Not just next year. It's been like that since 2022.
They scaled back the magazines further in 2022, it's true, but this is an even bigger reduction.
From that announcement posted by jwleaks, they are literally only going to produce ONE new WT and ONE new Awake in the whole of 2024!
There will only be six magazines in total for the whole year - with each issue doubled up to cover two months, not just one - and four of them will be reprints of past editions. They started doing that last year, reprinting the mags from 2018 (Awake on Families and WT on the Future) but removing the cover dates to extend their longevity - but this is taking that even further.
I seem to recall AMIII (who he?) saying on an AGM video a few years ago that was their plan: to scale back to just rotating through a small number of repeated core topics with the public mags. How boring, and how counterproductive on the ministry.
Return visits and supposed "interested ones" will soon spot the repetition and get sick of it. I already know many people noticed after the lockdown ended that congregations still had stocks of old 2019/2020/2021 mags that were still being offered, and they were complaining that there was nothing new. It will be a pain for all those publishers - especially pioneers - who got their time in from magazine placements, too. Noone will want to see the same old subjects for two whole months then recycled again a year or so later!
They already scaled back magazines so much that they got rid of separate magazine servants. At this rate, they might as well scrap the whole literature assignment, especially when so many congregations are struggling to appoint ministerial servants!
GB2.0 really do seem to be their own worst enemies with these crazy decisions. Talk about running your own organisation into the ground.
