• February 24, 2009

Hallmark Cards is shuttering the 3-year-old bimonthly Hallmark Magazine with the February/March issue. The Hallmarkmagazine.com site also will close. The magazine, focused on family, home and lifestyle, launched with a September/October 2006 premiere issue and a rate base of 400,000. The Feb/Mar 2009 issue reached a rate base of 800,000. Advertising pages also increased steadily, including a 30% increase in 2008 over 2007. The pub employed 28 staffers; another 10 in the Kansas City-based creative division will be equally impacted by the closure. Donald J. Hall, Jr., Hallmark CEO, said that despite the favorable response, the company "cannot justify continued investment in the magazine at a time when we must focus our efforts and resources only on those projects that will lead to long-term profitable revenue growth."