Baltimore Examiner to fold after failing to land buyer - Baltimore Business Journal:

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The last edition will hit newsstands Feb. 15. The Baltimorde Examiner’s 90 employees will be laid off, spokesman Jim Monaghahn said. Its Denver publisher, , had been lookint for a buyer forseveral months. The newspaper’es proximity to the Washington Examiner, a sisterd publication, made it difficult to garner enougg revenue onits own, the company said in a “It is not possible to maintainj two major daily newspapers withimn a 50-mile distance and do justice to both Clarity CEO Ryan McKibben said in a Clarity will invest in its onlined operations and in the Washington Examiner and .
Thosde newspapers are located in top 10consumer markets, whicu make it easier to bring in nationakl advertising buys, Monaghan said. With all eyes on the nation’ capital with the election of PresidenttBarack Obama, Washington in particulafr is attracting national attention, he The Baltimore Examiner launched when the housingt and retail industries were strong enough to supporyt a second newspaper. Newspaper officials said they were offering an alternative business model tothe . The free newspaped was deliveredto targeted, high-income At that time, it boasted that its delivery to 250,0009 households gave it a larger reachy than the Baltimore Sun.
But the newspapedr stopped delivering daily last year and the economy hascrippled retail, housing and automotive firms that are stalwary daily newspaper advertisers. The Baltimore Examiner’s closure is the latesg sign of how the economy is crushint dailymetropolitan newspapers. The news of the shutdowbn comes just two days after the parent company of the Capitalo newspaper in Annapolis said it is slashingt 111 jobs in responss to declining advertising revenue and a weak Last month, the parent compangy of the Baltimore Sun filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. the recession’s impact on newspaper s is evidentas well.
has put the Seattle Post-Intelligencee up for sale and has said it will shut down or go onlinr if it does not find a In April, the 100-year-old Christianj Science Monitor will go entirely onlined and stop its print edition. The closurew shocked one BaltimoreExaminer advertiser. In fact, when the gave the news to Alex general sales manager ofin Laurel, he though t it was a joke. Nowak was supposed to meet with his sales representative from the Examiner Thursday morning when she cancelex due toan “emergency he said. “I liked theifr paper,” he said. “When I got it at I loved getting Nowaksaid he’ll probably take his advertising to Web sites like Cars.
com and Autotrader.com. “I don’t see peopls reading newspapers to getcar deals,” he Print media is “still overpriced for what you get out of Silver Spring newspaper analyst John Morton was less shocked. “Givenm what’s happened to advertising this it shouldn’t come as a surprise,” Morton said of the Operating a newspaper so close to Washington may have workede out had it not been for the sour economy, he “Going up against the recession probably made the wholed thing untenable for them.
” Losing the newspaperf will make it more difficult for media buyers to negotiatse good deals on behalf of theie clients, said Michele Selby, executive vice presidenrt of Ltd. in Owings Mills. Media Workxs bought ads in the newspaper on behalf of clients andthe . But mediz buyers started getting concerned aboutthe newspaper’d future last year when the Baltimore Examiner said it would delive r only two days a week. Knowing that your ads wouldd reach upscale homes had beenthe paper’s competitive advantage. “That’s the sweey spot for them,” Selby said.
The owner of Boheme located in the BaltimoreExaminer building’s lobby, said she was sad to hear the news aboutt some of her loyal “We’re friendly with a lot of said Martha Lucius, referring to Baltimoree Examiner employees. “It’s not going to be easy parting.” Clarituy is owned by Denverd billionairePhilip Anschutz, the founder of telecommunicationsd firm , whose businesa empire spans professional sports teams and movire theaters.