As owner and founding publisher of OC Metro and other magazines, Steve Churm was a big presence in OC’s media landscape for several decades.
After his Churm Media was sold to the parent company of the The Orange County Register in 2012, he would go on to oversee communications for Irvine developer Five Point and later start a consulting business, Churm|360, working with companies like real estate firm Related California to get the developer’s 41-acre Related Bristol mega-project moving ahead, across the street from South Coast Plaza.
He has also been active in the nonprofit world, serving for 14 years on the board of Orange County United Way, including a four-year stint as chair that coincided with the pandemic.
On Nov. 1, he and his wife, Cinda Churm, were feted for their nonprofit work at OC United Way’s annual gala, held at the Pendry Newport Beach hotel.
The Lido Isle couple’s current focus is on 211OC, a confidential, 24/7 helpline that provides residents with connections to healthcare, housing assistance, food support, and more.
Other United Way honorees included CalOptima Health CEO Michael Hunn and longtime area power couple and philanthropists Tom Rogers and Sally Anderson.
Other media notables at the event included Business Journal Publisher Richard Reisman and Editor-at-Large Rick Reiff.
It’s a short list of print media publications, national or regional, that can stake a claim to being profitable and thriving over the past few decades. The publishers for two of them were on hand late last month at Big Canyon Country Club, as part of a dinner hosted by wealth manager Whittier Trust and law firm Frost Brown Todd.
Speaking at the event was Rick Karlgaard, who served as publisher for Forbes for 20 years and now serves as its editor-at-large. Karlgaard has also written several books; he discussed his latest, “Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement,” at the event, which drew about 120 attendees.
Karlgaard also spent time swapping tricks of the trade with Business Journal Publisher Richard Reisman.
One thing Forbes, which reportedly brings in about $200 million in revenue annually, does that we don’t do—it offers its brand for license, such as through the Forbes Global Properties consortium of luxe home brokerages.
One thing both publications have in common is a successful slate of in-person events that dovetails with their editorial coverage; see page 6 for a summary of our recently completed General Counsel Awards.
GC Award winners will be profiled in the Nov. 17 print edition.
Want to invest (or advertise) in a newspaper with a growing base of print readers? Perhaps stay clear of the LA Times, whose losses of $48.1 million last year were detailed in recent paperwork pertaining to a proposed $500 million IPO.
Filings show the LAT currently counts about 500,000 subscribers to its digital content and 100,000 print subscribers in total.
In 1992, the LAT counted over 290,000 subscribers to its Sunday edition in OC alone.
