A study was done to describe the typical new consumer magazine that was published in the United States between 1979 and 1983 and to determine the relationships between those magazines still being published (as of 1984) and those that ceased publication. A content analysis of 234 new magazines utilized circulation figures, commonalities of first issue, cover price, subscription price, publication date, magazine location, and frequency of publication, among other variables to discover the construction of a typical magazine for the period under study. It was found that the typical product could be considered as a fact sheet on the status of the new American magazines of the 1980s: a cover price of $2.00 and a subscription price of $14.00 per year, initially published bimonthly and later shifting to a monthly frequency, and carrying 21 pages of advertising and 69 pages of editorial material. In studying the 26 most common variables that existed among the new magazines and their relationships to survival or death of the magazines, it was found that only two have a significant effect on the survival of the new magazine: the cover price and the frequency of publication. (Author/CRH)