Columbia House, the once-ubiquitous mail-order music club famous for offering a dozen albums for a single penny, is closing down for good. The company announced on its website that it will stop accepting new orders after 15 September 2026, marking the end of a brand that shaped how generations of fans discovered and bought music before streaming existed.

Founded in 1955 as the Columbia Record Club, the business took off in the early 1970s under the Columbia House name and reached its peak in the 1990s CD boom with around 16 million members. Its penny-for-a-dozen-records offer was infamous for hiding a "negative option billing" catch, whereby members were sent a new album each month and charged full price unless they actively declined it. The music side of the operation actually ended back in 2009, after which the company survived selling DVDs, went through bankruptcy in 2015, and changed hands several times before this final shutdown.