ANSCHUTZ HITS DC MARKET WITH TAB.

Clarity Media Inc. -- the newspaper publishing arm of the empire of billionaire Philip Anschutz -- launched the Washington Examiner, its new daily tabloid for the nation's capitol last week, making it one of the few home-delivered free tabloid dailies in the country, a number that includes Anschutz' other newspaper enterprise, the San Francisco Examiner.

The new daily -- built upon the ashes of the Journal group of newspapers that Clarity purchased last September -- apparently had a distribution of 211,000 papers to doorsteps in the wealthy Washington suburbs of Virginia and Maryland. About 12 percent of the papers are distributed in urban Washington.

The company said that 49,000 papers would be distributed by news hawkers or through racks.

The first day's paper, Feb. 1, had 64 pages and lots of advertising. Examiner competitor, the Washington Post, quoted a local grocer as saying, "Our comment was, at this time, all our print buys are through the Washington Post. We told them we would keep them in mind. We will take a wait-and-see attitude."

The paper has an editorial staff of 54, which is about one-quarter of what a seven-day, paid-circulation paper of its distribution would have. In addition to local reporting, the paper has stories from wire services as well as feature articles shared by its sibling, the San Francisco Examiner.

Clarity, based at Anschutz' headquarters in Denver, is run by two former MediaNews Group executives, Ryan McKibben and Frederick Anderson; the former was the publisher of the Denver Post, while the latter was the paper's chief financial officer.

McKibben's brother, Scott McKibben -- also a former MediaNews executive, was the chief operating officer of the San Francisco Examiner before Anschutz purchased the paper. Subsequently, the two former Denver Post executives started Clarity.

There are three distinct trends in the now-burgeoning, free-tabloid business: youth-oriented tabloids (see Tribune Co.'s RedEye), commuter-oriented tabloids (see the various Metros as well as The Washington Post Co.'s Express) and now home-delivered tabloids (see the Examiner on either coast). While all three are aimed at attention-span challenged individuals, just because it's tabloid and has short wire stories doesn't make it a youth tabloid.