While Skin Diver was becoming established, another magazine called Water World began in July 1955, which was published by Trend Incorporated. Like Skin Diver, this magazine had many advertisements for scuba equipment, though it was more general and covered water sports such as scuba, water skiing, and submarines, Trend Incorporated later became Petersen Publishing Company, which later purchased Skin Diver. Unfortunately, Water World didn't last long.
R. E. Petersen was the publisher for both Trend and Petersen Publishing.
Paul J. Tzimoulis was listed as publisher of SDM
from the 1960s through the 1980s.
The Petersen Publishing Company
had their logo on the cover of many SDM issues in the 1970s:
In January 1967, 29-year-old Paul J. Tzimoulis moved from the SDM position of Associate Editor to Editor, thereby replacing Jim Auxier. The December 1966 issue of SDM carried a column about this upcoming change of editor. Tzimoulis had joined the SDM staff two years earlier as Eastern Manager and Associate Editor and was already a nationally recognized authority on various underwater topics.
SDM quickly became very successful in the 1960s, with its success carrying into the late 1990s. SDM changed its emphasis approximately once per decade as the public's tastes and interests changed. In the 1950s SDM's focus had been spearfishing, in the 1960s underwater photography mostly supplanted spearfishing, in the 1970s ecology became a prevalent parallel issue, and in the materialistic 1980s and 1990s the focus moved to equipment, dive resorts, and specialized charter dive boats.
Unfortunately, in the 1980s and 1990s with this larger and more affluent readership the sport of scuba became popular enough to support a number of successful competing magazines with more focus, such as diver training or underwater photography. SDM had been changing its character for decades to match changing times, but the diverse and competetive 1990s apparently was too challenging.
Towards the end, Skin Diver was having financial troubles due to declining subscriptions and declining revenues from advertisements. The magazine Sport Diver was having similar problems, but was rescued by PADI, which had a large support base and PADI was able to revamp the magazine more to be more successful. PADI's magazine Aqua failed, however. Rodale then bought Petersen Publishing Company, and according to Magazines of America (7-10-04), Rodale fulfilled the balance of existing subscriptions to SDM when SDM ceased publication after November 2002, presumably substituting its similar magazine Scuba Diving, also called Rodale's Scuba Diving, or RSD for short. Rodale publishes other sports and health magazines like Backpacker, Bicycling, and Men's Health. RSD shouldn't be considered SDM with a new name because RSD started in 1992, ten years before SDM ended in 2002.
The URL for Rodale's Scuba Diving is:
http://www.scubadiving.com/ (7-10-04)
Skin Diver Magazine is Out of Air! (7-10-04)
The following URL has a small gallery of SDM covers and advertisements:
Skin Diver Photo Gallery (7-10-04)
The following online SDM site still works:
Skin Diver Online (7-10-04)
The following link has an article about Paul Tzimoulis
(you may have to search for it from their main page if this session link doesn't work),
who was the major force behind SDM when he began as editor in 1966
at the age of 29.
Paul Tzimoulis was with Skin Diver Magazine for 34 years, from 1964-1998.
After resigning as
Chairman of the Board of the Board of The Academy of Underwater Arts and Sciences
in May 2003, he died from cancer on the night of June 3, 2003.
Sport Diver Interactive (7-10-04)
In summer 2004, numerous outdated sites are still advertising subscriptions to the now-defunct SDM. SDM is gone, but its ghost is still lingering after 1 1/2 years!
Updated: June 13, 2007