Newspaper-wise, Baltimore is like so many American cities, dominated by one paper, the Sun, where once a handful of papers once thrived. As recently as the '80s, there were three, the Sun, the Evening Sun and the Baltimore News-American.

But Baltimore is unique in one important way: The Examiner. Launched a year ago, the Examiner is a free daily paper competing with the Sun, and in some ways it's probably the biggest newspaper story in America.

Free papers have been around, typically small-circulation throw-aways, but the Baltimore Examiner is the first to go head-to-head, printing each day slightly more copies, 236,000, than the Sun's 232,138 on weekdays.

If the Examiner can challenge the Sun, gaining readers and advertisers, it will open the way for other free papers to go head-to-head with established paid dailies across America, and at a time when free dailies are challenging paid dailies around the world.

Now a year old, the Examiner appears to be establishing a firm foothold in Baltimore, despite its much smaller news staff and lingering doubts over whether people are actually reading it. The paper is owned by Denver-based Clarity Media Group, which also owns the Washington Examiner and the San Francisco Examiner.

In its first year, the Examiner has won the support of area media buyers. As it is, buyers love competition, making them open to new publications. But even so, they've welcomed the Examiner and have sent streams of advertisers its way.
 
“On paper they are doing everything right,” says Erin Borkowski, media director for Trahan Burden & Charles Inc., a full-service agency in Baltimore. “They are offering better rates, better ad formats, and their sales people are very knowledgeable, not just order-takers.”

Examiner ad rates are half or less than the Sun's, and its rate card is streamlined. “They have one rate card, not like the Sun, which has different rates for local and national advertisers,” says Michele Selby, who is an executive vice president at Media Works Ltd. in Owings Mills.

Though the Sun is quick to dismiss the Examiner, the paper is clearly feeling its presence, and it's responding, says Selby. “The Sun has really opened up with selling. They have become more willing to negotiate. That paper has adapted to having a competitor in the market.”

Borkowski agrees. “I think the Sun is definitely feeling the heat. They are trying to do more strategic thinking outside the box, and they are doing things they wouldn’t normally consider.”

What else do media buyers like about the Examiner? Engaging ad formats, such as a strip across the bottom of the front page and third-of-the-page wraps. But more than that they appreciate the lengths the paper will go to get their business.

“They will also guarantee you a position in sports or healthy living or wherever you want,” Selby said. “They are willing to go that extra mile and do what they have to. They are very aggressive, they push the limits."

In one example of that, the Examiner ran a big billboard downtown welcoming the Boscov’s department store chain to three area malls in October.

Media buyers also like the Examiner’s distribution to desirable neighborhoods. “They came in head to head with the Sun and cherry-picked the neighborhoods with higher household incomes,” says Selby. Chosen by zip code, those neighborhoods share an average household income of at least $75,000.

That's made the paper attractive to top area retailers, including Macy’s and Boscov’s, and it's also brought in such national chains as Home Depot, Kohl's and JC Penney.

Yet buyers say the Examiner still has a hard sell on its part when it comes to readership. The Sun can claim a million readers a week, but the Examiner has a struggle on its hands establishing that anyone is reading it.

It's a struggle all free publications have faced, and one the Examiner will continue to face in Baltimore and wherever else the chain chooses to launch. Advertisers, particularly local advertisers, nurture doubts about publications that are given away, though perhaps less so than in years past.

"The Examiner had a third-party study done that says everyone’s reading it, but when you are out in the market and in the neighborhoods, it doesn’t look like it. There’s a lot of newspapers in driveways,” says Borkowski.

“We have a couple of clients not buying into it," she says. "When you are trying to get new clients, everyone seems to be saying, ‘Who is reading it?’"

Selby thinks people are reading the Examiner but perhaps not admitting it.

“People say they don’t read it, but it’s like you won’t admit that you watch TV, you won’t admit that you pick that free newspaper up off your driveway,” she says. “We have things in the Examiner that don’t run anywhere else and we were laughing about how many people saw it."

Still, she says, "I think it’s difficult for the Examiner to qualify and quantify who their readers are.”

Examiner Publisher Michael Beatty admits the paper's biggest challenge is in proving that it's being distributed and read.

"We’re a free paper and we get paid by advertisers so we have to make sure our product is read,” says Beatty, who is the former director of retail sales at the Sun.

As for all those newspaper piling up at the end of suburban driveways, Beatty claims that only about 5 percent aren’t picked up. The important thing, he says, is that it's reaching into neighborhoods in the way the Sun is not.

"We are penetrating deeper. When you drive down a street and see 20-25 percent of people who get a legacy paper, you don’t think about the 80 percent of driveways they are missing," he says.

As for the Sun, it's ceding nothing to the Examiner at this point.

“The Sun has more than a million readers every week, and it continues to be the leading source of information for the community,” Linda Geeson, a Sun spokeswoman, tells Media Life. “Our focus is on the success of the Sun. We’re not focusing on the Examiner, we’re focusing on our business.”