The publisher of Orange Coast magazine hopes to put together a deal to purchase the monthly magazine and its ancillary operations in the wake of Indianapolis-based Emmis Communications Corp.’s announcement that it wants to sell the title.
His interest in buying Orange Coast follows word that Emmis Communications Chief Executive Jeff Smulyan plans to sell its six regional magazines to help finance a move to take the company private.
Christopher Schulz has been president and publisher of Orange Coast—a Newport Beach-based glossy publication that’s part of what’s known as the “regional” segment of the magazine industry—since 2013. He previously held similar posts with Firebrand Media LLC in Laguna Beach and the Orange County Register’s magazine operations.
Schulz took on responsibility for creating a new consumer magazine division for Register parent Freedom Communications, with a focus on Orange County. The operation acquired Coast magazine in 2000, and also launched and managed other local print and digital publications under the banner of OCR Magazines, later renamed Freedom Specialty Media. It was an eight-year stint at the helm of Coast and the other magazines. He left in 2008 to become the president of Gulfshore Life, overseeing a portfolio of magazines in Naples and Sarasota, Fla.
Emmis is a radio and publishing company with operations in nine U.S. markets. The decision to go private is based on “the lack of any fervor for traditional media companies on Wall Street,” Smulyan told the Business Journal. “Being public with a company this size has very significant costs.”
Selling noncore assets would enable Emmis to narrow its focus and reduce its debt, he said. Among the likely sales candidates are Orange Coast and five other regional monthly print publications, including Los Angeles magazine, Texas Monthly and publications in Cincinnati and Atlanta.
Smulyan said Emmis is open to selling the publications in a group or individually.
“With Orange Coast, there may be someone that may want Los Angeles and Orange Coast (magazines) together,” he said. “We think that might make some sense.”
Local Focus
Schulz said he’s interested only in purchasing Orange Coast because his “focus, knowledge and interest is on Orange Coast and the OC market, not L.A.”
“I’ve been in the market for a long time,” he said. “I know OC. We’ve expanded the product line, so we have ancillary products, digital offerings, and a custom publishing division. If anything, I want to build on this and continue to offer products, goods and services to the OC community.”
Schulz first came to Orange County in 1995 as publisher of World Trade magazine, then owned by Freedom Communications Inc. in Irvine. He went on to become group publisher of Freedom’s World Trade Media Group, and later spent 2 1/2 years as group publisher of Laguna Beach-based Firebrand Media LLC, which publishes community newspapers and luxury travel and lifestyles magazines.
Schulz has added a couple of titles to Orange Coast’s lineup since he joined the publication.
One is Premiere OC, which focuses on the performing and visual arts. Design OC focuses on “artful living.”
Both are published twice a year and mainly distributed with Orange Coast magazine.
Schulz also created a custom publishing division under the Orange Coast umbrella, offering services to companies and nonprofits for content in the form of magazines, newsletters or any type of custom publication, along with production and distribution.
“Specialty information that plays to people’s passions and loves, whether it’s business or skiing or sailing, these have loyal audiences, and the same is true of city and regional magazines,” he said.
Schulz also has made a bid to build revenue centers around events produced by the title.
The ancillary products appear to be increasingly important for a magazine that “has not been very profitable,” according to Smulyan, who described Orange Coast’s core publication as “breaking even.”
Emmis doesn’t break out financial data for its magazines but reported combined annual revenue of about $61 million for the six-publication lineup. Orange Coast ranks fourth among the six in terms of circulation, at 52,750 a month as of December. It is distributed to subscribers, on newsstands, and in select luxury hotel rooms, Schulz said. The subscriber copies are a mixture of paid and requested copies, he said.
Schulz said he would apply his team’s vision of “providing unparalleled coverage of the OC lifestyle” as owner of Orange Coast, and also would look to expand its digital presence and roll out more ancillary magazines.
Schulz said Orange Coast’s commitment to serving the community will remain steadfast, no matter who ends up buying the magazine.
“This magazine’s been here for 42 years,” he said. “There have been more than four owners during that time. Our commitment to the community we serve is unwavering, no matter who the owner is.”
Industry Shifts
Another publication that’s changed hands recently is the Orange County Register, which was acquired by Denver-based Digital First Media in a bankruptcy auction in March. The Register, along with the Press-Enterprise in Riverside, are now part of Digital First’s Southern California News Group.
Other recent shifts include Chicago-based Tronc Inc.’s Daily Pilot newspaper merging with sister papers the Huntington Beach Independent and the Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot, with plans to provide coverage across a wider swath of the coastal OC area. And plans are in place for a new hyper-local online site to start early next month: StuNewsNewport.com, a sister effort of StuNewsLaguna.com.
