Columbia House Is Shutting Down
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Columbia House, the mail-order music and entertainment club that has operated in some form since 1955, is closing down after 71 years. A notice on its website states that it will stop accepting new orders after 15 September 2026, though customers will still be able to buy books using credit cards or existing credits.
The company began as Columbia Record Club, offering cheap introductory batches of LPs in exchange for future full-price purchases, and grew to a peak membership of 16 million in 1996 thanks to widespread advertising. It changed hands several times before filing for bankruptcy in 2015, after which it abandoned music sales in favour of DVDs. Alongside its fame as a dominant force in CD sales, Columbia House was long criticised for practices such as negative option billing, which kept charging customers unless they actively cancelled.
- Columbia House, founded in 1955, is shutting down entirely
- New orders end after 15 September 2026
- Once had 16 million members; went bankrupt in 2015
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Columbia House was a mail-order club that sent customers records, and later CDs and DVDs, through the post. It started in 1955 as Columbia Record Club, luring people in with cheap batches of introductory albums in return for a commitment to buy more at full price later. At its height in 1996 it had around 16 million members, making it one of the biggest forces in music retail at the time.
The business struggled as music buying moved online and physical formats declined, and it went through several owners before filing for bankruptcy in 2015. After that it dropped music entirely and continued as a smaller operation selling DVDs. It was also known for negative option billing, a practice that kept charging members automatically unless they took action to cancel, which drew criticism over the years.
The wider significance is that Columbia House was once a major symbol of how people bought music and films at home before streaming existed, so its closure marks the end of a business model that shaped how millions of households built their record and DVD collections.