San Diego Magazine / August 2005 / For Richer

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For Richer

IN TIMES OF CHANGE—tumultuous or not—there are always questions. In light of the recent sale of San Diego Magazine, allow me to take the lectern.

Here are queries we’ve been fielding since it was announced CurtCo Publishing bought us in late June. Some age-old questions snuck in, too, stuff we’ve been getting since even before Richard Nixon called San Diego his “lucky city.”

For your edification:

Okay, which magazine are you guys again? I sometimes get them confused. Sure, all right, we’ll start slow. This one’s easy. We’re the magazine you’re holding in your hands. Put your finger on this page and turn to the cover. Yummy, huh? We’re San Diego Magazine. Covering all aspects of news, current events, arts, culture, fashion, design and restaurants in, yup, that’s right, eastern Beijing.

Once in a while we get phone calls from people looking for San Diego Home/Garden Lifestyles (usually creditors). Different magazine. A few readers occasionally mistake us for San Diegan, San Diego Metropolitan, Vanity Fair, Vibe and Northern Ohio Live. Nope. There’s also a chain magazine in the market called Riviera San Diego. There’s a real easy way to distinguish the two. If you find yourself reading an actual story, chances are you’ve picked up San Diego Magazine.

What’s going to happen now that CurtCo bought your magazine? Will we still receive the most in-depth, wellrounded coverage in the city? That is an excellently worded question. The answer is yes.

First, nobody lost his or her job. Tom Blair is still the editor-in-chief. He’s still the must-read he’s been since his bygone columnist days as the best reason to open the local daily newspaper.

CurtCo is based in Malibu. Sure, we’ve been trying to get on their calendar for any upcoming company beach parties or clambakes. But we’re being assured they want us to continue to operate as we have for nearly 60 years—give or take a few incidents involving duct tape and a couple of interns.

CurtCo, which publishes the ultra-luxury-aimed Robb Report, will be a resource for San Diego Magazine, not an overlord. And don’t worry. If they recommend nixing the crossword puzzle? We’ll sic those three bloodlusting readers on them. The ones who wrote salty letters, picketed and email blasted us when we tried to kill it.

What’s Robb Report, anyway? If you make a million dollars a year, you’re the target market. The magazine, with a subscription base of 108,000, provides in-depth coverage on the best of the best-of-the-best cars, boats, homes, motorcycles, wine, cigars and gadgets. Robb Report goes for $7.99-$9.99 per issue. However, you can save $45 off the newsstand price with an annual subscription for $65. A two-year subscription is $100 (a $120 savings). If you don’t pull in seven figures but want to give the impression you do, spring for Robb Report’s June “Best of the Best” issue ($9.99). Casually leave it face up on the passenger seat of your Hyundai.

Why is it called Robb Report? Who is Robb? Ah, the intrigue. “Robb” is allegedly Robert “Rusty” White, who established Robb Report as a newsletter for Rolls- Royce owners almost 30 years ago in Atlanta. White’s nickname—besides “Rusty”—apparently was “Robb.” Rusty, er, Robb’s newsletter was eventually acquired by the Phillips family, which turned the newsletter into a magazine focused on the luxury lifestyle. CurtCo acquired Robb Report and Showcase (now The Robb Report Collection) magazines in June 2001.

How much did CurtCo pay for San Diego Magazine? Nobody will tell me. But I have noticed Jim Fitzpatrick, who sold the magazine to CurtCo, seems to spend a lot more time now reading Robb Report. Fitzpatrick is staying on as president of San Diego Magazine. (I guess the deserted island he bought in Tahiti isn’t ready yet . . .)

What else can you tell us about CurtCo? Besides Robb Report and San Diego Magazine, the company owns Worth, Showboats International, Sarasota and Gulfshore Life and a host of single-industry-focused titles. CurtCo’s charismatic president is William Curtis. He’s a Los Angeles Dodgers fan, but we’ll save making a point of that until right after the Padres win the pennant.

How many people work at your company? About half of them. Ha-ha! I love that joke. Actually, San Diego Magazine employs about 36 people. CurtCo has 300-plus people in offices in Malibu, Boston, New York City and Fort Lauderdale, Sarasota and Naples, Florida. Oh yeah, and San Diego.

Why does San Diego Magazine have so many plastic surgery ads? That’s an old stereotype. We’re no longer front-to-back with before-and-after photos of elderly women with faces so artificially taut their eyes blink when they chew. Just 2 percent of ad sales now come from plastic surgeons. And now, those ads are more likely to feature a woman who has regained her girlish figure and has happily packaged the goods in a fashionable bikini. You got a problem with that?

But to answer your question quite literally, if more cosmetic surgeons choose to advertise in our magazine, it must be because we are a well-read publication. Plastic surgery ads run everywhere—look at page A2 of The San Diego Union-Tribune sometime. The difference is that our ads are in color.

Hey, what’s going to happen to Randy “Duke” Cunningham? Let’s try to keep the questions magazine/CurtCo related, please. But since you asked . . . He’ll probably have to retire to his new Rancho Santa Fe home. He’ll spend his post-Congress weekend days shopping for Oreos and Depends, wearing a wife-beater T-shirt and black socks under his Birkenstocks.

For those intently following the CurtCo purchase and who don’t know what’s going on: San Diego’s 50th District member of the U.S. House of Representatives is in a deep vat of doo-doo. Cunningham sold his Del Mar house to a defense contractor friend, one he helps get lucrative government contracts. Mitchell Wade resold the house months later for a $700,000 loss. In real-estate-mad 2003. In Del-freakin’-Mar.

The Duke also sold his Washington, D.C., boat/residence to a shady associate for a $400,000 profit that went toward the new house. Unlike houses—and well-run magazines, for that matter—boats don’t normally appreciate. The Dukester soon may be reconsidering his annual subscription to Robb Report.

So once and for all, why did CurtCo purchase San Diego Magazine? Would you want to spend your time 24/7 in greater Los Angeles? It’s an excuse for executive road trips. Claims of synergy between the national exposure of Robb Report and the intimate relationship San Diego Magazine has with local, influential readers may have some credence. But I think CurtCo’s corporate team really just wanted to be guaranteed invites to our annual “50 People To Watch” party.

© 2006 San Diego Magazine