California Diver is ceasing publication

[covediver]

I just got an email from California Diver magazine that announced they were ceasing publication, although they were keeping their social media portal going.

For the last two years I have really enjoyed receiving California Diver. It was more down to earth and locally focused than other diving magazines, all of which seem to disappear off the magazine racks as fast as they appear. I guess one is bucking the tide trying to do a slick paper specialty mag nowadays, but this is one that I wish had gone the distance. I will miss them. But for two years I did have the pleasure of reading it on a regular basis. Their customer service was alway pretty fabulous.

 

[fisheater]

Oh no!

That's one great looking magazine. I'll miss it.

 

[muzikbiz22]

Will miss it, as well. It was definitely a cut above most of the other mag's out there.

 

[drbill]

Wow... sorry to hear that.

 

[Thiad]

That's too bad. It was a great publication. I just got a renewal notice about three weeks ago, too.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

It's very difficult to sell ad space in a niche market. California Diver was one of my favorites, along with Ocean Realm, Pacific Diver and Skin Diver.

 

[covediver]

I was always partial to Underwater USA. I really liked their newspaper format. I have had a few articles written for them, CDN, Scuba Diver, DAN, and others. Never had much use for skin diver, too many ads, and it seems that their rave reviews always accompanied a full page ad of the product being reviewed. Still, the debate over mail order dive equipment versus local dive shops seems quaint compared to the www versus brick and mortar stores. In the end it was their editorial policy that supported the unrestricted pillaging of California shipwrecks that ever kept me from looking at the magazine after my one-time one year subscription ran out.

 

[Sam Miller III]

Since I have retired to an area out of the mainstream of diving, therefore I have only seen a few copies of the new "California Diver," but the ones I have seen were high quality, slick well written publications, well worth collecting as a document of recreational diving in the 21 century.