I agree here, although I think the melodic rock/metal content in CR is pretty good. I was very pleasantly surprised by the fact that CR didn´t close down after 2-3 issues, it is very consistant in terms of quality and the journalism is excellent. A comment above is a little worrying though: if CR doesn´t have good distribution in the US then that´s something it should address. The free CD is certainly an incentive to buy and there must be some way of getting over the legal problems in distributing that in the USA and indeed elsewhere in Europe.
A bit off topic here, but let´s not forget the internet magazines such as this one. Andrew does a brilliant job on this site, and my interest and enthusiasm in MHR has been greatly renewed by the use of the Net generally. I actually rely on opinions from other fans on this site to find/buy albums from "new" (to me) bands and have not been disappointed! Industry support is of course essential for the genre to grow, but ground base fan support and enthusiasm certainly plays a big part too. Long live Classic Rock, Melodicrock.com, the Power Zone, Ultimate Shred Page and all the other sites dedicated to keeping the faith!!!