The Saturday Evening Post ends print after 205 years

The Saturday Evening Post will stop printing. The American magazine, founded in Philadelphia in 1821, told its subscribers that the January and February 2027 issue will be the last one on paper. The New York Times reported the decision on 2 September, and other outlets followed.

The magazine will stay online. It says it will keep publishing new fiction and non-fiction there, and it will keep its archive open.

About 50,000 subscribers still get the Post on paper

Joan SerVaas, the president and publisher, wrote to readers in the September issue. Roughly 50,000 people still receive the printed magazine. That is a small base to carry the cost of paper, printing and postage, and those costs have gone up.

SerVaas says advertising money moved away from print

SerVaas told the Philadelphia Inquirer that advertising revenue “has shifted away from print”, and that the title does not reach the younger readers advertisers want. The pattern is not new. Money keeps moving to screens, and online advertising in Australia grew 14 percent in the last full year.

Norman Rockwell painted 322 covers for the Post from 1916

The Post is one of the best known magazine brands in the United States. Norman Rockwell drew 322 covers for it across 47 years, starting in 1916. The magazine sat in the Curtis Building in Philadelphia from 1910 to 1969, then moved to Indianapolis. SerVaas said the publisher is talking to the University of Pennsylvania about a home for the archive, which includes board minutes going back to 1886.

Polish publishers are still adding paper, not dropping it

The direction is not the same everywhere. In Poland, Harper’s Bazaar came back to newsstands with a 336-page issue this week, and Rzeczpospolita put a digital editor in charge of the daily. Print still works when a title sells an object people want to keep, or when it comes bundled with a paid digital service.

What a media buyer should ask a 205-year-old brand

For media buyers the lesson is about brands, not paper. A title can lose its print edition and keep its name, its archive and its readers. Before writing off a magazine partner, it is worth asking how many people the brand reaches online, how old they are, and what the publisher can offer beyond a page: newsletters, events, licensed images. A logo from 1821 is worth something. A print run of 50,000 is worth less than it used to be.