The March 2005 Kingdom Ministry brings up a full article about the Awake only being published once a month, starting January 2006.
But the fun thing is the roundabout way this change is announced. Knowing that the news would be a bitter pill to swallow (there should be a 'speeding up' of the preaching work, not a downsizing), the Watchtower only announces the move to monthly publishing by the end of the article. The whole piece is designed to soften the fact that "Jehovah's table" will have its "food supply" reduced.
The article states that the magazine has gone through various "adjustments" through the years, like the name change from The Golden Age to Consolation and then to Awake!. It goes on to say that, although many articles of a non-religious nature have been published, the millions of Awake readers should do more than simply read the magazines in order to "survive the day of Jehovah's anger." The March KM then asserts that, from January 2006 on, the Awake will 'give more emphasis to the Kingdom of God' . They say that the magazine will still present articles on general subjects, but 'it will put more emphasis on the Bible.'
Only at this point the WT states that, since there will be so much "biblical information" in both Watchtower and Awake, 'it doesn't seem necessary' to 'publish the Awake semimonthly'. And so they inform the Witnesses that the Awake will become a monthly magazine and that there will be a considerable simplification in the preparation, translation and shipping of the publications. ("Simplification" is such a conspicuous JW buzzword...)
In a genuine Orwellian fashion, the WT announces that this simplification will affect about 40% of the languages in which the Awake is published because the others are monthly already. That leaves aside the fact that the 60% remaining account for minor languages only, which have a small circulation; the significant portion of the magazine's printing comes exactly from those "40%" in the language count, languages like English and Spanish.
The KM article also states that the publishers will offer the same Awake during the whole month, together with any of the two current Watchtower issues.
This is huge news from DubLand and shows how the WT religion is becoming increasingly superficial. Sounds like writing Awake articles is becoming a burden to Bethel. They don't have much to say anymore and want to mask their intellectual decline by making some "pruning" while still profiting from the mag. But they don't want to shock the "friends" with the change and so they write an article such as this to avoid embarrassment.
I am 100% sure that it was not their 'love for the Bible' that prompted them to make this move.
(BTW: I don't have the original article with me so I'd be glad if someone could post a copy of it when it becomes available.)
Neo