“Country Weekly” Is The Latest Victim of the “NASH” Brand Implosion
Welp, here’s yet another thing the Dickey Brothers and their stupid plan to take over the world with their moronic “NASH” brand has screwed up. Not that Country Weekly was ever good for much more than getting housewives hot and bothered in the checkout aisle with pictures of Keith Urban on the cover, or lining the floor of Tweetie’s bird cage, but it was one of the last places you could find pertinent news about country music in print, and now after 20+ years of publication it’s no more, at least in print form.
Country Weekly started in 1994 as a country music lifestyle magazine that ran interviews with stars and covered news from around the genre. In 2014, Cumulus purchased 50% of the magazine in a partnership with it’s owners American Media and eventually relaunched as NASH Country Weekly. And in typical corporate takeover fashion, Cumulus is now gutting the publication to deal with plummeting stock prices that have fallen 93% in a year, while the company suffocates beneath $2.5 billion in debt.
Announced on Thursday (4-14) Cumulus is ordering the print division of NASH Country Weekly closed and laying off most or all of the assigned staff. NASH Country Weekly will stay open as an online outlet rebranded as NASH Country Daily. So instead of having 100 online country outlets to print the same exact press releases from the industry verbatim, and regurgitate blogs from Rory Feek and post jittery iPhone videos as original content in a vacuum of a unique thought or any true journalistic curiosity, we’ll now have 101. And Cumulus will still implode in the next 6 to 18 months. Meanwhile even more hard-working professionals in the country industry are out a paycheck.
Of course, Cumulus is trying to put a positive spin on all of this.
“This is a win-win,” says Senior Vice President of content and programming for Cumulus, Mike McVay. Gee, I wonder if the laid off employees feel that way. “While enabling exponentially more country music fans to access NASH content, when and where they choose, it frees significant resources for us to laser-focus and double down on our investment in the properties and platforms of the powerful NASH brand that present the greatest growth potential. We remain deeply committed to NASH, proud of its cultural significance and influence in the country community and optimistic about its future.”
No doubt the print model for publications has become more and more difficult with the advent of the internet, don’t buy into the idea this was a forced move by Cumulus because circulation of the magazine was so low. Country Weekly was never a big subscription publication, it was an impulse buy at grocery stores right beside the bubble gum. It’s not surprising that the publication is deciding to focus more on the online medium, but it proves yet again that Cumulus’ “NASH” brand is not a buoy, it’s an anchor.
April 14, 2016 @ 9:29 am
”Not that Country Weekly was ever good for much more than getting housewives hot and bothered in the checkout aisle with pictures of Keith Urban ……….”
I thought that’s ALL it was Trigger . The NASH thing has no real presence ‘ up here’ ( Canada ) yet .
…BTW ….that ‘country dude’ in the photo above is missing 3/4 of his RED cowboy hat , a repertoire and a reason to be on that cover
April 14, 2016 @ 9:52 am
Putting Sam Hunt on the inaugural cover of “NASH” Country Weekly may have been a harbinger of things to come.
April 14, 2016 @ 9:42 am
Sad news, but somewhat expected. Although I quit buying the magazine about 10 years ago, I was a long time subscriber from its early days. I still have a garage full of issues (alongside those of the sainted Music City News). Print media is hurting all over due to the availability of online content and wide use of available technology.
April 14, 2016 @ 9:54 am
Country Weekly had some really good articles and interviews back in the day. There are still some print media outlets surviving, but they’re doing it by offering something unique, like “slow news” articles that people want to sink their teeth into. By offering the same thing online blogs are, but just a week later, “NASH Country Weekly” was not long for this world.
April 14, 2016 @ 10:20 am
Country Weekly did have some interesting insights from time to time, and they had excellent Fan Fair recaps along with some good fan-submitted pictures and stories. However, print media is dying, and there’s no sense in major companies trying to fight this losing battle.
It is strange to see how major companies will acquire print publications and then shutter them shortly thereafter. Future US is a great example of this trend, where Future US has killed off the video game magazine market by buying up certain publications (Nintendo Power, PlayStation: The Official Magazine) then closing them down within a few years. How does such shortsightedness benefit the companies buying these publications? I guess such blunders are par for the course for Cumulus! 😛
April 14, 2016 @ 10:41 am
I still remember my first Country Weekly from 1996, bought at the checkout counter with Trisha Yearwood on the cover. I was a diehard subscriber for more than ten years. I kept all the issues. I was so obsessed I could guess which artist would make the cover based on wherever the roulette wheel landed that particular week. They only put about four or five artists on the cover, if that.
The magazine got horrible long before NASH was even a figment of some nucklehead’s imagination. I stopped reading once they fucked around with us loyal subscribers, making us buy issues exclusively on the newsstand. By that point it didn’t matter anyway since the magazine had been reduced to recycled garbage and one page features opposed to worthy articles. I don’t even know if it was that good to begin with. Country Music magazine was certainly better, as far as I can recall.
Of course, nothing compares to the passionate bloggers who upended the industry with far more in depth and insightful interviews, reviews and overall commentary. I even remember CW running a blurb about being out-scooped by the Internet. I’m hesitant to embrace change, but this was certainly one for the better.
April 14, 2016 @ 2:22 pm
Same here, it was around 2008/2009 when print media was really taking a hit. I was a subscriber and got a letter in the mail that they were discontinuing mail subscriptions, which made no sense since they were basically getting rid of guaranteed readers in favor of casual ones that they would hope pick it up at the grocery store.
April 15, 2016 @ 7:44 am
That sounds like what happened to Reader’s Digest. Articles got shorter and less in-depth and flashier. Added a bunch of page-filling graphics. They tried to compete with the web instead of offering an alternative, while at the same time eliminating issues. Worthless.
Their web page now is all list-based articles . . 10 ways to clean your stove, 8 favorite crayon colors, 16 lo-cal casseroles.
Fuck me with a fork.
April 14, 2016 @ 10:49 am
I never cared for the magazine very much. Years ago there used to be a very good bi-monthly called simply Country Music Magazine that gave really in-depth interviews (not just one page) and honest album reviews — not simply regurgitating the labels’ press releases. I subscribed to it for many years and when it folded, my subscription was transferred to Country Weekly until it ran out. Country Weekly wasn’t very good then and is probably worse now. Aside from the jobs that were unfortunately eliminated, this is no great loss at all.
April 14, 2016 @ 12:24 pm
Their internet page used to have a forum that was probably if not the best at one point. It had 25,000 registered users and many were very insightful. Even have a few friends to this day from it. It ended up getting spammed and overtaken a few times. They ended up just not putting the work into needed to get it back up and running.
I was a subscriber Of it for about five years then they discontinued home subscription. I refused to ever buy it again and I have not since. Good riddance I’m still a little angry over it.
April 14, 2016 @ 12:45 pm
Funny story. Several years ago my wife and me were in line at Walmart. While waiting we picked up a copy of Country Weekly to pass the time. While flipping the pages there was an article on Mark Chesnutt. I started looking at the pictures and noticed it looked like what he had been wearing at a concert we had went to a couple of months before. I started reading and it was the concert we had been to. So I flipped the page and there my wife and me are in the picture standing in the front row of his concert. I started showing everybody in the Walmart. For about five minutes I felt like a celebrity. I will always have a special place in my heart for country weekly because of that.
April 14, 2016 @ 2:25 pm
Very cool. My CW brush with fame came in late 2007. I wrote in a letter criticizing the magazine for not featuring Porter Wagoner on the cover after his death, and they ran a slightly abridged version of my letter in the letters section. I think I still have a copy somewhere.
April 14, 2016 @ 1:57 pm
Got to have my Country Weekly!
April 14, 2016 @ 2:09 pm
“This is a win-win. While enabling exponentially more country music fans to access NASH content, when and where they choose, it frees significant resources for us to laser-focus and double down on our investment in the properties and platforms of the powerful NASH brand that present the greatest growth potential.”
I have to admit, that is an impressive vocabulary of corporate-speak.
April 15, 2016 @ 8:00 am
I thought the same thing. Maybe I’m not the best corporate-speak translator, but here goes:
This is a win-win:
It frees up parking spaces AND room in the breakroom fridge!
While enabling exponentially more country music fans to access NASH content, when and where they choose:
There’s gonna be an (advertising heavy, bloated, buggy) app for that.
. . frees significant resources for us:
Survivors will be reassigned to stop the massive hemorrhage of cash.
. . .to laser-focus and double down:
We are circling the wagons and confirming our golden parachutes.
. . . our investment in the properties and platforms of the powerful NASH brand:
We are going to squeeze this turnip for every drop of blood we can get.
. . . that present the greatest growth potential.
We are going to polish this turd and hope potential buyers don’t notice what lies under the surface.
April 14, 2016 @ 2:19 pm
Sam Hunt on the cover aside, I found the magazine did a really got job in the past 3 or so years of featuring older and traditional artists on the cover. Merle is featured on the cover of the current issue, but in the past few weeks and months they’ve had George Strait, Dolly, Dwight Yoakam and Alan Jackson together, Vince Gill, Hank Jr and Reba. Hell when Lynn Anderson died they actually featured her on the cover and she’s by no means a draw for mainstream readers. I bought an issue about a year or so ago that had Kenny Chesney on the cover (not the reason I bought it) but inside it contained a 3 page article/interview with Moe Bandy.
The magazine had a lot of fluff but I don’t think it’s fair to diminish the attention it gave to older and traditional artists that you just don’t see on any other current mainstream country information source.
April 14, 2016 @ 2:53 pm
The reason they began featuring older artists on the cover is because older people were the only ones left buying magazines. I don’t mean to diminish a lot of the great work Country Weekly did over the years. I think it’s a shame the magazine is going out of print, especially under these circumstances. Even though I run an outlet that is solely online and always has been, I think print is very important. I think it is more substantial and has more impact then online publishing because it allows people to focus in more on the joy of reading. Cumulus and NASH never wanted the magazine, they just wanted the brand to help bolster their own.
April 16, 2016 @ 10:31 pm
I used to regularly browse the Country Weekly forums, from 2002 to 2012 when they were shut down. In general the forums were not bad, but the active participants were more mainstream than the people who posted here. In the early 2000s the posters there typically preferred mainstream traditional country (e.g. George Strait, Alan Jackson, Reba, etc) and “prime country” (80s/90s country). There was a solidly anti Shania majority, probably by a 2 to 1 margin. There were folks questioning whether Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw belonged in the country genre. Most were socially and politically conservative. A fair number of the posters wrote about classic country songs from the pre George Strait era.
Some of the women posting there did remind me of your archetype of the bored suburban soccer mom who had a vibrator named after Trace Adkins (that was one of you best lines ever, in my opinion). They often made statements that gave away their demographic (e.g. “my 13-16 year old loves Taylor”). They criticized Taylor’s music but spoke favorably of her image, which was marketed in a more culturally conservative way back in those days. But by 2012 the people on the Country Weekly forums seemed noticeably more accepting of pop country. Many of the ardent traditionalists had left, reflecting a trend on country radio and in the mainstream country community. I think Country Weekly’s time has come and gone.
April 14, 2016 @ 2:33 pm
I’ve not read the magazine in about 10 years. One thing that sticks out in my mind though, was a column of “Cheers” and Jeers”. Once, they cheered Keith Urban for having the song, “Making Memories of Us” get to #1, but jeered the industry for ignoring Tracy Byrd’s version. Which, by the way, is exponentially better than Keith’s version in my opinion.
I think I saved a few issues with George Strait on the cover. Other than that, goodbye CW.
April 15, 2016 @ 7:26 am
George always had the best covers. I bet he was on it more than any other artist ever. Long Live the King!!!
April 16, 2016 @ 10:42 pm
Yep, they were fairly favorable to Keith Urban in spite of his pop sound. He’s your typical sensitive male, the kind that many suburban mothers like. Songs like “Tonight I Wanna Cry” define his persona, that was one single that I recall getting overplayed on country radio in the 2000s. Not my kind of country.
April 14, 2016 @ 3:22 pm
Saw this in the checkout aisle today. Merle was on the cover. They should have buried it with him.
April 14, 2016 @ 4:08 pm
I still miss “Music City News”.
April 14, 2016 @ 6:56 pm
Did you have to use “That” particular cover? Sam Hunt looks like a major dork…he needs his teeth fixed! Wouldn’t be so bad if the teeth gave him some kind of character, but they just make him look like a bona-fide backwoods country hick! I don’t mean that in a good way! Just seeing that fool on the cover makes me glad I don’t buy it.
April 15, 2016 @ 2:14 am
There isn’t anything about Sam Hunt that’s country. Especially that flat brim hat.
Coming from a “bona-fide backwoods country hick.”
April 15, 2016 @ 2:27 am
Yes, but I bet you don’t look like Sam Hunt! Ok, maybe I should say just major dork….those teeth just do not look good on him! Lol!
May 3, 2016 @ 12:36 pm
I don’t want Nash Country Weekley to stop ,I love the magazine. How can we keep up with the latest news now?I’m so sad .Kathy
April 15, 2016 @ 2:09 am
Admitting that I don’t know the timeline of when Cumulus was formed and funded, I have to wonder who the genius investors were that got behind Cumulus’ business plan to roll up BOTH terrestrial radio and print, two of the most obviously dying industries around.
April 15, 2016 @ 2:30 am
Well, if the industry dies, it’s a good time to restructure what’s left, and turn it back to what it was before. Something worth listening to, and something worth reading.
April 15, 2016 @ 6:57 am
Any of these reports showing the fall of the dominant country radio/print media/record labels make me happy.
April 15, 2016 @ 9:00 am
It’s too bad Country Music magazine from the Classic Rock team never made it beyond the first two issues. Both were quite good.
April 18, 2016 @ 12:40 am
Must admit, I use to love their online forums.
April 25, 2016 @ 2:14 pm
I LOVE the fact they are trying to get away from the title “country” for this new music which, whatever it is, is clearly not country music. It would be the best thing possible for real country music if they would call this new stuff “Nash” everywhere and let the bona fide country singers have the country label.
This magazine was actually very good in the 1990’s and even a decade ago with frequent profiles and updates on many artists on off the charts for decades with nice big color photos of them. And, has been mentioned, they have been very good about (usually) giving country icons the cover story when they pass on even in recent years, from Kitty Wells to Lynn Anderson to Merle, most recently. The Lynn Anderson issue was the first one I had bought in several years and while there was almost nothing of interest in it to me because her cover story, I appreciated the tribute.
May 23, 2016 @ 9:59 am
I paid for the mag n won’t get a full year for the price I paid but since I am not an internet person that was the way I kept up with the news. I agree Sam Hunt is a dork n I hate that style hat. U want to look like a soccer player go play n leave country music alone. Also let’s boot out Florida Georgia line I don’t want to c a man grab his crotch every 5 seconds. But I love Keith n Luke Bryan !! Just read article on Collin Raye in cw
May 31, 2016 @ 2:33 pm
So are we getting refunds after paying for subscriptions? And why didn’t we get notified
May 31, 2016 @ 8:40 pm
Are we going to get our money back when we had paid subscriptions in advance. Thanks
June 3, 2016 @ 9:27 am
not notfied as of yet and it is june, what happens to my refund
July 11, 2016 @ 8:12 pm
changing a brand name twice in one year is not a good sign. should have just left it country weekly, that’s what the world of country music wants and knows.
January 22, 2017 @ 4:17 am
Totally bummed, I have subscribed and then bought, when no longer could afford subscription, issues of country weekly from its beginning. I have the first issue with Garth on the cover, protected in a folder as well as the Big Five, collectible issues and I have seriously bought every issue that Alan Jackson was ever on the cover and hopefully every one he was mentioned inside. I will miss having the opportunity to pick up an issue at leisure at my local food lion, it was a thrill to look forward to who was going to be on the next cover . I am sad and ashamed that the company could not survive this digital world and continue to produce exciting issues for us country fans, and I’m sure with some thought could have managed debt. I will miss my country music avenue of escaoe. Sincerely