The Sun validates the value of free newspapers targeted to select demographics.
With rumors swirling, Baltimore Sun Media Group President Tim Ryan Tuesday announced the spring launch of a separately staffed, youth-oriented tabloid ? and companion Web site ? called “b.”
The free publication, which will debut in news boxes near “colleges, clubs, coffee houses and other places where young adults congregate” in Baltimore City and County on April 14, will publish Monday through Friday ? with continuous Web site updates ? and anticipates a daily run of 100,000 copies.
Baltimore already has a free daily tabloid, The Baltimore Examiner, which is delivered to 250,000 affluent neighborhoods in the city and surrounding suburbs and has a daily readership of 424,000. It also is available in boxes.
“We?re the largest daily home-delivered newspaper in the state of Maryland [when combined with editions that are delivered in Prince George?s and Montgomery counties], reaching over 350,000 households with over 568,000 adult daily readers,” said Michael Beatty, publisher of The Baltimore Examiner. “Our readers are the most coveted and sought-after demographic that advertisers are trying to reach. The Sun?s new product seems to be more of a rack-and-stack entertainment product that will rival the City Paper reaching the very young clubbing crowd.”
Miles Groves, an independent newspaper industry analyst based in Washington, D.C., predicted that The Examiner?s presence in Baltimore would make b?s launch difficult. The Examiner has a circulation of 250,000, and b hopes to be printing 100,000 copies a day by the end of the year. The new tabloid will not be delivered to homes.
“It?s going to be an expensive project. To go for a young demographic that?s probably already reading The Examiner and going online, I think it?s tough,” Groves said. “It would have been a more innovative idea five years ago.”
Groves noted that unlike Chicago, D.C. and other markets that have spawned successful free tabloids, Baltimore has little public transportation to speak of, meaning free publications have fewer opportunities to reach a captive audience of commuters.
The development comes on the heels of a reduction in force of 45 positions at the Baltimore Sun Media Group. The tabloid?s new staff ? about 24 nonunion employees ? will occupy the offices of The Sun?s Baltimore County bureau, whose staff will move to another location.
“The [Baltimore-Washington Newspaper] Guild is paying close attention to this development, and hopes to meet with Sun leadership this week to discuss it some more,” said Sun reporter and Guild Unit Co-Chair Tanika White, who said she has concerns about the new publication?s separate staffing. “We?re obviously interested in how this will affect our Guild members and also the Baltimore Sun as it exists right now.”
According to a release, former Sun manager Brad Howard will head up the new publication, and Anne Tallent, a former feature editor at The Sun, will be its editor. The announcement envisions having fully one-third of the new tabloid?s content written by contributing readers. Other content will be provided by sister Tribune publications like RedEye.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
