Iowa Politics with Jeff Stein -- Mon. Aug. 24, 2026

Music for a penny.

I'm Jeff Stein with today's Iowa Politics Report.

As a teenager in the 1970s, I couldn't wait to get permission to sign up for the Columbia House Record Club.

The ads sounded great.

Send in a penny and you'd get 12 record albums.

And each month after, you'd have the choice of buying their record of the month by simply mailing a card back to them.

It became a family event.

A few albums for me, a few my brother picked, and a few selected by my parents.

Obviously, the cost of the monthly LP was more than you'd pay in a store, but back then you had to drive to the nearest town of Syse and visit the Music Land store in the mall there just to buy any album.

This, coming to your door in the mail, was convenience like we'd never had.

Sadly, like the penny itself,

Columbia House is leaving the scene.

As technology changed, those 12 albums for one cent became cassettes, then CDs.

A decade ago, bankruptcy plagued the company and the new owners pivoted to DVDs and Blu-ray discs.

Today's world of digital downloads and streaming video has meant the end of the company, which will officially shut down September 15th.

The whole thing was started by Columbia Records as a way to promote its artists.

By 1996, Columbia House had 16 million members, but things declined in that new digital world to follow and a plan to turn Columbia House back into a vinyl delivery service never materialized.

What comes around goes around and now vinyl records are wildly popular again.

but not popular enough to keep Columbia House alive.

The Book of the Month Club hit hard times too, but now is flourishing again and celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.

Maybe Columbia House will turn up again, just like a shiny new penny.

And that's the Iowa Politics Report for Monday, August 24 on Twitter, Instagram, Gitter, Threads and Truth Social and Iowa Politics.

I'm Jeff Stein on News Talk 1540, KXEL.