New L.A.-based magazines are scoring some successes: District, RealTalkLA make debuts; Calabasas goes national.

SEVERAL publications have launched locally since the beginning of the year. Here's a look at their progress.

RealTalkLA

The first issue reached newsstands weeks after its May 1 target date. Later, rumors of financial difficulties and the magazine's impending demise prompted the company to release a statement confirming it had met payroll.

Folding the magazine "is not our expectation, but we are going through a re-organization," confirmed Jay Levin, RealtalkLA's chief executive, who also founded the LA Weekly. He said the next issue of RealTalkLA should publish in June.

RealTalkLA's self-stated mission is "to unmask an L.A. many of us don't know about and to do so for an audience whose needs are largely neglected by existing media." These underserved readers are upscale minorities and second-generation immigrants.

To reach this audience--a collection of disparate segments--RealTalkLA editorial presents socially conscious messages with the slick photography and vernacular of lifestyle magazines. However, a coherent theme is not always clear. Profiles of "culture producers" and "cultural phenomenon" abound, snuggled next to a report on the L.A. housing market and a guide to techno gadgets. The magazine delivers on its promise of talk, as the editorial well fills to overflowing with Q&A-format chats with minority aesthetes and do-gooders.

The advertising likewise features an eclectic assortment of messages. Socially relevant brands include Latino clothing label Palomita, a feminist art exhibit at MOCA, and the organic restaurant O of the Earth.

But there are also a few pages for liquor, SUVs and rock concerts. Whether there will be enough of these pages to support the magazine and its message will become clear in the next few issues. That's critical because RealTalkLA distributes for free.