Huntington Beach-based Surfline/Wave-trak Inc. ended publication of its quarterly Surfline’s Water magazine with its fall issue to focus on its Web site and social networking options.
The surf-related media company, which started as a call-in service for surfers to get reports and forecasts about wave conditions in the ’80s, ended the magazine’s almost seven-year run after a decline in advertisers and subscriptions. It won’t print its winter issue. Its 7,000 subscribers should receive a refund for unprinted issues, which cost $10 apiece.
“As 2008 progressed, our advertisers and consumers were increasing their demand for digital and scaling back on print,” said Jonno Wells, chief executive at Surfline.
The company purchased Water magazine from Newport Beach-based Bluewater Publishing Inc. in July 2007 and published it under the Surfline brand.
Surfline is looking to refocus its efforts on improving its Web site by increasing its coverage of surf news.
Plans include longer feature stories, originally planned for the magazine, and an ad-hosted Internet TV channel called SurflineTV.
The three to five minute shows including “First Take” and “How Things Work” will stream on a scheduled basis online with advertising sponsorship.
“We introduced the channel last year and now are looking to increase our offerings with new shows and more advertising support,” said David Gilovich, executive vice president and editor at Surfline.com.
“Our new shows examine the technology and innovations in the surfing industry,” he said. “We also feature top surfers and show how they do their tricks.”
The company is investing heavily in social networking options as more surfers look to the Internet to get their surfing news.
“It’s pretty dramatic how quickly the surf world gravitated to getting their information online,” Gilovich said.
LongBoard Ends
Another surfing magazine also failed to make it into 2009.
San Clemente-based Surf Safari Inc., publisher of the monthly Longboard Magazine, suspended its magazine’s print run last month.
“We’re holding off printing our next issue until the longboard community can recover from the current financial crisis it is now experiencing,” said Guy Motil, publisher and editor-in-chief at the magazine.
As a result, the company was forced to lay off most of its staff including advertising director Mike Aguirre and managing editor Chasen Marshall.
The magazine will continue working with freelance staff and independent contractors for the foreseeable future on the company’s Web site, said Motil.
Real Orange Trims Back
Huntington Beach-based KOCE-TV Foundation’s TV newscast “Real Orange” will be cut from five new shows every week to two to three shows each week.
Starting this month, “Real Orange” will tape two to three shows on Monday and continue to air five nights a week at its regular time.
“Repeats aren’t necessarily a bad thing, but we much preferred the way we were doing it before,” said Mel Roger, president and general manager at KOCE-TV.
Ed Arnold and Ann Pulice will continue to host “Real Orange.”
The changes made to “Real Orange” were part of a sizable $550,000 budget cut that also included laying off two full-time workers, cutting back hours for other employees and letting go all part-time and freelance workers.
It would be the second round of cutbacks for the public TV station in the past six months.
The public television station has struggled this year with decreases in donations from corporate sponsorships and on-air-giving.
On-air donations were down 30% in December, said Rogers.
Orange County Business Journal Executive Editor Rick Reiff’s show “Inside OC with Rick Reiff” will not be affected by the changes being made to Real Orange.
Marketing Video Upgrades
Costa Mesa-based Innovate Media Group has come out with a new version of a database for tracking online video ads.
The software allows marketers to view 12 points of reporting data from video commercials running on their Web sites.
“It’s all on the backend, allowing our clients to get the reporting data on how the video ad performed on their Web sites,” said John Cecil, cofounder of Innovate.
The goal is to make it easier for an advertiser to determine if an ad is working and how well, Cecil said.
The production shop produces and delivers online video ads to clients including New York-based Canon USA Inc., part of Japan’s Canon Inc., Tustin-based Cookie Lee Inc. and Santa Ana-based First American Corp.
The shop also is working with Los Angeles-based Napster Inc., part of Minnesota-based Best Buy Co.
Napster saw an increased rate of people signing up for its music sharing service since once of Innovate’s video ads started running on Napster’s Web site, Cecil said.
