Proving readership challenges Examiner

Media Life Magazine has a mostly positive piece about the Baltimore Examiner, but acknoledges half way down that the Phil Anschutz-owned paper is still struggling to prove to advertisers that it is being read. "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,” said Erin Borkowski of the Baltimore ad agency Trahan Burden & Charles. Complaints that unwanted Examiners are piling up on driveways haven't helped. However, Examiner Publisher Michael Beatty is quoted as saying that only about 5 percent aren’t picked up. While some national advertisers including Macy's have used the Examiner in its first year, Borkowski said, "We have a couple of clients not buying into it ... When you are trying to get new clients, everyone seems to be saying, ‘Who is reading it?’"