mail, and told me to go away. How many people did they steal money from, to recover their publication? This should not be legal. This is theft and criminal. I still subscribe to 4 design magazines, and enjoy them and share them with others. I will NOT support Traditional home, or Meredith Publications. Please, DO NOT SUPPORT THIS PUBLICATION!


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