4:22 p.m. | Updated The magazine industry, which has already been hurt by advertising declines and the loss of readers, spent Wednesday afternoon reeling from the latest news that they no longer would be able to get magazines delivered on Saturdays.

Magazine publishers were especially surprised at how quickly the new policy is expected to take effect. Postal Service officials plan to stop delivering mail on Saturdays as early as Aug. 5th.

The Magazine Publishers Association issued a statement on Wednesday afternoon saying that it feared magazines that were published weekly would be most affected by the news. That is a segment of the magazine market that has been especially hard hit by consumers getting more of their news online. Newsweek, for example, stopped its print publication late last year.

Officials with the Magazine Publishers Association said they had testified in 2011 that cutting Saturday delivery would mean magazines would have to make major changes in how they were run.

Most magazine publishers try to get issues to readers on Fridays and Saturdays so that they can catch up on magazine reading over the weekend. It appeared from early conversations with magazine executives that they simply would have to encourage their eager readers to get more of their content online.

Ali Zelenko, a spokeswoman for Time, said in a statement that the magazine “has been anticipating this possibility for a while and we are preparing plans to continue timely delivery of the magazine to our subscribers.” She added that subscribers would be able to get their content on tablets and at Time.com as early as Thursday. Time magazine closes on Wednesdays and delivers issues to readers by Friday, Saturday and Monday.

Steven Kotok, chief executive officer of the magazine The Week, said that he would readjust the magazine’s publishing schedule. The Week is currently printed on Wednesdays so that readers receive it by Friday “with Saturday as the fail-safe”.

“We will move The Week’s close time either a day earlier or a couple of days later to ensure the magazine our readers receive is just as timely after the change as it is now,” Mr. Kotok said. “We will make that decision based on what works best for The Week’s readers, who pay a premium price to receive their magazine each week.”

The New Republic, which recently underwent a redesign, had been taking these potential changes into account.

Sloan Eddleston, chief operating officer for The New Republic, said he expects that the announcement would only affect about 10 percent of subscribers. The magazine closes on Wednesday and is placed in the mail on Thursdays or Fridays. While some readers receive the magazine on Friday or Saturday, Mr. Eddleston said that “Most get it on Monday. So for that reason it won’t have a large impact on our subscriber base.”

The news was especially shocking to celebrity weeklies, which have been competing with online Web sites delivering gossip far faster than weekly news. Titles like People, which closes on Tuesdays, are typically delivered in the mail to subscribers by Friday and Saturday.

Claudia DiRomualdo, a spokeswoman for People, said the magazine was “making adjustments to ensure that our readers receive People when they expect it.” She added, “Our all access and digital only subscribers can already get our magazine content on the tablet as early as Thursday.”

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