Blue's Country Magazine

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Blue's Country Magazine
Type	Monthly magazine
Format	271 X 200 mm. 94 to 112 pages per issue

Owner	Australian Consolidated Press
Publisher	PSA Media
Editor	Martin Rusis (acting)
Founded	1986
Price	AU$5.45
Headquarters	Level 2, 12 Browning Street Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Website: www.bluescountry.com.au

Blue’s Country Magazine is a rural affairs magazine owned since mid-2007 by Australian Consolidated Press as part of their Trader International group. It is distributed across the sub-tropical and tropical farming belt of Australia. As a free monthly publication the magazine fills a niche between weekly newspapers and subscription based monthly magazines.

While Blue’s (as it is commonly known) covers news and current events the bulk of the magazine covers community interest pieces (including letters, humour and bush ‘yarns’), equipment and product information – it also has a stable of regular columnists.

The magazine is unusual in that it prides itself as being specifically biased toward primary producers. Also unusual is that the mascot of the publication, the eponymous 'Blue' who forms the apostrophe in the magazine's masthead, is not a Blue Heeler but a Border Collie.

[edit] Circulation

Blue’s is the largest circulating rural publication per issue in Queensland and the third largest in Australia. Initially circulation was 10,000 copies per issue and restricted to distribution in north Queensland. This was increased with the Aug/Sept '93 issue to 19,000 copies per issue (CAB audit 18,438 copies per issue) and expanded to cover central Queensland and the Northern Territory. As of late 2007 Blue’s distributes 48,671 copies (CAB audit).

[edit] History

Blue's was initiated as four page 'Mail Bag' in September 1986, but was transformed to magazine format by the then publisher Paul Townsend in October 1987. The next publisher, MB Johnson Holdings Pty Ltd, purchased the magazine in June 1991. In this period the magazine expanded to its present position in the marketplace. Publishing Services Australia (later PSA Media) took over publishing in 2000 and is currently expanding circulation into northern NSW while giving Blue’s a presence online.