Denver financier Philip An schutz’s Clarity Media Group will publish a third newspaper, the Baltimore Examiner, in spring 2006, the company said Monday.
Michael Phelps, former vice president of Lee Enterprises Inc. and publisher of the Quad-City (Iowa) Times, will serve as publisher.
The free publication will be distributed Monday through Saturday via home delivery, vendors and newspaper racks. Its circulation will be 250,000, according to a statement issued by Denver-based Clarity.
Clarity also operates the Washington Examiner and the San Francisco Examiner. The company has trademarked the Examiner name in 69 cities, including Denver.
“We are very excited about metropolitan Baltimore,” Ryan McKibben, chief executive of Clarity, said in a prepared statement Monday. “We have found that this market craves more choice in terms of a daily newspaper … and the Baltimore Examiner will be a strongly competitive alternative by providing exceptional value to local advertisers and a standard of professional journalism to expanded local news coverage.”
The startup will compete with the Baltimore Sun, which is owned by Chicago’s Tribune Co. The Sun’s circulation for the six-month period ending in March ranged from a low of 203,289 on Tuesdays to a high of 292,089 on Fridays, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Its Sunday circulation is 430,675.
Readers “have a choice of newspapers to read. They choose The Sun because we provide the local and national information they’re seeking,” said Alonza Williams, public-affairs manager for the Baltimore Sun.
While he said the publication would offer a new form of competition for the Sun, he said he wasn’t overly concerned.
“Advertisers know our readers are reaching for the Sun daily and on Sunday. Yes, they’re competition, but there has always been competition,” he said.
Anschutz created empires in oil, railroads, real estate, telecommunications and movie theaters. He’s best known as the founder of Qwest.
Staff writer Kristi Arellano can be reached at 303-820-1902 or karellano@denverpost.com.
