San Diego To Get New Alternative Paper

By: Mark Fitzgerald The San Diego Reader, which has virtually owned the local market for alternative papers with a 158,000-weekly-distribution tabloid that runs to more than 200 pages, is about to get some competition.

Southland Publishing Inc. has bought the local music publication SLAMM and is relaunching it Aug. 21 as an alternative paper called San Diego CityBeat.

Publisher Charles Gerencser, who had been running Southland's Pasadena (Calif.) Weekly, said the publication will be smaller than the Reader in page count, 40 to 60 pages, and distribution, 40,000 copies. He said it would target advertisers who cannot afford the Reader or the monopoly daily, The San Diego Union-Tribune. Gerencser said CityBeat will be aimed at a more diverse audience of people living "the urban experience that is San Diego."