August 2014 print edition

Transcription

The news publishing
technology magazine
gxpress.net
Vol 14/3 August 2014 Asia-Pacific
Print Post approved 100015730
namini:
Risk that
paid off
...thought
we could
A PANPA
gong for
Lockley’s
little engines
‘running at
bloody
100 mph’
inside
chat show: How the BBC
Newspaper technology
Publication production
digital publishing
gxpress.net
gxpress.net
is using messaging services
to publish news online page 5
betting on stream:
Kodak’s new Prosper 6000
inkjets could change the
digital print equation page 20
thought we could:
Fairfax Media’s regional
sites meet the metro print
challenge page 22-25
chapter’s end: After 21
years in Shanghai, Goss is
moving to a new home across
the river page 30-31
greening india: Print’s
environmental impact page 34
our thanks to these Advertisers:
CCI Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Digital Media Asia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Goss International . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Harland-Simon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
manroland web systems. . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Müller Martini. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
ppi Media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
ProtecMedia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
QuadTech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
technotrans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
WAN-Ifra India Conference . . . . . . . . . . 26
WAN-Ifra World Publishing Expo. . . . . . . . 7
NewsLeaders in this issue
EidosMedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
QI Press Controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Fujifilm Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Synchronising cultures at WEF
T
he World Editors Forum
will team with the Online
News Association for the
Newsroom Summit being held
with WPE in Amsterdam in
October.
Cherilyn Ireton, executive
director of the Paris-based WEF
– part of World Publishing Expo
organiser WAN-Ifra – says the
event will focus on synchronising
print and digital cultures to
ensure growth in audience,
engagement and loyalty: “We are
delighted that the ONA will be
bringing some of the sharpest
minds in digital journalism to
Amsterdam for core sessions on
the second day of the Newsroom
Summit,” she says.
Dates are October 13-14 during
World Publishing Expo 2014.
“Traditional newsrooms need
to be fast and agile to compete
with digital start-ups, while at
the same time need a slower,
more magazine-like approach in
print, to hold on to readership
and revenue,” says Ireton. “We
are looking forward to great
discussions in Amsterdam on
how best to manage these two
dynamics.” First confirmed speakers
include Frank Volmer (managing
director of Dutch publisher
Telegraaf Media Groep), Robyn
Tomlin (Pew Research Center
chief digital officer), Alison Gow
(digital innovation editor at the
UK’s Trinity Mirror Regionals)
and Stijn Debrouwere, a Tow
Center for Digital Journalism
fellow.
For the evolving conference
programme and registration
information, go to http://www.
wan-ifra.org/events/13thinternational-newsroom-summit Issues to be covered include:
• How to prevent newsroom
culture from blocking change;
• Push content stategies to grow
your audience;
• Newsroom metrics that go
beyond pageviews;
• The ethical conundrums of the
digital space;
• Myths about mobile;
• How to make a story go viral;
• Effective digital tools – for free.
The International Newsroom
Summit is one of several
conferences taking place in
Amsterdam during the World
Publishing Expo, which will run
from October 13-15. It is followed
immediately by the Tablet and
Apps Summit, designed to get
publishers and editors thinking
mobile in all they do.
Full details of all the events
can be found at http://www.
worldpublishingexpo.com More than 100 speakers
and presenters will be featured
over the Expo’s three days and
organiser WAN-Ifra is calling
on news media professionals
to nominate great speakers for
the events. The organisation is
especially interested to hear the
stories from users, news media
players and inspiring outsiders
that could help facilitate the
transformation of the news
gx
publishing industry. n
n
Video ads get
competitive
I
ndia and more recently Korea are
following Australia and Singapore
as the region’s programmatic ad
hotspots, Cynthia Deng says.
The Hong Kong-based Asia Pacific
managing director of advertising
platform Turn says that while
Australia is the region’s most mature
programmatic market after Japan –
rated second-largest globally – interest
is growing fast in other countries.
Figures from Turn’s global
advertising industry index are matched
by similar patterns in Asia and
Australasia.
Deng says marketers are learning
how to data and insights to their
advantage: “In Australia, advertising
activity accelerates through the second
quarter to the end of the year and
we expect competition to be high,
especially in video.”
Data from the platform shows
advertisers have spent substantially
more on mobile, video, display and
social channels in the first four months
of this year, compared to 2013. The
spend on mobile has more than
doubled (109 per cent) with video
ads up by two thirds. Mature display
budgets and also social are up 20 per
cent.
Increased competition is translating
into higher advertising costs, especially
Cynthia Deng – An increase
in inventory is making the
video ad market more
competitive
for social, where the effective costper-thousand impressions has risen
by 64 per cent globally. An increase in
inventory – especially in video, which
actually dropped one per cent – affected
mobile, up by only eight per cent.
“As spend and competition increase
in mature markets, brands and agencies
are using sophisticated audiencecentric strategies to drive planning for
programmatic advertising,” says Deng.
The Turn index shows travel and
telecom were both 49 per cent more
competitive than last year, followed by
financial services (38 per cent), arts and
entertainment (15 per cent) and home
and garden (11 per cent).
Sports and recreation, and motors
were the two industry verticals leading
moves to become less competitive
globally, followed by apparel, office
products, and health and beauty.
Turn says its demand-side platform
makes more than 100 billion datadriven advertising decisions a day,
analysing more than 1.5 billion
gx
anonymous customer attributes. n
n
An MPC Media publication
Volume 14 Number 3
gxpress.net
August 2014
Managing editor Peter Coleman
phone: +61 7-5485 0079, mob: +61 407 580 094,
email: mpcmedia@ozemail.com.au
Sales & business development Caitlin Miller,
mobile: 0422 272 200, email: caitlin@gxpress.net
Editorial, administration, production:
PO Box 40, Cooran, Qld 4569, Australia
Tel: +61 7-5485 0079 Fax: +61 2-4381 0246
E-mail: mpcmedia@ozemail.com.au
Administration Maggie Coleman, 07-5485 0079
Printed by Galloping Press, NSW, Australia
See us at www.gxpress.net and digital.gxpress.net
Published by MPC Media
(Pileport Pty Ltd)
ABN 30 056 610 363
Subscriptions A$44 pa. (inc GST) within Australia.
Other rates on application
© Pileport Pty Ltd 2014. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or copied in any form or by any means without
prior written permission. The views expressed by contributors to
GXpress are not necessarily those of the publisher
2 gxpress.net August 2014
Enhanced analytics for auto app
Granasa taking the tablets
Agfa Showed key new features of its
Ecuadorian media group Granasa is extending
its mobile offering with two tablet-focussed
products for iOS and Android. Both Expreso and
Extra have developed special-subject publications
using viewers from Protecmedia Support for
advertisers includes an interactive catalogue where
gx
advertisers can check options. n
n
automated Eversify tablet platform at the World
Newspaper Congress. Publishers are now able to
promote multiple titles via a single app, and reader
analytics provide more details on behaviour. A
new ‘EDC++’ reader feature adds interactivity to
gx
‘enhanced digital copy’ editions. n
n
digital.gxpress.net
gxpress.net August 2014 3
digital publishing
gxpress.net
Vizrt has renamed its
Viz Media Engine as Viz One
following a legal challenge in
some markets.
Viz One is central to Vizrt’s
video management offering,
and includes tools that allow
video to be ingested, searched,
edited, transcoded and then
delivered in many formats.
“Viz One is a continuation
of the idea of the empowered
journalist, which has been
the foundation of Vizrt,” says
chief technology officer Petter
Ole Jakobsen.
A new version 3.2 of
gxpress.net
smartphones, laptops and
tablets in the 2014 AdReaction
Report. According to the
study, Australians spend about
six and a half hours each day
staring at a screen, however
113 minutes of that time
is usually spent consuming
another screen at the same
time, resulting in a typical
daily screen time of just under
five hours (or 285 minutes).
Only 11 per cent of
consumers consume screen
time which is “meshed” –
using a TV and a second screen
for related content.
Aquafadas Digital Publishing
System claims 30 new features
and improvements.
These include everything
from dot-to-dot, spot the
difference and hide and
seek games to workflow
and interface improvements.
The software now enables
connection between online
and static content, has
enhanced ‘read aloud’ features
and the ability to sublayout
from the bottom to top. The
ePub export allows region
magnification for Amazon and
the Apple iBookstore, and a
re-engineered smart reading
reflow feature. Japanese
content specifications include
vertical export in fixed layout.
Cxense says it has signed
A variety of older
Famous for its sand
plains and ‘leatherstocking’
connections, Rome, New
York, wasn’t built in a day.
But switch of its 160-yearold Rome Sentinel to a
multiplatform-capable
editorial system is apparently
an overnight success.
The Oneida County daily
– which has a circulation of
12,500 copies – is one of the
country’s oldest family-owned
newspapers, with origins
in 1821 and has been run
by the same family for six
generations.
A move to Roxen’s Editorial
Portal prepares for the
transformation of the editorial
process with provision for all
digital channels. Publisher
Stephen B. Waters says the
system has been a time and
money saver:
“It significantly improves
staff efficiency creating
content for print and online
gx
n
simultaneously. n
systems will be replaced by
fully integrated Brainworks
advertising at the Tampa
Bay Times in Florida. The
system includes classified,
display, preprint and
digital advertising order
entry, accounts receivable,
dynamic reporting, sales
force automation and CRM
tools, along with embedded
marketing tools and other
components.
Access to Brainworks’
private cloud will help
streamline operations.
Australians spend more
time using their smartphones
now than watching TV as
they dive into the age of
multiscreen. A report from
research company Millward
Brown examined multiscreen
use and behaviour across
30 countries and explored
consumer receptivity
to advertising on TV,
12 new media clients to its
Big Data-based solutions and
expanded relationships with
ten more. The Oslo, Norway,
based company says robust
growth is rapidly increasing its
global reach and broadening
utilisation of solutions
which help publishers better
understand and engage with
users and increase online
revenues. Among new clients
this year is Japan’s Voyage
Group, while South Africa’s
Times Media Group, Ireland’s
Sunday World and Columbian
news portal El Colombiano
are among those taking on
products including Cxense
Analytics.
Marsh takes Newscycle
role, Nilan to Engage3
F
ormer Atex product
management VP
Pete Marsh has been
named for a new marketing
VP role at Newscycle
Solutions.
He joined the company
in a product marketing
role last year with its
acquisition of Atex Inc.
Now he is expanding the
role to include corporate
communications and
branding, client advisory
board activities, and
management of the
company’s global
marketing team.
Steve Nilan, who spent
five year with Newscycle and
predecessor DTI, has left to
join “early stage” technology
company Engage3, which
is developing a Big Dataorientated shopping
platform (see below).
Newscycle chief
revenue officer Dan Paulus
describes Marsh as an
important part of the
company’s management
team: “We appreciate
his talents and industry
insights as he leads
Peter Marsh: His Deadline Data
Systems developed an early
systems/desktop interface
Newscycle’s marketing
efforts,” he says. “He
is committed to our
customers and their
successes. His experience
working with a global team
in markets worldwide is
impressive.”
Marsh had been senior
vice-president of product
management at Atex Group,
which he joined from a role
as chief executive officer of
5 Fifteen Inc, responsible
for north and south
American sales. Earlier he
had founded Deadline Data
Systems to develop one of
the industry’s first software
applications designed
to integrate newspaper
editorial and advertising
systems with desktop tools
such as QuarkXPress and
Adobe InDesign.
Marsh says he is proud
to lead an “incredibly
talented” team: “Newscycle
is fully committed to the
long-term success of this
industry, where challenges
and opportunities abound,”
he says. “We proudly play
a vital role in providing
the enabling technologies
that help our customers
produce the highest quality
content, the most relevant
advertising, and the
greatest level of audience
engagement across all
media channels.”
Married with a daughter
– whose musical talents
are to be seen on YouTube
– and twin sons, he lives in
Topsfield, Massachusetts.
He is also chairman of
Samaritans, a non-profit
organisation in Boston
dedicated to preventing
gx
suicide. n
n
Patent addresses ‘intent to buy’
An app which uses shopping lists
to direct retail and brand marketing has
gained a US patent for product selection
techniques for developer Engage3.
Founder and chief executive Ken
Ouimet says the broad ranging patent is
one of 20 filed and is the foundation of
the company’s ShoppingScout “intent to
buy” platform. It covers how advertisers,
manufacturers and retailers may
recommend products to shoppers based on
their preferences.
The six-year-old company – which
claims have found an “elegant solution” to
complex pain points of CPG manufacturers,
retailers, publishers and consumers – has
been attracting attention recently, and
has just recruited former DTI/Newscycle
marketing vice president Steve Nilan as
B2B marketing senior vice president.
Engage3’s founders are credited with
inventing ‘retail price optimisation’, a
process which was the focus of their
Khimetrics company, sold to SAP in 2006
after being named Fortune magazine’s
‘breakout company’ the previous year.
Ouimet says ShoppingScout gives
consumers the confidence that they are
buying the right products at the right
price, and could save them as much as
$3000 a year. A point of differentiation is
that it uses purchaser intentions to help
retailers and brands target promotional
gx
spending better. n
n
P
ilots on WhatsApp, WeChat, BBM
and Mxit – including Indian election
coverage – have proved the value of
instant messaging platforms for BBC
News. Popularity of breaking news alerts
and instant analysis have prompted the
UK national broadcaster to look at ways of
extending the service, says assistant editor of
the UGC and social media hub Trushar Barot.
In a BBC Academy blog, he outlines results
from projects including WhatsApp and
WeChat for the Indian elections, on BBM for
the BBC Hausa service in Nigeria, and Mxit
during the South Africa elections.
“We were the first major news organisation
to try out editorial content on these platforms,
so we were very much venturing into
unchartered waters,” he says.“Rather than
setting targets for subscribers or audience
reach, we used these pilots as proof-ofconcepts to see if there was an appetite for
these editorial products from users on these
platforms.”
Using WhatsApp for the Indian elections,
BBC News set up an account and invited users
to add a mobile number to their WhatsApp
contacts and send a message to it to subscribe
to the service. Users were then put on to a
‘broadcast list’ where they would receive a
maximum of three updates a day, in both
Hindi and English.
“We posted a variety of items, including
audio and video clips and daily text headline
bulletins,” Barot says.
He says that while emoticons are really
popular on social media – particularly on
instant-messaging platforms – they needed to
find out whether they work in the context of
a news story, trying it on the story about the
EU’s Indian mango ban:
“There are certainly valid editorial
arguments about whether BBC News should
really be treating news stories in this way, and
whether this was the right story to test out
emoticons on,” he
says.“However,
subscribers really
seemed to like
the item – it had
by far the biggest engagement, in terms
of responses, of any item we posted on
WhatsApp, with hundreds of people sending
back their emoticon faces. We also published
‘infographics’ of the electoral map of India,
‘fact-a-day’ images and bespoke text, picture
and video entries from our correspondents
across the country.”
Come election results day, the frequency
of posts was increased to a live breaking
and analysis service, with more than 20
items posted on the day. Content on the day
included breaking news alerts and instant
Voters with mobile
celebrate the Indian
elections
bbc’s indian
chat show
analysis from correspondents in the Delhi
bureau.
“We took advantage of the status update
functionality by regularly changing it with the
latest seat count, so users could stay across
the latest numbers in between posts by just
looking at the account’s status message,” Barot
says.
Cartoons and humorous viral videos
seemed to be particularly popular among
India users of WhatsApp, so – in another
BBC News first – they posted a ‘cartoon news
alert’ to represent the story of the day once the
results had come through.
In addition to WhatsApp, a BBC News
India channel had been set up on WeChat.
This was limited to one update a day, where
users would get a bundled set of headlines
and stories that they could click through to,
eventually taking them back to our News
website if they wanted to read about the story
in more depth.
BBC News’
pilots of
publishing
using various
messaging
services
were mostly
positive,
Trushar Barot
(above) says
In addition, WeChat subscribers could go
into the app to read the latest stories from
different news indexes such as technology,
world news and business news, which were
powered by RSS feeds from our news website.
Away from the Indian elections, an
ongoing pilot has been running with the BBC
Hausa service on Blackberry’s BBM platform.
A BBC Hausa account on the platform’s
new ‘channels’ tab posts news stories to
subscribers. The content is deliberately
simpler in format, with a sentence of text and
a link to the full story, to take into account the
limited data allowance that many Nigerians
have. Also in Africa, a two-week pilot on the
popular South African app Mxit – primarily
used by young South Africans – required
mostly text-heavy content.
Barot says the response for all of the services
tried was “very positive” with many saying
it felt more like a personalised experience.
“They also liked the immediacy of having the
content pop straight up on their phone, but
wanted more ability to choose what content
they received,” he says.
“In most cases we were able to incorporate
the extra content activity within existing
social media team workflows. WeChat, BBM
and Mxit all have desktop versions and admin
tools to make it easy to post content and
manage responses, plus some basic statistics.”
The exception was WhatsApp, which
doesn’t have a desktop version or much
stats, meaning all editorial activity had to
be via a mobile phone handset.“This took
a lot more time, although it also seemed to
be the platform that offered the most direct
engagement with the audience,” he says.
“From what we’ve done so far, there seems
to be potential for news content within these
services, as long as the content is interesting,
gx
relevant and matches user expectations.” n
n
systems & online
gxpress.net
WoodWing adds
progress reports
WoodWing has announced a new
cloud-based reporting product for its
Enterprise publishing system.
The Analytics feature provides up-todate information about the progress of
production processes, with multiple visual
reports about stories and related objects,
accessible via devices including tablets.
A first version includes a progress
report – showing which stories are
finished and which being worked on
– and an object status report with an
overview of all objects related to a story.
Chief executive Roel-Jan Mouw
says modern multi-channel publishing
processes can be quite complex and
involve so many different types of media
that it becomes difficult to see the full
picture of the status of production at any
moment. “With our new, we address that
challenge,” he says.
Also announced at the Xperience user
event in Lisbon in June was an upgrade to
Elvis DAM 5 to enable management of up
gx
to a billion assets. n
n
Guardian Australia
doubles audience
G
uardian Australia has almost doubled its
base audience and is on track to turn a
profit, UK trade magazine Press Gazette has
reported. Traffic was up to 5.55 million unique
browsers in May, against three million when
the local site launched.
Guardian Media Group is partnered in
Australia by entrepreneur Graham Wood,
who chief executive Andrew Miller says will
have his loan repaid unless the venture is
abandoned. It may take “many years” before
that and the USA operation – which is “well
ahead of target and growing revenue nicely” –
come into profit. GMG statistics attribute about
six per cent of its 100 million global audience
gx
to Australasia and a third to the Americas. n
n
6 gxpress.net
August 2014
T
rends “across the pond” in North
America were a special interest for
delegates to this year’s fourteenth
ppimedia Open Days in Hamburg.
Among speakers were Nancy Lane,
president of the US Local Media Association,
and Markus Feldenkirchen who heads ppi
Media’s US operation.
Feldenkirchen encouraged publishing
companies in Europe and elsewhere to
expand their range of products, seeing
themselves as “marketing organisations”
in the future. Nancy Lane’s message was
also very clear: Through transparency and
teamwork, we have to embrace innovation
and overcome scepticism towards new
platforms and the social media. “It’s exactly
these channels that are suitable for a more
visual communication and for collecting
and analysing data that is very lucrative for
publishers,” she says.
Elsewhere, speakers canvassed the
question of print or digital emphasis… or
whether all products should go hand in hand.
Some 140 industry experts at the Hamburg
event in June agreed that while the industry
was becoming increasingly digital, print still
played a significant role. The agenda covered
topics such as big data and cross-channel
publishing, as well as process optimisation in
publishing and printing.
Using a small cupcake shop in Hamburg
as an example, ppi product manager
Christian Veith demonstrated how social
media can be used in local markets for a
diversified marketing strategy. Here, the
cupcake shop is only one element of the
brand positioning, which is complemented by
another seven touchpoints, such as company
profiles in social networks like Facebook,
Instagram and Pinterest. In the USA, this
marketing approach is well-established, and
offers great potential in other markets. “Social
media provides a new business segment
which regional media companies can use
to reach and interact with digital natives in
particular, and to get to know them better in
terms of personalised marketing,” he says.
OWL-Online chief executive Ute Becker
atlantic
crossing
Sacred ground:
An evening event
included a tour of
Hamburg’s St Pauli
district and the
Millerntor Stadium.
Cupcakes,
channels
(and
soccer’s
World Cup)
featured
at ppi’s
Hamburg
event
gxpress.net
gave an insight into the business model that
she and her team are currently developing to
establish itself as a brand for younger target
groups. The company was relaunching its
website and is revising its range of products
so that readers no longer associate the name
OWL with a newspaper only, but also with
an independent range of digital products.
“Unless we rethink, this won’t work,” he says.
Ute Becker’s phrase “to rethink”
became the catchword of the entire event.
Although print remains the core business of
newspapers, digital products, social media
marketing, mobile apps and cross-channel
publishing must become a fixed part of the
publishing industry, according to experts.
Just how important it is to tailor content to
each individual reader’s needs was illustrated
by Manuel Scheyda, ppi Media vice president
for product management, in a presentation
on big data. Know-how on users, proximity
to customers and a back channel – as
provided by Web 2.0 – are indispensable
for addressing individual target groups, in
particular digital natives. With this in mind,
ppi Media is enhancing its range of products
to include streamlined workflow solutions for
web, broadcast and mobile, and these were
demonstrated by managing directors Norbert
Ohl and Jan Kasten.
Individual portals for industrial
customers and tools for publishing medianeutral content, software solutions for content
management systems, as well as hybrid apps,
are the main new elements in a new range of
products.
Next year’s event has been set for June
22-23 in Luebeck.
gx
Reports: Julia Gohde ppi Media n
n
Leveraging print’s credibility online
Does the trend towards online
mean that no-one wants to read a
newspaper anymore? The answer to
this from ppi Open Days delegates
Michael Kuth and Christian Wagner
at Bremer Tageszeitungen was a
clear “no”.
“It would be fatal to stop print
altogether,” Kuth says. “There’s
no competition between print and
digital, so we need to cover both by
creating media-neutral content.”
The Bremen-based publishing
company is optimising its print
infrastructure by standardising
workflows and systems and
coordinating its organisational
processes by integrating the online
channels. The high level of credibility
that daily newspapers enjoy should
not be underestimated, they say, and
this needs to be transferred to the
digital world.
As part of the project, Bremer
Tageszeitungen is implementing
augmented reality in the editorial
and ad departments of the WeserKurier.
Russmedia, on the other hand,
takes a different approach: In
order to grow in both the local
and international markets and to
be successful outside the original
area of circulation, the company is
active in several fields. Although it
continues to focus on the printed
newspaper, it also pursues a twobrand strategy for print and digital.
Russmedia has optimised its online
marketing strategy and currently has
about 100 online portals. In so doing,
the company creates proximity
and provides citizens’ forums, for
example. As a result, Russmedia has
succeeded in increasing its mobile
traffic. Markus Raith, chief executive
of Russmedia GmbH, described the
special innovation strategy pursued
by the Austrian media company and
explained why it operates more and
gx
more in niche markets. n
n
Publishing on all channels!
www.worldpublishingexpo.com
comment
gxpress.net
A merry go round
Get off or throw up? John Juliano considers the options with CXM
johnjuliano
T
he American comedian
Bill Cosby, in his early
1960s comedy album,
‘Wonderfulness’, talks about
a child’s playground merrygo-round that the children push round
and around and around until someone
gets dizzy and throws up. With each
additional conversation on the subject
of customer experience management
(CXM), I feel as if someone has just
spun the merry-go-round that much
faster.
I was in the UK last month attending
presentations on coming products and
directions for customer experience
management, which is really the new
hot phrase for targetted advertising
and targetted content. The UK has the
highest number of surveillance cameras
per capita in the world. While on the
one hand, it allows the retrospective
review of the actions of terrorists before
bombing the underground, and on the
other, according to an introductory talk,
it could be used to recognise the licence
plate number on the car, tie that to a
consumer and understand where they
shop. Think of the power of targetted
advertising!
The speaker led me, as all good
salespeople can, to believe that this was
an actual, prototype target-marketing
product. This is a type of selling which
is often called ‘imagine!’
We eventually got down to what is
being constructed, met with a vendor,
and talked about a realistic product
for our industry. What I was shown
was a unified approach to intelligence
gathering to provide both targetted
advertising and targetted content.
It is either Big Brother or Big Data,
depending on whether 1984 is the title
of a book or the year you were born.
Because it is all so common in news
reports, we will all treat Big Data as
very ho-hum, but an approach like this
doesn’t involve telling Google, or anyone
else about our customers.
The approach is rather simple,
track everything your users do on
your website, the website of your sister
newspapers, and if you are feeling
expansive, share data with other
newspapers and news sites to gather
more comprehensive data. Get your
user to log in using their Facebook,
Twitter or LinkedIn credentials and
then mine their data and that of their
8 gxpress.net June 2014
friends to build a profile for the user.
This will improve the user’s experience
by presenting ads that reflect their
interests, and news that reinforces their
opinions. Easy, the software does it all.
I mentioned this to an acquaintance
in the US military who is studying
‘Network Science’. His response was,
that yeah, he was doing the same thing:
Looking at social media as part of a
project to evaluate security risks.
His real point of confusion was that
we don’t really care who the actual
person is, we care about their profile
so that we can get a higher rate for
presenting more targetted ads, and keep
them looking at our website longer.
His statistics were interesting:
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn account
for 46 per cent of the world’s social
media. Meaning the rest of the sites are
just not worth the effort. His approach
is the same as ours, but for DoD (US
Department of Defense) personnel: look
at what they post, look at what their
friends post, do sentiment analysis and
scoring. Where in our world, we then
take that profile and figure out what
ads and stories to display, he sends
information about people with bad
scores to a security officer to potentially
have their clearance yanked. He tells me
his goal is to prevent another Fort Hood
– where 17 people were killed in two
separate incidents by individuals who
were entitled to be on base. There is one
wrinkle in his search: He can’t look at
anyone who is not DoD. US laws prevent
that. And despite what we might think,
at least in the US Army, they take the
laws quite seriously. Or, so he tells me.
The riddle of how to tell who is DoD,
is an interesting one. LinkedIn, which
is considered trustworthy, is used to
ID a person and establish that they are
DoD employee. More than 600,000 DoD
employees list this fact in LinkedIn.
Then, use LinkedIn as a gateway over to
Facebook. But how do you tell whether
those friends are DoD employees, if you
can’t link them back through LinkedIn?
One novel idea is to encourage DoD
employees to join a Facebook group
that only DoD employees can join.
There is no American law that says
DoD employees can be subject to
this scrutiny, but their employment
contracts say they can.
I called the person who introduced
me to the term Big Data several years
ago. He told me not worry about any of
this, because in two months everything
will be upside down.
Only 34 per cent of the ads posted on
the web are ever even seen, he said. And,
until now there was no way to verify
whether an ad was ever seen. Yes, we
can tell whether it was placed on a page,
and whether that page was displayed,
but there was no way to tell if that user
ever scrolled down to see the ad. In two
months (November 2014), there will be
a push to pay for ad views rather than
page views. This will change our entire
industry, the digital pricing model and
revenue.
Will it? Perhaps this will become part
of the services we’ll provide: Access to
users that read to the end of the story.
Or we’ll only provide stories that fit on a
single screen.
Some websites place the share button,
with a pre-written subject above the
story, because most readers don’t scroll
down.
But, according to Ethan Zuckerman,
writing in The Atlantic, American
newspapers generate four times more
money per reader than Facebook. Small
comfort, Mark Zuckerberg has a billion
customers.
I recently wrote about Digital First
Media as a victim of its own success.
Company executives that I spoke with
lamented that they were too successful
to see their plans come to fruition. Of
the two executives mentioned, one is
abruptly gone from DFM, the second
tells me he’ll be gone within a month.
The buyers for DFM? Nowhere to be
seen.
The CEO of a newspaper software
company that was purchased in the
last few years, told me in an email
recently that he was now in the
healthcare industry. It’s like the old
days in newspapers, he wrote, with
money flowing in the door and double
digit profits.
The merry-go-round seems to be
going faster and faster. The centrifugal
force flings some of us off, but we’re not
gx
always unhappy about where we land. n
n
Facebook to
establish sales
office in China
It may be blocked in China, but
Facebook is preparing to step up its
presence in the country, opening of a
sales office to work with advertisers.
Classified Intelligence Report’s Don
Gasper says that while admitting to
past mistakes in its strategy, it is now
investing heavily in mobile technology.
Vice president Vaughan Smith told
the Global Mobile Internet Conference
in Beijing that although Facebook
penetration in China was low – the
service has been blocked by authorities
since 2009 –this had not prevented it
from developing other strands of its
business.
No announcement has been made
of when the China office will open,
but it is understood it could be within
a year. Gasper says Facebook chief
operating officer Sheryl Sandberg met
Cai Mingzhao, head of China’s state
council information office – responsible
for regulating the internet – last
September. The meeting followed an
unofficial visit by cofounder and chief
gx
n
executive Mark Zuckerberg. n
Virtual partners
L
ayar’s augmented reality
product offering will continue
following the company’s
acquisition by rival Blippar.
The deal announced this week
delivers a total client base of more
than 5000 brands and publishers
and 100,000 self-publishing
partners in more than 175
countries.
Founded in 2009, Layar
introduced one of the first mobile
AR browsers – with an app
which has now been downloaded
38 million times – its open
development platform attracting
the attention of developers
worldwide. A self-service print
creation tool introduced in 2012
is used by more than 80,000
publishers and editors.
With offices in Amsterdam,
New York and Toronto, it had been
funded by Intel Capital, Sunstone
Capital and Prime Ventures.
Blippar co-founder and chief
executive Ambarish Mitra recalls
his own company’s 33-month
success story, “from building
prototypes in the living room of
my flat to connecting millions of
consumers to thousands of brands
around the world, and making the
verb ‘to blipp’ synonymous with AR
experiences.
“To me, Layar has always
demonstrated that it shares this
vision of an augmented world. Now
Layar... ‘shares
this vision of an
augmented world’,
Blippar co-founder
Ambarish Mitra says
working together as one team, we
will further define what consumer
augmented reality needs to be, and
what will be required to deliver it
on a global scale as an intuitive
daily behaviour.”
gxpress.net
Layar chief executive Quintin
Schevernels says the two
companies had a shared vision and
ambition: “Both companies have
been exploring the market very
successfully over the past years,”
he says. “Since they are extremely
complementary, joining forces
creates the undisputed global
market leader in its industry.”
He says the new combination
will “further fuel ambitions” and
has the potential to change the way
people interact with the physical
world forever.
Research and development
capabilities of the two businesses
will be combined, but Mitra says
they will maintain the relative
target market positions of each.
Blippar’s core strength had been
high-end and large brands and
publishers, whereas Layar’s
platform, white label technology
and self-publishing tool had
targeted the long tail of the market
with lower budgets.
Blippar recently announced
image-recognition capabilities for
Google Glass, as well as AR gaming
gx
technology for the platform. n
n
Content-X: Publishing in a New Dimension
Accelerate your processes with ppi Media’s software solutions. We specialize in
automation, integration and cross-channel publishing, and offer ideal solutions
for your workflow that are both economical and efficient. Content-X is a system
for all channels. This editorial system ensures that your content remains medianeutral until it can be placed in print, online, mobile or broadcast. Discover the
advantages!
Meet us at WAN-IFRA India
in New Delhi on 17-18 September 2014
Contact: Gerhard Raab
Email: Gerhard.Raab@ppimedia.de
• Newspaper systems industry veteran
John Juliano writes regularly for GXpress
Magazine. He is North American vice
president of business development at
Miles 33. Contact him at john@jjcs.com
Meet us at World Publishing Expo
in Amsterdam, the Netherlands
13-15 October 2014
Booth 9.410
We Believe in Publishing.
www.ppimedia.com
Generic
gxpress.net
gxpress.net
Seamless video opens
the door at Telegraaf
DIGITAL
MEDIA ASIA
18-21 NOVEMBER 2014 · SINGAPORE
Dutch flagship daily De
Telegraaf plans better, newsier
content following installation
of a new multimedia editorial
system.
The country’s largest
publisher aims to give
subscribers more quality
content and reduce time to
market on digital publications
with the unified workflow of
the CCI NewsGate system.
Editor and NewsGate
project manager Lenno van
Dekken says Amsterdambased Telegraaf Media Group
“wants to innovate” and
make new ideas come to life:
“Our organisation has the
willingness to change and with
NewsGate we’re getting the
technology to support that
change and to innovate,” he
says.
“We have so much great
content, but we can only
publish limited amounts in
the newspaper. We want to
give our subscribers more
quality content on tablets and
smartphones.
“We spread our content to
all platforms and let the reader
decide where, when and how
to read.”
The CCI system will be the
central tool for production and
planning across the group’s
wide array of publications
and business units including
national daily De Telegraaf,
regional dailies, daily
freesheets including Metro,
weeklies and magazines.
A factor has been the
close ties to CCI-owned
Escenic, which Telegraaf
wants use to boost online
business. Telegraaf Media
Group operates more than
100 websites and facilitates
video production as “the most
complete media house” in the
gx
Netherlands. n
n
Artwork and video delivery service Adstream has opened
an office in Shenzhen to service the Chinese market, “in response
to increased interest in the Chinese market and client demands”.
In Australia, Adstream has named former Sensis sales general
manager Geoff Hoffmann as commercial director. In 21 years
with the Australian directory publisher – owned by Telstra,
which owned Adstream until three years ago – Hoffmann was
gx
responsible for digital sales as well as Yellow Pages products. n
n
Beachhead established,
News mulls app attack
A
fter trialling it on
Sydney’s northern
beaches, News Corp
is rolling out its LocalShoppa
offers app to 130 more areas.
Head of digital Elizabeth
McDonald says the locationbased smartphone app – which
shows discount offers and
on-the-spot deals within 25
kilometres – gives advertisers
easy control.
News Corp Australia trialled
the app in the geographical
footprint of its Manly Daily
community newspaper to test
the product before rolling it
out to the other 21 newspaper
mastheads in New South Wales.
“The app is hyperlocal with
a default 25-kilometre ring
fence, which can be shortened
or lengthened,” she says. “As
users travel around with their
phones, ring fences change
to the area of the phone’s
location.”
Users can also sort by
category or retailer and mark
‘favourites’ to receive push
notifications for when a new
deal goes live. For advertisers,
a self-service portal enables
them to upload, manage and
change local deals in real time.
“If a coffee shop owner is
having a slow lunch period,
the owner can instantly push
out a one-hour only offer such
as ‘buy one sandwich, get one
free’,” she says.
“Unlike most deal apps
that take a percentage of the
client’s product or service,
Local Shoppa advertisers pay a
flat rate of A$220 a month for
access to the platform. They
can have five deals running at
any one time.”
News licenses the Local
Shoppa app – which uses GPS
technology, favourites and
category push notifications –
and platform from a third party.
McDonald says that in
addition to the 130-centre
rollout, there is “potential
to move into territories not
currently serviced by News
gx
Corp”. n
n
App attack:
News may take its
LocalShoppa app to
'non-News’ areas
TOI’s customer-centric app leads on pricing
D RIVIN G I NNO VATI O N S
IN NEW S M EDI A
www.wan-ifra.org/dma14
10 gxpress.net
August 2014
T
BCCL president Arunabh
Das Sharma
Nirmalya
Sen looks at
TOI’s Pricewise
programme
and striving
for innovation
he Times of India, the flagship newspaper
of Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd (BCCL),
wants to evolve its Pricewise programme
from a dynamic pricing tool to a consultative
one, incorporating modules for analysing price
volume elasticity and cross sell and upsell
combinations, among other things. In an
interview with GXpress magazine, Arunabh
Das Sharma, president of BCCL, based in New
Delhi, India says the company is pushing hard
to use its scientific pricing engine to maximise
challenged advertising margins. Edited excerpts:
What technology applications does TOI’s
‘Pricewise’ programme involve?
Pricewise is a custom application
developed using Java from ease of use and
24x7 accessibility perspectives. It provides
instantaneous price quotes and authorisation
that seamlessly flow into SAP for order booking.
The databases used are Mongo and Oracle.
You have said newspaper media
organisations have traditionally viewed
pricing from a tactical lens, giving little focus
to it in the overall scheme of things. What do
you feel the impact of this view has been for
newspapers?
Tactical view on pricing has resulted in
unchecked discounting that resulted in pricing
table going down over the years. This has led
to erosion of yield in multiple markets. Also,
tactical approach on pricing has not allowed
pricing to become one of the strategic pillars on
which organisations can plan revenue growth
and higher profitability.
How has TOI’s ‘pricing excellence’
transformation programme worked so far?
Pricing excellence transformation has helped:
increase realisation defined as revenue per
metric tonne, allow for more accurate bookings
and projections on a daily basis and changed
sales force focus from volume-driven growth to
profitable growth.
What advanced yield management
techniques have driven yield growth for TOI?
Techniques used to drive yield growth at
TOI include: control on pagination basis the ad
edit matrices for publications, calibrated price
increases factoring the variable cost increase,
volume control on loss-making transactions and
evaluation on business parameters to ensure
alignment with business objectives.
How were pricing algorithms established
and what supporting technology backbone
was used for TOI?
Pricing algorithms were established using
regression techniques that measure impact
of more than 25 parameters on pricing. The
algorithms were supported by business logic
incorporating external factors such as readership,
CPT (cost per thousand), circulation and market
shares. Statistical packages were used to establish
the relationships between various parameters and
gx
their impact on pricing. n
n
digital business
Adstream will team
gxpress.net
Video exchange SpotXchange
becomes RTL’s new idol
E
uropean entertainment giant RTL
has bought a majority share in
programmatic video advertising
company SpotXchange.
The $8 billion group with more than
10,000 employees has interests in 54 TV
channels and owns production company
FremantleMedia.
SpotXchange chief executive Mike
Shehan points out that it is the first
time a major broadcaster has invested
in programmatic video advertising:
“SpotXchange has never been afraid to take
the road less travelled, and challenge the
norms in the ad tech industry.
“Instead of selling to a major US
technology company, we’ve taken a route
that will allow us to operate independently
while becoming a core part of RTL’s global
business and strategy,” he says.
RTL Group will acquire 65 per cent
of the Denver-based video advertising
monetisation company for an initial US$144
million plus an ‘earn-out component’ based
on future performance. RTL also an option
to acquire the remaining shares.
Founded in 2007, SpotXchange was the
first online advertising marketplace with an
exclusive focus on video, and now provides
its platform to hundreds of publishers
around the globe including The Atlantic,
Hearst Corporation and Mail Online.
It claims more than a billion auctions for
video advertising impressions are transacted
through its platform daily, with ads delivered
to 335 million people.
Growth in programmatic video
advertising is estimated to increase from
US$2.7 billion in 2013 to US$15.4 billion in
gx
2018 worldwide. n
n
+
CCI EUROPE
with Comcast’s AdDelivery
to offer a single global ad
delivery platform.
The partnership will
extend Adstream’s current
distribution offering – which
covers Latin America, Europe,
Asia and Australasia – to
North American destinations.
Comcast currently provides ad
distribution for over 10,000
national, regional and local
advertisers using a 100G-fibre
backbone across the USA and
parts of Canada.
Its footprint encompasses
most US broadcast and
cable networks, local
broadcast stations, cable and
other multichannel video
distributors, radio stations,
and online video web
publishers.
He cofounded
advertising technology firms
Amobee – sold to SingTel in
2012 for $321 million – and
RingRing Media, now Harry
Dewhirst has turned his
talents to BlisMedia.
His new role as president,
chief commercial officer
and board director of the
Singapore-based location
data and consumer targeting
firm – in which he has been
an investor for the past three
years – was announced last
week. And already there’s
talk of new markets and
partnerships across the AsiaPacific region and beyond.
Having run ad tech
businesses in Europe, USA
and locally, Dewhirst was
named Media Week’s Rising
Star in 2009 and was among
Mobile Entertainment
magazine’s top 50 mobile
executives.
Established in the UK in
2004, BlisMedia has launched
hubs in Singapore and
Sydney andplans more offices
globally in the next year.
Dewhirst says with
advertisers globally seeking
new ways to reach relevant
audiences, the moves come
at a crucial time for Blis, with
“best in market” platforms
and solutions: “We are
uniquely placed to help
brands reach the people that
matter, at the right place and
gx
time,” he says. n
n
+
ESCENIC
AWT SYSTEM
GLOBAL STRENGTH
+
LOCAL KNOWLEDGE
A partnership combining local expertise with
world
class editorial, online and advertising systems
SYSTEMS
gxpress.net
➤ A new addition to
EidosMedia’s Méthode
publishing platform gives
news organisations the
tools to maximise the
effectiveness of their
social media operations.
How are news organisations
making social media work for them?
A recent survey* conducted by Csion
across 11 countries revealed that,
while most journalists use social
media to some extent, there are wide
variations across the sample in both
skills and attitudes, with a striking
50 per cent of journalists regarding
social media as having a negative
or very negative effect upon their
profession. It seems clear that, in
spite of the genuine opportunities
offered by this new public space both
as a news-gathering source and as
a venue for engaging readers, news
providers are often slow to realise its
potential benefits.
“For one thing, it’s too noisy,”
said Marco Cetola, EidosMedia
Product Manager. “The idea you’re
looking for to drive your story, the
authoritative comment you need,
may well be in there somewhere, but
not every journalist has the search
skills needed to sort out the wheat
from the chaff among the millions of
items posted every day.”
The other grey area concerns the
management of the news provider’s
own posts: “Most organisations
have accounts on the major social
networks where they post some of
their content,” he said. “But few of
them have a coordinated strategy
driven by a clear view of who’s
posting what and what response it’s
getting. These are just two of the
considerations that prompted us to
develop Méthode Social.”
Méthode Social is part of
EidosMedia’s Méthode digital
publishing platform. It gives users
a set of tools that maximise the
efficiency of sourcing news from
social networks, while providing an
overview of the performance of its
own social media operations.
“All of the social functions can be
used without leaving the editorial
workspace,” said Marco Cetola.
“Journalists manage all searching
and posting operations in a side
panel next to the editing window.
Results are then imported into the
workflow using simple click and drag
operations.”
Using a number of powerful
filters and algorithms, journalists can
gxpress.net
www.ccieurope.com
news
leaders
news
leaders
Making social
media work
progressively refine their searches
across multiple social networks
to strip away irrelevant or lowgrade results and zero in on the
most authoritative and media-rich
contributions. “A feature like this
can make every journalist into a
social search expert,” he said.
When it comes to the
organisation’s own social media
posts, Méthode Social allows stories
to be published across a slate of
social media with a single click.
Templates automatically select and
optimise the format of the story
content for each social network,
ensuring that the organisation
presents a coordinated graphic
identity across the different
networks.
The performance of the
organisation’s posts is displayed
and analysed in two other panels:
one shows overall numbers of
‘likes’, shares and comments over
a given time interval; the other
lists published items, together with
statistics and trend data, so that the
changing performance of individual
posts in real time can be seen at a
glance.
“We’ve designed these tools to
bring greater efficiency, productivity
and, above all, visibility to the
way news providers make social
media work for them,” said Marco.
“They’re intended to provide the
basis for a truly effective social
media strategy.”
*http://www.cision.com/us/2013/12/
how-journalists-view-pr-and-socialmedia/
EidosMedia Pty Ltd
Centennial Plaza, Tower B
280 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000
Phone: +61 (02) 9112 3000
sydneyoffice@eidosmedia.com
www.eidosmedia.com
GXP NL 1408 13
future forum
gxpress.net
gxpress.net
Digital dimes
turn to dollars
N
o doubt that digital
publishing was front and
centre at the 2014 Future
Forum in Sydney this month,
albeit with a nod here and
there to print, which for
many continues to deliver the dollars.
With no-one game to guess for how long
that might be, the focus was on building
the ‘digital dimes’ on which the future must
rest.
If the “watershed” is the point at which
circulation revenue – both print and
digital – exceeds that from advertising, the
New York Times is already there, and an
optimistic chief consumer officer Yasmin
Namini (opposite) could tell delegates how
the publisher was going back for more than
the 54 per cent it already takes.
From Germany, Pit Gottschalk told how
Hamburger Abendblatt – the hen that had
laid Axel Springer’s golden eggs – had been
sold last year to fund digital growth and
acquisition. No matter that print earners
remain the influential Die Welt and popular
Bild.
At a ‘print production masterclass’ the
previous day, it seemed almost that News
Corp Australia’s group editorial director
Leavers
were
losers,
as some
delegates
grabbed a
free lunch
and left
Communications minister Malcolm Turnbull
with Campbell Reid, Lodovico de Briganti
and Yasmin Namini: “You need to be
nimble, able to twist and turn,” he told
delegates after talking tactics with former
Italian footballer de Briganti
14 gxpress.net
August 2014
Campbell Reid had found his way into
the wrong room, contrasting the “stature”
of print with the immediacy of digital
publishing. If print distribution and
production were as quick as digital, he
argued, “we’d print more editions”. And if it
were as cheap, perhaps.
Among speakers at The Newspaper
Works event in fact, it was left to SPH
strategic marketing head Geoff Tan to
deliver a dynamic rap for the dominant
Singapore publisher’s print products.
Critically however, the industry had
moved from the gloom of previous years to
pragmatic optimism about its future.
Apart from its highlight plenaries
and Newspaper of the Year presentation
dinner, the two-day programme also
included workshop sessions for journalism,
advertising and marketing, as well as the
2014 Advertising and Marketing Awards.
In what is effectively a ‘gift’ to the
Australian industry, registration for all
except the evening awards events was free.
The strangest aspect therefore, was that –
with a strong afternoon session including
Storyful founder Mark Little, designer Joe
Ziff and Twitter’s Danny Keens, more than
half of delegates seemed to have simply
grabbed a free lunch and left.
Publishers had one of their own on hand
in the passionate and well-informed
Australian communications minister
Malcolm Turnbull.
Apart from the reassurance that “our
democracy depends on a free press” and
that the change of government had brought
a ministry which believed in working “with
the industry not against it”, there was the
constant reminder that Turnbull – who had
worked on Kerry Packer’s plans to re-enter
the Sydney newspaper market and been a
pioneer of the internet industry – knew and
cared what he (and we) were talking about.
There was no hoped-for news of media
deregulation, other than that it was still on
C
onfident of a digital model that
will fund great journalism for
years to come, the New York
Times is looking for new ways
to expand revenue. Circulation has been
the news publisher’s biggest source of
income for the last two years, with 831
digital subscribers adding an extra $150
million a year ($82 million in the last six
months) to the dollars received from sales
of the print edition.
A ‘risky’ decision to introduce a
paywall in 2011 has been vindicated and
chief consumer officer Yasmin Namini –
who is also a keen sea angler – is looking
for “new fish to catch”.
On a visit for The Newspaper
Works’ Future Forum – her sixth to
Australia on business and pleasure –
she also had plans for bait-casting at
Freshwater Cove. And she likened the
“risk and innovation” in prospecting for
barramundi and mangrove jack on the
Kimberley Coast to that needed to catch
new digital subscribers.
An early 2000s move into paywalls
had been controversial, but then, so had
the introduction of colour to front pages
in 1997… and it is the same conservative
loyalists who objected that the NYT is
now tapping with a new Times Premier
digital product.
These top-end subscribers are now
paying an extra $10 – on top of the $35
they pay every four weeks for full digital
access – for “behind the story” coverage,
crosswords, topic books and events, extra
access for family members and the ability
to gift three-month subs to friends. Goal
of the enhanced tier is to build a deeper
relationship, Namini says.
A Times Insider component also
includes the opportunity to quiz
reporters and learn about stories and
risk and
reward
happenings to look out for. A favourite
video spills on the two hours (and
numerous staffers) needed to prep a brief
Obama interview. “It’s a more dynamic
and immersive experience, and takes
people from spectator to feeling they are a
participant.”
The next-stage products are being
fine-tuned, but retention stats are “really
encouraging”. And a far cry from when the
original paywall was introduced.
“People said we were crazy, delusional
and dumb, and only in retrospect is it
possible to see the risks we took were
smart and necessary,” Namini says.
But even if the landscapes continue to
change, some are unchanging: “I believe
in great journalism, the kind we publish at
NYT and you all do,” she told delegates.
“It’s more important than ever and worth
paying for.”
The last five years have seen circulation
revenue rise, first through increases in
cover prices, and then the paywall – which
currently allows ten free stories a month
– and subscription models. Since 2012, it
has been the largest revenue source – a
“watershed” partly driven by declining
advertising – and since January, has
accounted for 54 per cent.
“Basically, we asked digital readers to
pay for our journalism, just as just as print
readers had for more than a century and a
half,” she says.
Encouragingly, they have found a “large
and growing” number of people willing
to do so. Even with the digital growth
slowing, the last quarter’s 32,000 new
subscribers was a 19 per cent increase.
Subscribers pay $15, $25 or $35 every
four weeks for different levels of access,
amounting to between $195-$455 a year.
“Advertising remains very important
but growing the number of subscription
relationships and revenue are a key to
reinventing our future business model,”
Namini says. “If we can continue to expand
the base of digital subscribers, we think we
shall have a foundation for a new business
model, one that can deliver sustainable
profits and continue to fund our great
journalism for many years to come.”
A lot of research, assessment of demand
levels, and “optimising profitability
for the overall business” preceded
pricing decisions. “What we had to do
was consider the impact on our print
pricing, and minimise the amount of
cannibalisation,” she says.
The original meter model of 20 free
articles a month before subscription is
required – to maintain high traffic levels –
has now been reduced to ten, but Namini
says, “you have to make assumptions
and build a flexible model which enables
changes. Print subscribers – who “already
pay premium prices” – were given alldigital access free, and this has helped slow
a decline. Four fifths of the “more than a
million” print subscribers have linked to
the website and apps.
Now the publisher is looking at new
opportunities, especially from the morethan-half of its digital subscribers using
mobiles. It is also looking at those at the
Selling
up the
demand
curve is
the next
priority
for the
NYT,
writes
Peter
Coleman
New York Times’
Crossword and
Opinion apps and
(below) Cooking beta
site
Main picture: Yasmin
Namini
extremes of its demand
curve.
In addition to the
heavy-duty Times Premier
users, those who value the
content but won’t pay $15
for it are being targetted,
an opportunity, Namini
says, to capture a new
audience.
Two new products are already up: NYT
Now – an $8 per four weeks curated news
app has a mostly under-35 audience, most
of whom have not subscribed before – and
the $6 NYT Opinion app delivers access to
all opinion content. Of NYT Now, Namini
says “you know you’re reaching a younger
demographic when Buzzfeed has you at
number six on its list of apps that will help
you in your 20s”. Paradoxically, it is placed
between two drinking apps.
A new free NYT Cooking app is in beta,
to launch this northern autumn and will
draw on feature content such as the Times’
database of 15,000 recipes, adding tools
and community. “We want to build up as
large and engaged an audience as possible
before we start charging for it,” she says.
The first new product tied to a feature
section, it will bring together chefs, users,
friends and family.
Namini says the rollout of the new apps
is very different to first paywall model, for
which there was a large target audience:
“These have to reach new audiences and
stand out on their own,” she says. “So far,
we’re pretty pleased with reaction, but it’s
still early.
“The success of our subscription
strategy and those of others, shows
people will pay for comment, and readers’
engagement can be turned into growing
revenues and content.”
future forum
gxpress.net
Newspaper of the Year
and advertising awards
R
obust journalism was in fashion at the
Newspaper of the Year awards, with
Brisbane’s Courier-Mail taking the top
national/metro category.
Judges said the newspaper “brilliantly
articulated” a strategy it identified as “aiming to
surprise” readers every day. In a top class field,
it edged the rest through its “lively and original
approach to journalism”.
Publishers in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji,
Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan were among
winners as awards went for best newspapers,
web sites, apps and digital innovation,
photography and technical excellence. Awards
for advertising and marketing were presented
the previous night.
Newspaper of the Year awards:
NEWSPAPER OF THE YEAR
Daily newspaper, national/metro– The Courier-Mail;
regional– Newcastle Herald; community– The Gympie
Times.
Weekend newspaper– The Weekend Australian.
Non-daily: regional– The Land; community– St George &
Sutherland Shire Leader.
Technical excellence:
Print centre of the year– Fairfax Media Print &
Distribution, North Richmond, NSW.
Single-width: national/metro– Apple Daily Printing (Hong
Kong); regional– The Geraldton Guardian; community–
Bairnsdale Advertiser. Double-width: national/metro–
The West Australian; regional– Sunshine Coast Daily;
community– New Zealand Chinese Herald. Preprint
or supplement: Northern Daily Leader for Tamworth
Regional Council.
Environment: News Corp Australia 1 Degree’s FY2014
Environmental Awareness Campaign.
Photography:
Portrait: national/metro– Matt Turner (The Advertiser,
Adelaide); regional– Addison Hamilton (Daily Advertiser);
community– Matt Bedford (Armidale Express).
Features and lifestyle: national/metro– Jason Edwards
(Sunday Herald Sun); regional– Brendan Radke
(Gold Coast Bulletin); community– Justin Brierty (The
Centralian Advocate).
Sport: national/metro– Wayne Ludbey (The Courier-Mail);
regional– Jon Gellweiler (South Western Times) and Jim
Aldersey (Bendigo Advertiser); community– Jon Hewson
(Mandurah Coastal Times).
News: national/metro– Brendan Esposito (The Sydney
Morning Herald); regional– Phil Hearne (Newcastle
Herald); community– Geoff Jones (Hawkesbury Gazette).
Fairfax Media teams won both the top sales team and
top marketing team awards
16 gxpress.net
August 2014
A serve
from Julia
Australia’s newspapers
and news sites copped a
serve from awards host
Julia Zemiro at the PANPA
Newspaper of the Year
presentations. Between
the handing out of gongs,
the feisty star of RocKwiz
and SBS’ coverage of the
Eurovision song contest
used her platform to take
issue with a journalist’s
suggestion that she was
drunk while reporting on
this year’s songfest.
Having a go at the ‘have
a go’ journalist she named
only as ‘Nick’, she told her
side of the story – involving
giant stairways and a
beaker of soft drink – to
those who were celebrating
the successes of the
publications concerned. You
can Google the report and
its author online.
There was also a parting
shot from Zemiro, quoting
a line from Broadcast News
about the Devil “lowering
standards, a bit at a time”.
Digital:
Best mobile site: mX app for smartphones.
Best niche/speciality app or microsite: The Canberra Times
for The Silent War.
Digital innovation of the year: The Straits Times for
Singapore Communities Platform.
News site of the year: national/metro– Apple Daily,
Taiwan (appledaily.com.tw) and The Advertiser, Adelaide
(advertiser.com.au); regional– Newcastle Herald
(theherald.com.au).
HEGARTY INDUSTRY SCHOLARSHIP
Mark Baker, Launceston Examiner, Fairfax Media
ADVERTISING & MARKETING AWARDS
Print awards:
Best single advertisement for a client: national/metro–
Sunday News; regional– The Cairns Post; community–
Noosa News. Best print campaign for client: national/
metro– News Corp Australia for Touring Tasmania;
regional– Geelong Advertiser for Geelong Travel Expo;
community– Coffs Coast Advocate for Parkbeach Plaza
Shop for Coffs Coast Schools.
Best feature/supplement/native advertising environment:
national/metro– The Daily & Sunday Telegraph/Herald
Sun/Courier-Mail + 82 community publications for Shop
Small, American Express; regional– Newcastle Herald for
DisabilityCare Australia; community– The Courier, Narrabri
for Centenary Edition.
Best print idea or innovation: national/metro– Sunday
News for Turbo; regional– Manning Great Lakes Extra
for The Tradies Toolbox; community– Leader Community
Newspapers for Hoyts Ribbon.
Digital advertising:
Best single advertisement: national/metro– The Sydney
Morning Herald for South Australian Tourism Commission;
regional– Illawarra Mercury for Three Chimneys.
Best digital campaign: national/metro– New Zealand
Herald for Silver Fern Farms; regional– The Examiner,
Launceston for Tasmanian Turf Club.
Best digital idea or innovation: The Sydney Morning
Herald for Lego Blockbuster.
Best microsite/native advertising: New Zealand Herald for
Tourism Australia.
Transmedia best integrated campaign: news.com.au/
Herald Sun/Daily Telegraph/Courier-Mail/The Advertiser,
Adelaide for NAB Traveller Card Campaign.
Craft:
Best copywriting: The Australian Magazine, The Weekend
Australian for ANZ Campaign.
gxpress.net
Marketing awards winners:
Trade campaign of the year: national/metro– Fairfax
Media for Weekend Compact Launch; regional– Sunshine
Coast Daily for Town Proud; community– Community
Newspaper Group for Food for Thought.
Consumer campaign of the year: national/metro–
The Sydney Morning Herald & The Age for Clique
Photographers’ Association; regional– Bendigo
Advertiser for News Now; community– Leader
Community Newspapers for Leader Local Grants.
Best cause-related campaign or community service:
national/metro– The Daily Telegraph & The Sunday
Telegraph for We’re For The Bush; regional– The Land
for Glove Box Guide to Mental Health; community–
Community Newspaper Group for HBF Junior Sports Hero
Awards.
Sponsorship of the year: national/metro– stuff.co.nz
for Round the Bays; regional– Post-Courier, Papua New
Guinea for Sponsorship of United Bougainville Training
Institute, and The Courier for Run Ballarat Sponsorship;
community– Hutt News/Upper Hutt Leader for Great
Toyota Giveaway.
Best young reader programme: The Fiji Times.
Sue Foster of the Noosa News collects her newspaper’s
best print ad (community) award from Nisin Sunito,
managing director of awards sponsor Oceanic Paper
Executive excellence winners:
Team collaboration/team player: News Corp Australia for
Melbourne Now Campaign.
Creative services team: APN News & Media, New Zealand.
Sales person of the year: Edwina Sahhar, Fairfax Media.
Sales team: National Agency Sales Team, Fairfax Media.
Designer/creative services professional: Melanie Yun
(News Corp Australia) and Clare Catt (News Corp
Australia).
Sales manager: Chris Gallichio (Herald & Weekly Times/
Leader Community Newspapers).
Marketing team of the year: National Trade Marketing
Team, Fairfax Media.
Marketer of the year: Johnson Goh, Swee Gim (Singapore
Press Holdings).
For Apple Daily Printing, Hong Kong, production
director Anthony Chan Mei Sang collects the singlewidth award from Jason Kent of sponsor DIC
the agenda if a hard-to-achieve consensus
could be found. Later the conflicting
interests were made apparent in the chief
executives forum.
Nothing new: “I first represented a
media company on a media regulation
inquiry in 1977,” Turnbull said, “so I have
seen this film before and I know that
consensus ends where self-interest kicks in.”
However, “focussed discussions” with the
industry may produce something. Change
“is still on the agenda but needs to carefully
balance two competing concerns – the need
for diversity in our media industry and to
ensure that we have enough economically
viable media businesses to make that
diversity possible,” he said.
Turnbull set the scene for upcoming
presentations, even borrowing from
Namini’s stats. Nearer to home, he pointed
to the 140,000 digital-only subscribers
Fairfax Media has for The Age and the
Sydney Morning Herald, and the 200,000
News Corp has across its Australian titles.
“Compared to their international peers,
Australian publishers have done well,” he
said, comparing the $24 million taken from
digital subscriptions last year (about nine
per cent of digital revenues from its metro
titles) with the US$41 million of the New
York Times Company last quarter (slightly
less than 11 per cent of total revenue).
Citing PWC forecasts that industrywide digital subscription revenue will grow
tenfold until 2018, he added, “In other words,
if you can collect enough digital dimes you
may well end up with close to a dollar after
all.”
But with ‘all you can eat’ subscription
models giving way to smaller products,
“you need to be nimble”. Having chatted
with EidosMedia’s Lodovico de Briganti
beforehand, he cited the latter’s experience as
an Italian rugby player adding, “like that…
able to twist and turn”.
We’ve told before the story of how Axel
Springer boss Mathias Doofer placed –
literally – a team of top executives in the
digital hotbed of Silicon Valley (GXpress June
2014). Managing director Pit Gottschalk
brought the change of mindset home to
Future Forum delegates, holding up a copy of
the daily Hamburger Abendblatt – on which
the Springer empire had been built – which
the company sold with other regionals and
magazines to Funke Media last year for 920
million Euros ($1.22 billion).
With digitalisation “one of the big things
we had to do”, the German group now has
a lot of cash to invest and is “in a rush to be
Break the
rules
the leading media group”.
He urged publishers to “do what you’re
best of class at” and grow both organically
and by acquisition.
Joe Zeff was between jobs: The former
principal of app designer Joe Zeff Design
had signed off for a new role next month
with ScrollMotion where he will take his
skills to large corporates. “It’s hard to argue
that tablet editions are better than what you
can do with HTML,” he admitted.
A former presentation editor with the
New York Times (its first), he had focussed
on magazine covers until moving to mobile
apps, and is now leaving the publishing
space.
But not without some advice for us:
About obstacles, product redundancies and
new entrants – such as Buzzfeed, Vox and
Yahoo News Digest – that “change the rules”.
And competition from brands. Advertisers
“telling their own stories” like the Coca Cola
site “with no soda bottles in sight”.
“Mum and dad were right… it is bad for
you, especially if you’re a publisher,” he said,
urging delegates to reclaim storytelling.
Products should be useful – leveraging
inventory and technologies such as Apple’s
iBeacon – and content modular: Take risks,
don’t be afraid to fail,” he urged.
Channelling Steve Jobs – who had
“changed everything” – SPH’s Geoff Tan
urged thinking “outside in”: “Don’t just
think outside it, burn the box”. Citing
the Singapore publisher’s experience, he
urged slimmer, flattened organisation,
and the selling of solutions rather than
advertising. And he still had plenty of ideas
to reinvigorate print promotion.
Hegarty scholarship
winner and former
The Land editor Sally
White visited magazine
publisher Monocle,
learning of its success
from “breaking all the
rules”: print first, it
was more expensive to
subscribe to and had no
social media, appealing
to “thinkers and doers”.
And the Quartz website
(qz.com) which developed
its own data journalism
tools and now had five
million uniques, and
Agmedia’s informative
Modern Farmer for which
subs could be as much as
$1200 a month. “People
will pay for value,” she
said.
Had to go: Pit
Gottschalk with the
paper sold to fund
digitalisation
A second panel session contrasted
advertising agency attitudes from the
ground up. UM chief executive Mat Baxter
(New Balance sneakers) told delegates
there was no room for complacency:
“Every day is your first day”. Asked how
newspapers engaged creative agencies
Jules Hall of The Hallway (leather
brogues) said simply, “You don’t”. And
on research, “the conversation needs to
get away from audience and focus on
outcomes”.
Irish former journalist and founder of
Storyful, Mark Little was just off the plane
to tell delegates not to get too obsessed with
distribution. Having lost the monopoly on
telling stories,“we need to focus on content,”
he said.
When his publisher employer had been
unable to send him to report on an incident in
Teheran, he looked at alternative sources,“what
a news agency would look like if it didn’t create
any original content”. The result is a business
which “sources and validates” information
from social media, and was bought last
December by News Corp for 18 million Euros
(US$25 million).
Little sees “more integration of professional
and amateur storytelling” and urges publishers
to challenge ideas about content packaging.
“Today’s principles are to manage (not own),
discover (not search), and for authenticity over
authority.
As people “learn to live with perpetual
motion (quoting Emily Bell), the next
generation will laugh at concepts such as the
nine news and printed papers,“but they will
want someone to trust, to be a gatekeeper,” he
said.
Introducing Twitter media partnerships
director Danny Keens, The Newspaper Works
chief executive Mark Hollands told how
Twitter, FaceBook and Google had “pitched us”,
and urged publishers to make use of them:
“They have audiences for us to come and get,”
he said.
In that context, Keens referenced his
platform’s 500 million Tweets a day – including
real-time dialogues from outer space – and
urged publishers to work with it through
products such as Twitter Amplify: “Bring your
content and we’ll monetise it together,” he said.
Welcome to the new world.
Peter Coleman
digital newspaper printing
gxpress.net
Star performer
T
KS’s JetLeader digital
press and its variable
cutoff folder are a rare
newspaper-oriented offering
among the 2014 InterTech
technology award winners.
The lucite stars made
famous by Printing Industries
of America’s predecessor GATF
since 1978 are mostly handed
out this year for packaging
print innovations.
Among them is the
V-Pak packaging press
Goss International evolved
from its heatset commercial
technology.
Others include real-time
3D packaging software from
Creative Edge, the ICE toner
that enables Xeikon digital
label presses, HP’s Indigo
20000 flexible packaging press,
a Hinterkopf digital printer
for shaped packaging and
Esko’s flexo platemaking and
extended gamut technology
for packaging print.
Heidelberg’s Stahlfolder
PFX feeder technology, Just
Normlicht’s handy Sopectis
1.0 light meter – which tackles
sources such as LED – and
iQuote, developed by EFI after
ten years of management
information systems
acquisitions are also honoured
among the 11 winners.
The JetLeader 1500 inkjet
web has been a star performer
for pioneer NewsWeb in
Chicago, which has two and
recently changed its name to
Topweb.
PIA technology and
research vice president Mark
Bohan says judges were
impressed by several aspects
of the TKS press including the
company’s open source ink
policy and new variable-cutoff
folder. They also credited it for
well thought-out engineering,
robust construction and
product flexibility.
TKS president Ryutaro
Shibasays receiving the
recognition in the North
American market is “very
important because there are so
many business opportunities
to incorporate the press and
its flexibility into a business
model”.
Apart from the two presses
at Topweb, TKS has a third at
gx
Hawaii Hochi in Honolulu. n
n
Pictured: One of the two TKS inkjet
webs at Topweb
Triple-former book system
German book printer CPI is to link manroland’s inline
finishing system to a new HP digital web press. The company’s
FormerLine book block solution is being teamed with a new Rima
lift-collator at the Clausen & Bosse print site in Leck.
manroland web systems sales manager Mathias Klaus says
that with open interfaces, his company’s finishing solutions are
“comfortable” within a workflow involving different press makers.
CPI managing director Guenter Pecher says the system offers
fast job changes within a highly automated finishing workflow,
excellent efficiency and optimised paper usage.
The FormerLine can process catalogues and advertising flyers
as well as books. It has a web speed of up to 300 metres/minute,
with cutoff variable between 145-457 mm and a maximum web
width of 1067 mm. At CPI, the web will run over three formers,
gx
producing up to 8000 glued book blocks an hour. n
n
18 gxpress.net
August 2014
future
orientated
More than 200 visitors toured digital
print pioneer Hucais Group in Dongguan,
China, during a manroland-organised
customer event.
An HP inkjet web at the site is teamed
with the German maker’s first FormerLine
book finishing system, currently offline.
Second and third lines have also been
installed, with more to follow in the next
couple of years.
Festivities included a kung-fu drum
performance and the “lucky” ritual of
a Chinese lion dance. Speakers included
Hucais chief executive Chen Chengwen,
manroland web digital printing head of
sales and business development Alwin
Stadler, and Gido van Praag and Cathy Xu
from HP Indigo.
Visitors to the industrial book production
section saw two web presses with
preprinted reels finished to glued book
blocks by the FormerLine.
Chengwen says that while the number
gxpress.net
News’ ‘preferred’ partners
of titles is constantly increasing, runs of
single editions are getting smaller. Digitallyprinted books can be produced and
delivered flexibly and are ready for dispatch
in two days, with web-based order systems
supporting a print-on-demand concept.
Already successful as a packaging printer,
Hucais has established digital printing
during the last years: “We constantly
develop our business and invest in futureoriented solutions,” Chengwen says. The
cost-effectiveness of production will help
convince further potential customers.
At Hucais, the FormerLine handles cutoffs from 145-420 mm and – teamed with
a Rima RS34 lift collator – produces stitched
signatures or up to 8000 glued and stitched
book blocks an hour. Webs run over two or
three formers, providing the option of 4-8
page or 8-16 page signatures.
N
ews Corp Australia has chosen digital
print partners Kodak and manroland
web as its preferred supplier. But
reports that an order has been placed
for a system to be installed in Brisbane
are premature. Production and logistics
national director Geoff Booth told GXpress
negotiations are continuing following a
tender process.
“I don’t expect an outcome for some
weeks,” he says. “We have more work to do
on the business case.”
News wants to print copies – which
are currently airlifted – of the Melbourne
Herald-Sun for the Queensland and northern
New South Wales market and a wide
variety of other work on a pilot system to
be installed at the Murarrie print site. Trade
press reports have teamed Kodak’s 200
metres-per-minute Prosper 5000 inkjet web
with manroland’s 300 metres-per-minute
Foldline digital finishing system. GXpress
Hucais chief executive Chen Chengwen (right) and
partners in the Dongguan project
understands an installation would initially
be offline, with plans to link the two systems
later. Kodak – which had worked with
manroland on on-press inkjet imprinting
systems – launched a fundamentally
redesigned 300 metres-per-minute Prosper
6000 (see opposite) last month.
Originally working with Océ (now part
of Canon) manroland has developed two
systems for finishing the product of inkjet
webs, one for newspapers – with an array
of options and add-ons – and another for
books, currently in use at Hucais in China. A
system for News would include one former, a
quarterfold to make it capable of processing
both tabloid and broadsheet products, plus
glueing and stitching.
Kodak is understood to be ready to
install an inkjet press before the end of
the year, with manroland following with
the Foldline in the New Year; all they need
gx
is an order. n
n
Canon pitches primer-free
digital on coated stocks
Canon has joined the multi-substrate
digital print fray with its first inkjet web
capable of printing on coated stocks.
The wide (762 mm) web Océ
ImageStream 3500 will print on standard
coated offset papers without the use of
bonding agents or primers.
Australian professional print sales
director Tim Saleeba says the new press
– launched at an open day in Poing,
Germany – will strengthen Canon’s position
in publishing and commercial printing.
Whether it is fast enough for
newspapers at up to 160 metres/minute at
the “performance mode” 1200 x 600 dpi
will depend on application and whether
users can leverage the extra width; it also
has “quality mode” 1200 x 1200 dpi at of
80 metres/minute.
Saleeba says it will usher in a new era,
enabling customers to take technology
from transactional printing into
applications such as brochures, catalogues
and short-run magazines,
The press uses a newly-developed
Kyocera 1200 dpi printhead and aqueous
pigment ink which allows very small
droplet sizes. The combination enables
printing on a wider range of standard
gloss offset stocks, as well as lightweight
papers, delivering higher edge sharpness,
increased optical density and vibrant
colours. “The perceived colour gamut on
low cost standard offset papers is higher
on pigment inks than with dye inks,” he
says.
It boasts what is being claimed as the
“most compact” footprint in its class and
is offered with a scalable Océ SRA MP
controller with embedded Adobe APPE
engine. Saleeba says the ImageStream
3500 will be on display at its Océ printing
summit in Germany in September and
available thereafter.
Pictured: Analysts pause for a selfie with the new
press
another time.
another print.
Print is always on the move. In dynamic,
changing markets, printing companies
always need to adapt to new conditions.
This is manroland web systems’ focus:
You, your business, and your future.
You can expect us to show new perspectives and integrated solutions
having the entire value chain in mind.
Our Digital Finishing Solutions:
The variable pin-type folder – FoldLine
manroland Australasia Pty Ltd,
contact us on +61 2 96 45 79 00.
www.manroland-web.com
digital newspaper printing
Agfa has added a
gxpress.net
S
tream, the inkjet technology on which
Kodak bet – and nearly lost – the company,
and the Prosper 6000 product designation
are finally coming together.
After having teased the market two years ago
with an upgraded 5000 series model shown at
DRUPA, Kodak has now announced that two new
Prosper 6000 presses will be available this year.
And there’s little comparison: What Kodak has
now launched is a new platform designed to fulfill
the promise first made for Stream when it was
announced four years ago, including costs that
come close to offset.
This is what it was all about when Kodak
trumpeted a proprietary technology somewhere
between drop-on-demand and continuous
inkjet – it uses a heated ceramic nozzle to modify
surface tension and therefore drop size – which
would change printing forever.
What has changed,of course,is Kodak.A
messy lurch into bankruptcy which left everyone
wondering how a brand which was so central to
imaging itself could get into that state,provided a new
definition to the expression“a Kodak moment”.And
a new Kodak with new stakeholders and rather fewer
patents in its war chest.
Stream is the survivor, and the Prosper 6000
its prodigal child.
Two new models address commercial printing
and publishing markets. The Prosper 6000C –
designed for higher-density commercial printing
– is to be available this (northern) summer, with
the 6000P, specifically for book and newspaper
applications, following in the autumn.
Both are rated to print on uncoated papers –
including standard newsprint – at 300 metres/
minute, with 200 metres/minute quoted for the
6000C on heavyweight glossy and silk stocks.
These are of the same order as the speeds quoted
for the 6000XL shown at DRUPA 2012, but
according to Kodak, up to two-and-a-half times
as fast as the Prosper 5000Xli. Print resolutions
at “approaching 200 lpi” are significantly better
than the 133 lpi quoted for the faster production
speeds in 2012 and 175 lpi when running slower.
So a couple of years after the DRUPA showing
– and four since it first spruiked Stream – what’s
changed for newspaper users?
Importantly, there’s been some improvement
in postpress offerings: manroland web – after a
“Kodak moment” of its own – has scored first
installations of Foldline and Formerline finishing
systems, which are still faster than the new Kodak
kit.And while the new Prosper 6000P is shown
in reel-to-reel configurations – with the option of
a splicer – a spokesperson told GXpress that an
open architecture Type 1 interface will allow for
integration with “a wide range of inline finishing
equipment”.
This is also a new platform, fundamentally
different from the Prosper 1000 and 5000 models.
In fact it’s surprising how much the 28 metres-
20 gxpress.net
August 2014
betting
on stream
long giant looks like a multicolour sheetfed
perfecting press, with its group of towers, turnerbar to flip the web, and second tower group. The
bar stack also creates the opportunity to configure
L-shaped or U-shaped presses, where space is
limited. Some applications (including newspapers
in some circumstances) require a complex web
lead which travels back and forward under the
towers and takes an estimated ten minutes to
rethread in the event of a break.
You can imagine that once established, the
maker will be able to increase both web speed
and width, creating productivity currently
unachievable (or imaginable for a digital press).
The rival HP 410 currently has the advantage
with a 1066 mm web width, albeit with slower
speeds.
Everyone’s waiting (as the song goes) for
cost-per-copy to come down in order that inkjet
can compete against offset for more than just
ultrashort print runs. In prelaunch presentations
this week, Kodak has been talking about a
running cost of US$0.005 per A4 page, which
includes “all of the variable costs that Kodak is
responsible (for)” (ie click, ink and service charges
but not equipment, paper and what it calls
“operational overhead”).
In response to queries, Kodak told us that in a
newspaper application this would equate to oneand-a-half cents US per tabloid newspaper page,
assuming 25 per cent ink coverage and when
running at 304 metres/minute,“assuming labour,
equipment, power, ink, click, service, and paper in
the cost per page”.
The spokesperson told us the presses
“would enable significant savings in logistics
How
Kodak’s
new
Prosper
6000
models
might
change
the print
equation
Pictured: The
Prosper 6000P in an
optional U-shaped
configuration
and (below) its
complicated web lead
for heavy inking and
coated stocks
and transportation costs for runs of up to 1,500
newspaper copies by delivering close to 3,000
newspapers every hour (based on a 48-page
tabloid format)… sufficiently high productivity
for a medium-sized market of 15,000-20,000
newspapers”, for which the Prosper 6000 models
“have the right throughput”. (We make that only
246 metres/minute with a 580 mm web).
Will that change everything? The answer – as
with all digital newspaper printing scenarios
– will depend on circumstances, but it’s an
impressive starting point.
My view is that while the newspaper industry
continues to face up to reduced print circulations,
digital printing has to contribute something
extra to the equation. That might be mixed
lots of different titles in a “remote” location, or
personalised editions in a more conventional
urban one, with a requirement being that the
distribution issue was sorted out.
Is Kodak in time for the digital newspaper
print party (if there is to be one)? That’s the
question: Publishers in Australia, for example, see
value in print despite circulations falling in line
with those elsewhere in the developed world and
a potential opportunity for digital presses.
And it’s not simply a question of how does
digitally printing a few thousand copies of the
Herald-Sun compare with flying them up from
Melbourne; it’s how it compares with printing
them on a suitable offset press; and what else you
could do with the inkjet web.
One thing is for certain. The arithmetic
has changed yet again, and if there was ever a
business case to be made, now’s the time.
gx
Peter Coleman n
n
new star to its externaldrum thermal platesetter
range.
The Avalon N16-80
XT is a fully configurable
top-end solution for highvolume publishing and
packaging applications.
CTP segment marketing
product manager Bruno
Lepage says both its
quality and speed will be
“extremely attractive” to
large commercial printers.
The Avalon N16 is a
range of thermal VLF
platesetters, using an
external-drum engine
equipped with GLV –
grating light valve, 512 or
1024 channel – imaging
technology and integrated
automation. Key benefits
include exceptional
registration accuracy and
consistent high-quality
imaging.
Kodak has announced
a three-year direct plate
supply agreement with
Blue Star, the Australian
printing and direct mail
business.
The move follows
Heidelberg Australia’s
switch from being exclusive
distributorship of Kodak
plates to a globally-led
relationship with Fujifilm.
Kodak’s ANZ managing
director Steve Venn says
the company has worked
with Blue Star for more
than 15 years, helping
it improve prepress
operations and print
quality.
Under the new
agreement, Kodak will
continue to supply its
Trillian SP and Electra XD
thermal plates.
“We are very pleased
to continue our strong
relationship with Blue
Star,” he says. “Their
commitment to deliver
high quality print and
innovative solutions
aligns well with Kodak’s
approach to business.”
Blue Star’s Mike
Shannon says strong
performance of the plates
and Kodak’s solutions
approach was an important
factor in the decision: “Our
mission is to delight our
CTP & workflow
customers and we look
forward to continuing this
relationship,” he says.
Instrument company
X-Rite has scored a very
substantial fillip with its
selection by WAN-Ifra for
use in Color Quality Club
measurement.
The Swiss company’s
technology – incorporating
the latest industry
standards and technical
advances – is being used
for the 2014 competition.
Deputy chief executive
and executive director
of the organisation’s
newspaper production
and special projects
competence centre
Manfred Werfel says there
will be no fundamental
changes to how the
results are obtained and
evaluated, but some
evaluation processes
have been revised to stay
current with the latest
standards. Among them
was the introduction of the
new measuring technique.
Two handheld X-Rite
eXact spectrophotometers
gx
n
will be used. n
gxpress.net
Thousands count
as Kodak celebrates
Creo innovation
A
week after announcing
the one-thousandth user
for its Sonora plates,
Kodak had a bigger number to
celebrate: 20,000 thermal imaging
heads.
The Squarespot thermal CT
technology was a key plank of
the portfolio gained with the
acquisition of Creo in 2005, and
has proved “one of our most
durable technologies”, according
to worldwide graphics marketing
general manager Rich Rindo.
Michigan, USA, book printer
Edwards Brothers Malloy has
taken delivery of the milestone
Magnus VLF platesetter.
Introduced by Canadian
pioneer Creo almost 20 years
ago, the technology was a first
viable alternative to visible
light plate imaging CTP
systems using it help reduce
chemistry usage, plate waste,
remakes and make-ready
times, Rindo says.
The 1,000th customer for
Sonora ‘process free’ plates, Ohiobased Reynolds and Reynolds,
is also in the USA. A new plate
manufacturing line has been
added at Kodak’s Columbus,
Georgia, facility in addition to
those in Osterode, Germany and
gx
Xiamen, China. n
n
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cover story
gxpress.net
Two years ago,
we channeled a
popular children’s
story in an analysis
of Fairfax Media’s
production plans
headed The little
engines that might.
With the project
complete, ‘You
should do a new
cartoon with the
steam train going
along at 100
bloody miles an
hour,’ Bob Lockley
(below) tells
Peter Coleman
22 gxpress.net
gxpress.net
...thought
we could!
M
ist is lying below, but
atop a hilly paddock in
semirural New South
Wales, there’s a low hum
from a newly-extended
industrial building.
It’s late evening and we’re about 60
kilometres from the centre of Sydney
– an hour when traffic’s light – and
the hum is the sound of success… of
Fairfax Media quietly getting on with
the business of printing one of its
flagship dailies at one of its regional
print centres.
A similar exercise is underway in
Ballarat, 110 km out of Melbourne, in
line with the Australian group’s ‘Fairfax
of the Future’ programme… and with
what we wrote – under the headline
The little engines that might – just two
years ago.
It’s been an exciting two years,
starting with the Australian media
group’s plan to cut the production
costs of its flagship dailies by shutting
down the showpiece steel-and-concrete
factories so proudly established in a
more optimistic era a couple of decades
before.
And tonight in North Richmond
as in Ballarat, with the Australian
Financial Review already being
trucked into town and copies of the
Sydney Morning Herald coming off
two folders, the fulfilment of that plan
is emphatically on schedule: “It’s very
unusual to say this, but we’re on budget,
on deadline and will achieve the
savings we proposed,” says Bob Lockley,
the group’s chief executive for print and
distribution. “And with a payback of
under a year.”
Facing diminishing print
circulations, Fairfax has spent to save:
A capital expenditure of $42 million
August 2014
set to deliver savings in excess of
$40 million in the first year, plus the
proceeds of the real estate freed up in
Chullora (Sydney) and Tullamarine
(Melbourne).
“So it’s a pretty attractive deal,
and as Greg (Hywood, Fairfax’s chief
executive) will tell everybody, we’re in
newspapers until they’re not profitable,
and while they’re profitable we’ll keep
printing them.
“What we are doing here is
testament to that.”
Sale of the former Age Print Centre
building – with its symbolic ‘rolled
newspaper’ of glass and concrete
alongside Melbourne’s Tullamarine
Freeway – is about to go through, with
vacant possession by Christmas. But
not before its halls – close enough
to the city’s airport to have required
special design work to avoid interfering
with radar – have been stripped of the
press and mailroom equipment which,
with the building itself, had accounted
for most of a $220 million investment
when it was opened by state premier
Steve Bracks in July 2003.
Half of the 18 double-width
manroland Geoman press towers, all
of the folders and Ferag mailroom
equipment have been redeployed at the
two key regional sites or earmarked for
projects in New Zealand and elsewhere.
The remainder (including another nine
towers) have been cannibalised for
parts or scrapped.
A worse fate awaits the larger plant
at Chullora in Sydney’s inner west:
Virtually the whole of the 22-tower,
five-folder Colorman pressline, and
most of the seven Muller Martini
Newsliner inserting lines and mailroom
system – part of a $340 million original
investment – is being scrapped.
“It’s shocking, but nobody wants
them,” says Lockley, “and that’s in the
world”.
Indeed in Europe and elsewhere,
the secondhand market is awash
with newer equipment as publishers
either cut back or opt for the latest
automation to reduce production costs.
That said, it’s still hard not to become
emotional over what is happening:
“You walk in there now and it’s morbid,
terrible,” he says, “but I have to say that
both sites performed well right to the
end.
“The transition has been very
successful. We’ve done quite well to
achieve what we’ve done.”
What Fairfax, Lockley and a team of
handpicked managers and staff “have
done” is in fact, little short of amazing.
A network of regional printing
plants already in pretty good shape
following successive upgrades adds
strength one to the next, providing
contingency back-up as well as routine
preprint capacity.
But it was geographic reality that
dictated that North Richmond in NSW
and Ballarat in Victoria would take on
the heavy lifting of the SMH and The
Age.
At both centres, new building to
accommodate press and mailroom
extensions and the relocation and
installation of equipment has taken
place without disrupting production.
At North Richmond, staff and
suppliers negotiated mud to access
works and a Bunnings portable carport
served as a loading dock fed from one
conveyor. There, a standalone threetower Geoman plus a further tower
– re-engineered to match the width
and plate lock-up of the existing Uniset
Quiet achiever: (clockwise from top left)
• the standalone Geoman press and (nearer) converted
‘Geoset’ tower;
• insert feeders and rum inserting equipment relocated
from Tullamarine;
• night shift production manager Bob Lauder with
printer Tristan Lupton;
• a bundle is diverted to the loading bay;
• robot-palletised and shrink-wrapped, bulk bundles
are moved to a delivery truck;
• QI Press Controls camera heads scan the web for
register and density control;
• all quiet at the entrance to the site in North
Richmond’s Bells Line of Road
cover story
gxpress.net
gxpress.net
– were relocated from Tullamarine, together with
a complete Ferag drum inserting line, to which
new RollStream collators have been added.
Leveraging some of what has been learned
since the Geoman was installed in 2002 – and in
what is understood to be a world first – a doublewidth web from the modified tower is slit, turned
and combined with single-width webs in a Uniset
folder.
Other new elements include QI Press Controls’
closed-loop IDS colour density system – which
has been given its head following calibration
and training – and “pretty fantastic” Segbert
automated palletising.
The outcome is ultimate flexibility: The single
line can simultaneously print two 96-page tabloid
newspapers, a glued-and-trimmed 32-page
heatset magazine, and a stitched-and-trimmed
hybrid UV-cured square tabloid.
An eight-week transition process saw first
25,000 copies, then 50,000, then the whole of
the weekday run of the Herald moved to North
Richmond a week ahead of the June schedule.
On my evening visit to North Richmond –
somewhat poetically after a day helping judge
PANPA technical excellence entries and the new
‘print centre of the year’ category – Tuesday’s
smaller products and 140,000 print order were
being taken easily in their stride.
Later in the week, Saturday’s fatter book and
200,000-plus print order, and the Sunday SunHerald are also shared by Beresfield – where
a six-tower Uniset prints the Newcastle Herald
and other work – and the Canberra Times site in
Fyshwick, ACT.
In an emergency, the Goss Uniliner 70 at
Ormiston in suburban Brisbane – which prints
Queensland and northern NSW copies – could
deliver papers for “further down the coast”.
Lockley says the transition here and at
Ballarat four weeks earlier has been “very
good”, marred only by a few commissioning
problems with ex-Chullora publishing gear at
the Victorian site. And he paid special tribute
to the engineering work of the local manroland
team: “The Geoman is going wonderfully, really
pumping it out, and the integration of doublewidth into single has been pretty good,” he says.
On the mailroom side, I had seen the new
Ferag collators lined up on a visit to the factory
in Switzerland last September, but at North
Richmond it was hard to pick the new from that
relocated from Tullamarine. “It’s good stuff, and
was all in good shape,” Lockley says.
Another transition of the last couple of years
is the move to bring previously-outsourced
heatset supplements and magazines inhouse.
North Richmond’s Uniset press – which includes
two lines of i-type units with “commercial-style”
horizontal web leads – has taken over more
24 gxpress.net
August 2014
group work previously handled by heatset print
contractor IPMG.
Two vertical towers have also been equipped
with Baldwin’s watercooled QuadCure UV –
based on technology the maker acquired from
Nordson (and UK-based Spectral/Wallace
Knight) – providing capacity for another 32
pages. The $750,000 world-first order signed in
2011 also equipped two towers of the doublewidth Geoman in Canberra, delivering further 64
UV pages.
And in Ballarat, a heatset printing based from
a double-width tower from Tullamarine and a
new dryer is just coming on stream. Like North
Richmond, the focus is on flexibility, with the
line configured for two 96-page coldset products
or two 80-pagers and 32 heatset, with flexibility
on web widths and the ability to mix heatset and
coldset.
Lockley admits that bedding in UV has been
a hard road, but says it “does a good job for what
it is”. Most of the Sun-Herald’s (and Sunday Age’s)
Sunday Life magazine is printed UV on uncoated
stock, a production statistic which has apparently
made Fairfax’s two sites the world’s biggest
consumer of UV ink.
The UV towers can also be used for coldset,
typically without a washup: “It’s not worth taking
the ink out,” Lockley says.
With the glossy Good Weekend printed heatset,
all the Sydney Morning Herald publications have
now been brought inhouse at North Richmond
and Canberra, taking the range of stocks used
from 36 gsm (for customer Guardian Weekly)
to 115 gsm. Finishing is typically on two inline
trimmers and two offline trimmers, with offline
facilities also including two saddlestitching lines,
one with log feeders.
Fairfax tackles the daily logistics by palletising
and shrink wrapping bulk bundles, which
are trucked to Sydney Distribution Centre in
Chullora (soon to be relocated to Eastern Creek)
where bundles are switched to smaller vehicles
for drivers to make up newsagent deliveries.
Magazines and independently-published
newspapers handled by Fairfax’s IPS distribution
business are delivered with them.
Most of which happens while the rest of us
sleep: With up to 700 tonnes of paper going
into and out of the site weekly you’d also think
the locals would notice, but with most activity
between 10 pm and 2 am that does not seem to
be the case.
A $1 million investment in a circular roadway
and car parking keeps heavy traffic flowing.
Attention to compressor and pump noise and
reversing beeps has ensured that there have been
no complaints, an achievement even allowing
that Fairfax owns 20 hectares of neighbouring
land.
With the growth of the print centre to 128
full-timers and 40 casual staff has come the
influx of new skills of heatset and sheetfed
printers and bindery operators who Lockley says,
“have brought a wealth of knowledge to make
this commercial plant even stronger”.
In fact, the print centre growth is only part of
the story, with the simultaneous move of group
accounts, finance and IT staff to newly-converted
offices, where they join those for rural newspaper
The Land to bring total numbers in North
Richmond to 350. Most positions have moved
from the Pyrmont head office, where a freed floor
has been sublet to Google.
Lockley will tell you otherwise – that he’s
equally proud of all the Fairfax sites; that the
credit goes to a team of “company-grown”
managers including Mick Gee (now general
manager of the North Richmond, Launceston and
Beaudesert sites and heavily involved in national
sales) and print centre manager Sean Tait – but
it’s hard to ignore the intense (and justifiable)
pride he has in what has been achieved at North
Richmond.
He joined Rural Press’s Hawkesbury Gazette
in 1984 with the current site development just
underway, after taking his career at Rupert
Murdoch’s Cumberland Newspapers from
compositor in 1966 to production manager…
and has been there ever since, looking for a
competitive edge and scoring a succession of
“firsts” in the process.
“I thought there was more opportunity way
back then with the Rural Press group and I was
34, and have gone on looking for the ‘better
solution’ ever since,” he says. That quest has
gone from tweaking the output of Goss Urbanite
and hybrid Community presses at Richmond,
to leading, upgrading (and sometimes
rationalising) all of the Rural sites prior to the
2007 merger with Fairfax Media, and as group
production and distribution chief executive,
those of the whole group since. He will have been
with the company 30 years in September.
Two years ago, I looked at the challenges
facing Fairfax’s plan, expressing them in The
little engines that might (GXpress August 2012),
illustrating it with images of Lockley and
Hywood aboard a cartoon train.
Against our positive view that the programme
could be achieved with measures which have
mostly been taken, we presented the doubts
expressed to us by some. And were later
quizzed at great length by author Ben Hills, who
presumably did not get the message he was
seeking for his Stop the presses! book.
The passage of time has added the wisdom of
hindsight, and it’s good to be able to paraphrase
those ‘little engines’ puffing out a blast of steam
and exulting, “I thought I could…”
Lockley remembers the piece and has another
image: “You should do a new one with steam
train going along at 100 bloody miles an hour,” he
gx
says. n
n
The single line can
simultaneously print
two 96-page tabloid
newspapers, a
glued-and-trimmed 32-page
heatset magazine, and a
stitched-and-trimmed hybrid
UV-cured square tabloid.
Flexible friend: (clockwise from top left)
• North Richmond print centre manager Sean Tait
receives the PANPA award from Jason Kent;
• the extended pressline, from horizontal heatset units
(far distance) through UV and coldset Uniset towers, to
the Geoman extension;
• the new Uniset folder delivers a 96-page newspaper
from single-width and slit double-width webs;
• Ferag mailroom capacity has been doubled with a
second line relocated from Tullamarine;
• new Krause platesetters and two Nela optical punchbenders are part of a three-year $30 million plate
supply contract with Fujifilm (pictured is trade assistant
Nina Sciberras)
Global deal teams Peretta with QI
Generic
gxpress.net
CONFERENCE
17 - 18 September 2014, New Delhi
WAN-IFRAIndia2014
22nd Annual Conference
Co-sponsored by
The Indian Newspaper Society
Conference
NewsroomSummit
PrintingSummit
CrossmediaAdvertisingSummit
Workshops
PlantVisit
FoyerInfo-tables
www.wan-ifra.org/india2014
26 gxpress.net
August 2014
QI Press Controls and US
remote ink specialist Perretta
Graphics are to team in a new global
partnership.
The move – which follows QI’s
acquisition of EAE in April – will see
the Dutch colour registration and
control systems developer offering
the whole of Perretta’s remote ink
and register control, ink preset
systems and register motorisation
offering.
Frank Perretta – credited with
inventing the segmented fountain
blade, now a standard in its industry,
in the late 1970s – went on to help
establish the eponymous company
now located in Poughkeepsie, New
York, in 1981.
QI joint chairman Menno Jansen
says the partnership will enable them
to offer customers an even more
comprehensive solution: “Efficiency
improvement will be one of the many
advantages of offering such a broad
portfolio.
Saving time, paper
at five print sites
T
amil-language newspaper
Daily Thanthi has
expanded available
presstime following a five-site
upgrade including automatic
colour registration.
QuadTech’s MultiCam
technology has been installed
on presses in Cuddalore,
Coimbatore, Tirunelveli and
Nagercoil in Tamil Nadu in
southern India, following four
years’ experience of two systems
at the headquarters in Chennai.
With the gear in place, the
company is claiming a 20 per
cent reduction in time to register
and ten per cent waste saving.
Oh, and improved print quality
is contributing to increased
circulation and readership.
Director S. Balasubramanian
Adityan says previously colour
and colour register were
measured manually: “The
biggest challenge came when
the number of colour pages
increased,” he says. “It was
very difficult for operators to
control register on our highspeed, double width and double
circumference presses.”
Benefits have included shorter
makeready times, reduced
startup waste, consistent colour,
and optimised labour and press
usage.
Adityan says the company
“used to face a challenge” with
register variation after each autopasting cycle, but this has been
eliminated. The colour register
and ribbon control systems are
operated from QuadTech’s ICON
platform, which integrates with
downstream equipment such
as UV coaters, perforators and
rotary cutters.
Established in 1942 with a
mission to educate and create
awareness among all sections
of the Tamil community, Daily
Thanthi is now an all-colour
broadsheet printed in 16
locations and with a circulation
gx
of more than 1.5 million. n
n
Pictured at a press inauguration are
(from left) Vinodhkumar Balakrishnan
QuadTech regional sales manager), R.
Chandrasekaran (Daily Thanthi chief
general manager), S. Balasubramanian
Adityan, Sabarish Subrmanian
(QuadTech service engineer) and
D. Ranganathan (assistant general
manager, production & IT)
gxpress.net
“Not only because of the joint
understanding and management of
this greater part of the production
process but also as customers can rely
on one partner to coordinate that
complete process,” he says.
Perretta offers four products
for register control, the key market
segment on which QI Press Controls
has built its business. These include
remote colour register, automatic
closed loop colour register, print to
cut register and register motorisation
packages. Its product range also
includes the P3000 Digital Preset
Center – a bridge between ink
control and prepress and P3000 series
remote ink control system, decribed
as “the most advanced open fountain
gx
solution on the market today”. n
n
Two more lines
for Borneo sites
G
oss Community fan United
Borneo Press has ordered two
more presses totalling nine
towers for its Kuching and Kota
Kinabalu sites.
The order for 36 single-width press
units is the fourth in as many years for
the Malaysian newspaper printer. UBP
Printing will install the four and five-tower
presses – each with an N40 folder – this
summer, bringing the company’s total to 84
Community SSC 84 units in four lines.
Managing director Sim Yong Liang says
customers “want the most” in terms of cost
efficiency: “We’ve returned to what works
well for us,” he says.
UBP Printing is part of Unity Media
Malaysia and now employs more than 150
people across four sites throughout eastern
Malaysia. Four Malaysian, two Chinese and
two English-language dailies make up the
majority of the production workload.
Sim Yong Liang says UBP achieves
better cost structures by striving and
repeatedly investing to maintain a
programme of continuous process
improvement: “Keeping up with the latest
in product development is essential for us
to stay at the forefront of our market and
gx
retain our competitive edge,” he says. n
n
A new two-colour unit which bridges two existing units is providing extra
colour options for Manugraph’s single-width users.
Configured above two of the company’s Y-type Newsline and Highline YR units, the
option adds two more colours to the 4/2 product of the existing units.
Trade magazine IPP reports that several newspaper users in south and west India
have found the 2C an economical way of enhancing their Y-type lines, good for speeds
up to 40,000 cph. Mounted between two units, the unit delivers extra colour with
a relatively short web lead and minimal fan-out. Shaftless and shafted versions are
available, the latter using an intermediate vertical drive. Features include a nine-roller
gx
ink train, brush dampening and a motorised duct roller. n
n
Wifag rebrands, shows its digital expertise
N
ewspaper printing and coating
technologies are combined with the
rebranding of Wifag Maschinenfabrik
as Wifag-Polytype Technologies. Chief
executive Jörgen Karlsson says a new
company name which expressed “our
integration in the corporate group, our
intensive development activities and the
breadth of technologies for machines,
processes and materials”.
He says newspaper and book production
systems – still under the century-old Wifag
name – will continue to be an integral part
of the group’s portfolio with subsidiaries in
Germany, China and the US unchanged.
Digital printing is among additional
areas of expertise where it is hoping to
make its mark, with work on a water-based
inkjet technology for printing on substrates
including paper, plastics and aluminum.
A pilot version of a new Techma-4 digital
press has been shown at an open house at
the company’s headquarters in Fribourg,
gx
Switzerland. n
n
Generic
press hall
gxpress.net
time for
rebuilding
J
apanese publisher Iwate Nippo has
made a commitment to the country’s
earthquake-ravaged east with an
order for two new newspaper presses.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Printing
& Packaging Machinery will supply two
new 4x1 DiamondSpirit presses for a new
printing centre due to start up in 2016.
Headquartered in Morioka City – in
one of the areas most devastated by the
earthquake on March 11, 2011 – Iwate
Nippo will celebrate its 140th anniversary
with launch of the new centre, on which
MHI-PPM acts as a consultant.
The newspaper has been a leader in
planning and support of social needs in the
prefecture – where the 210,000-circulation
daily is market-leader – publishing a
report analysing earthquake preparations
and focussing on restoration of residents’
livelihoods, industries and societies.
The new 80,000 cph presses will each
be able to print 40-page newspaper with
24 pages in colour, an increase in colour
content from the present 16 pages. Each
will have three four-colour towers, two
mono units, five reelstands and a 2:2
double rotary folder, with a 1626 mm web
width and rail-type web threading which
will take two ribbons through turner bars
and bay windows to the RTF. Mitsubishi
press controls include ink presetting,
gx
automatic colour register control. n
n
Pictured: Iwate Nippo chairman Hiroshi Miura
(centre right) and executive director Katsuhiro
Yamazoe (right), with MHI-PPM president Masami
Shimizu (centre left) and general manager of sales
headquarters Yasuyuki Okurano (left)
Colour grows on
News’ PNG readers
L
ife in the PNG capital of
Port Moresby just got
more colourful following
the installation of an extra press
tower at the daily Post-Courier.
Installation by Adelaidebased National Printing
Equipment of a third Tensor
four-high tower in the Goss
Community line increases
all-colour capacity by 50 per
cent to 24 pages of a 40-page
tabloid product.
And while there are hopes
of a fourth tower for fiveday (Monday-Friday) daily,
which is owned by News Corp
Australia, production manager
Mal Harvey says there’s a limit
on potential upgrades: “We’re
slowly replacing the old mono
units with the colour towers,
but there’s no space in the
pressroom for more,” he says.
The line currently includes
two mono units and Goss SC
and 1500 folders, handling the
35,000-42,000 copy print run
with integrated preprinted
sections inserted by hand. An
electrical upgrade is expected
to increase production speed to
25,000 cph, but this will still be
substantially below the rated
capability of the new towers.
Despite a 15 per cent fall
in sales, KBA would have been in
profit had it not been for its Fit@All
reorganisation programme.
The German press maker says with
this and a 9.3 per cent fall in orders,
operating profit reached 24.5 million
Euros before special items.
Financial statements for 2013
show an expected lower order intake
in the post-DRUPA year of 2013.
Positive earnings strained by one-off
impairments and high provisions for
special expenses from the Fit@All
August 2014
realignment programme.
Chief executive and president
Claus Bolza-Schünemann says financial
repercussions of the project will
continue into 2014, but he expects
a “notable turnaround” in 2015
earnings and a return to sustained
profitability by 2016 at the latest.
The company quotes VDMA statistics
which show orders and sales of
printing equipment produced in
Germany fell by up to ten per cent
as a result of economic impacts of
the sovereign debt crisis in parts of
Europe, slower economic growth in
the BRIC countries, negative currency
effects in emerging markets, changes
in media consumption and ongoing
consolidation in the printing industry
in industrialised countries.
Despite a decline in group sales
of nearly 200 million Euros and
associated lower contribution margins,
KBA posted an operating profit
before special items of 24.5 million
Euros. Savings in personnel costs from
new wage agreements in Würzburg
and Radebeul were offset by a smaller
Kiwis set an example
in sharing print
F
Harvey, who moved to
Papua New Guinea from News’
huge Melbourne print site –
where a bike is needed to get
from one end of the pressroom
to the other – is still adjusting:
“It’s the most challenging
posting I’ve had,” he says. His
career with News has included
22 years at the Cairns Post,
and spells in Brisbane and
Sydney before the five years at
Westgate Park, Melbourne.
But with the tropical climate
and trips home to see his wife
in Cairns, where she runs her
own business, he reckons he has
gx
the best of both worlds. n
n
KBA’s Fit@All costs hit dividend
28 gxpress.net
gxpress.net
gxpress.net
earnings contribution of special
presses and poor capacity utilisation
levels at the web press plants.
Costs of the Fit@All programme
and impairments of fixed assets were
155.2 million Euros in 2013, causing
an operating loss after special items
of 130.7 million Euros, and a loss of
138.1 million Euros. As a result, no
dividend is being paid.
China remains the company’s
largest single market, with the AsiaPacific contributing 27.4 per cent to
gx
group sales. n
n
airfax Media NZ has quietly
abandoned plans for a greenfield
print site in Auckland with the
announcement that it will outsource
work to rival APN’s Ellerslie plant.
Shortly after the two publishers
announced a “proposed agreement”
– under which the Ellerslie plant in
Auckland’s south would print the
Waikato Times, Sunday Star-Times,
Sunday News and other community
papers – the deal was confirmed and
being implemented.
Fairfax was to have moved a
press from the closed Tullamarine
(Melbourne) print centre and
additional equipment from Sydney to
equip a new plant in Auckland (see
GXpress report, August 14, 2013).
Instead, it will contract work to APN,
where the large Goss HT70 press
which anchors the Ellerslie site was
upgraded as part of a $40 million
programme last year.
APN has also moved printing of
several of its own titles to the site,
and has for some time, promoted the
concept of capacity sharing in the city.
Fairfax work from Auckland and
Hamilton is being moved to Ellerslie,
and the Hamilton site – where
equipment includes a manroland
Uniman press and Ferag mailroom
including inline inserting – is already
up for sale. Chief executive Greg
Hywood says the agreement “made
absolute sense” for the company
and was in line with “fairly common
practice” overseas: “In this instance,
we boost our print capability in the
upper North Island market without
the need for significant capital
investment and gain significant
benefits from the additional scale and
efficiencies,” he says.
Hywood says Fairfax will continue
to invest in print “where it makes
sense” as it had at Petone, where the
print site is being upgraded with
former-Tullamarine equipment.
APN chief executive Michael
Miller says the arrangement makes
use of spare capacity at Ellerslie –
where the daily New Zealand Herald
is printed – and will enable it to
deliver further cost savings. It is
“on track” to achieve a further $20
million in cost savings across its
publishing businesses in 2014.
gx
Peter Coleman n
n
Print & Automation
Integration.
Automation.
Control.
The upgrade and retrofit specialists
• controls
• drives
• reelstands
Solutions available for all OEM suppliers’ systems
NZ SWUG ‘ready to roll’
More than 120 delegates and sponsors were expected for New Zealand
SWUG late this month. Chairman Dan Blackbourn says planning is complete
for the fourteenth event, to be held in Dunedin from August 27-28.
“There are some great presentations lined up, great entertainment and
of course great company,” he says. “The conference is an opportunity to be
informed, entertained, network and just catch up with people you have not
seen for some time and discuss work.”
Accommodation was “filling fast” and transfers had been arranged for
delegates who took advantage of a cheap flights offer earlier.
Blackbourn also reminded member sites to submit entries for the quality
awards and nomintate staff for the apprentice of the year competition.
“The committee is really looking forward to this conference and if you
need any information go to the website: www.swug.co.nz,” he says. “You
will find all the information you need to know and if by chance it is not there
gx
then please contact me or one of the committee.” n
n
....
+44 1908 276700
sales@harlandsimon.com
harlandsimon.com
gxpress.net
August 2014 29
press hall
gxpress.net
gxpress.net
chapter’s end
A
After 21 years in Shanghai, Goss is moving out to a new home across the river
move to new premises later this year
marks a chapter in the history of
Shanghai-built newspaper presses and
the 21-year cooperation with Goss.
A relationship which began with
a joint venture in 1993 led to the
acquisition of US-headquartered Goss International by
the state-owned Shanghai Electric through its SPPM
division in 2009.
It’s been a story of cautious market acceptance: A
few Community SSC units first, then more until all
production of the ubiquitous single-width press was
moved there, and by the time of the Chinese buyout,
6500 press units and 680 folders had been delivered.
Currently about 1000 a year are produced there.
Press demonstrations in March of the highly
automated Magnum Compact – a Community, but
with fully automatic plate changing and compact slideapart units, not as you know it – is in many respects
a climax of that relationship. The first press will be
running in New York’s Staten Island in October.
But it’s by no means the end of the story.
Production of the Universal 75 press range is currently
being introduced to Shanghai, and another new
system is under wraps for introduction at the end of
the year. The site also builds Magnum and Magnum
HPS presses, plus a book press for local markets,
a range which makes Goss China (with an 80 per
cent share) the country’s largest exporter of printing
equipment.
My preview of the Magnum Compact earlier this
year was a good opportunity to see the partnership
of skills and cultures at work. French engineering
director Jean Claude Pautrat (left) presides over a
AccuCam™
Better control. Better quality.
Stronger advantages.
Advanced image-based spectral technology that eliminates colorbars and
graybars for unequaled color reproduction. Inspection capabilities that
reduce waste and advertiser rebates.
Setting the standard for print quality,
consistency and performance
AUSTRALIA-NEW ZEALAND
Ferag Australia Pty Ltd.
Phone: +61 2 8337 9777
Email: info@ferag-australia.com
CHINA Phone: +86 138 163 309 33
Email: chinasales@quadtechworld.com
quadtechworld.com
30 gxpress.net
INDIA Phone: +91 98240 40404
Email: indiasales@quadtechworld.com
August 2014
MultiCam®
Quick makereadies, reduced waste,
precise cutoff and fold register
Unmatched performance across the
full range of ribbon-control tasks
—cutoff, print-to-cut, print-to-fold
and crossover register. MultiCam is
the world’s best-selling register camera, with over 10,000 cameras built.
Digital Ink System™
Significant savings on ink, paper
and maintenance yield a rapid ROI
QuadTech’s digital ink technology
enables you to offer your customers
greater print quality and consistency
—and at the same time, reduce
your costs.
predominantly Chinese team, but with input from
Goss’s other sites around the world. Two engineers from
Preston, England – one a software specialist – were
on hand for the Magnum Compact project, and as
the Universal project progressed, I witnessed Pautrat
translating drawing detail from French to English, so
that a Chinese engineer could translate it again.
The site in Shanghai’s Puxi (west side) is vast, but
has gradually been eclipsed, first by the growth of
retail and residential development – the Marriott hotel
and a major shopping centre are close by – and by the
government’s desire to get heavy industry out of this
massive sprawling city of 26 million people.
Although honoured in the past as a ‘Shanghai
Civilized Unit’, it no longer has a place so close to the
centre of the modern city.
The foundry was closed three years back – as part
of city measures to reduce air pollution ahead of a
major sporting event – and is not likely to be part
of the new facility. Parts are outsourced under strict
quality control, with only “rough” machining.
Inhouse, there is a longstanding tradition of
quality which has challenged popular misconceptions.
Touring the factory I saw sheetfed press parts from
a long-expired license arrangement with KBA, and
Pautrat emphasises that Goss has always ensured its
own standards of quality are maintained, regardless of
where in the world a press is made or assembled.
As his name suggests, Jean Claude Pautrat himself is
part of the French tradition which is now part of Goss’s
history: He joined Marinoni – which some credit with
being the pioneer of rotary printing, ahead of Hoe – in
Montataire, and saw the company owned by Harris,
Heidelberg and then Goss.
With retirement now in prospect – for which he
will return to France, but not until after a monumental
excursion to Antarctica – realisation of the Magnum
Compact has been a significant achievement: “It’s
simple, but with a lot of technology behind it,” he says.
And the technology continues to emerge: While the
small press with its M-600 derived plate automation,
positions Goss to challenge the economics of inkjet
digital printing, an interesting side development is a
folder which addresses one of the key challenges facing
inkjet webs.
With Goss, Pautrat holds a patent enabling a digital
folder to ‘store’ the flying sheets which are a feature of
broadsheet newspapers. It’s another example of the
lively partnership of global knowledge and culture
which exploits strengths of its Shanghai Electric parent
and ensures the press maker will be able to face the
challenges of a continually changing market.
gx
Peter Coleman n
n
Manufacturing centre: (clockwise from top left) A
folding cylinder is assembled and checked; castings
get a prliminary grind before further processing;
one of a batch of newspaper folders made at the
site; Community/Magnum units are manufactured in
quantity; a statue of Chinese alchemist Pi Sheng – who
invented movable type made of an amalgam of baked
clay and glue between 1041-1048 – will be moving to
the new factory; a Magnum II press is ready for factory
tests; a first press sideframe is ‘checked over’ by a laser
system before production commences – machine tools
have been bought in pairs to ease the transfer
Opposite page: The Magnum Compact project is a
climax in engineering director Jean Claude Pautrat’s
career
gxpress.net
news
leaders
press hall
gxpress.net
Optimisation of the CMYK
colour register, first and second
register, unit-to-unit register and
likewise the cocking register for the
heatset rotation.
Optimisation of colours in
compliance with ISO 12647-3 and/
or ISO 12647-2 by controlling the
ink keys, including water balance
optimisation.
news
leaders
In North Richmond, versatile LPN-NV plates imaged on Krause
LS-Jet series platesetters, teamed with Nela punch benders, are
used for coldset, UV and heatset print applications
➤ Q.I. Press Controls and
EAE have joined forces
with the all-purpose IDS3D camera.
The two specialists in the field
of print automation will launch
the latest innovation in quality
automation at WAN-Ifra’s World
Publishing Expo 2014 in Amsterdam.
The precursor had already been
presented by Q.I. Press Controls at
DRUPA 2012 – the orange-coloured,
dual-sensor mRC-3D camera
system. At the time, the system was
cryptically described as ‘offering a
diversity of potential benefits’. These
have now been embodied in the
new IDS-3D camera system.
The IDS-3D looks like and is
positioned on rotary presses in the
same way as the mRC-3D. However,
the difference is ‘under the bonnet’
and it can be identified by its blue
exterior.
EAE’s takeover by the owners
of Q.I. Press Controls’ has enabled
developers in both companies to
combine the best of both worlds
and produce one full-colour print
quality control and regulation
system. Algorithms for the LOOP
and IDS, for example, have been
implemented in a single new system,
known as IDS-3D. All functions
are now executed with combined
intelligence on full-colour print lines,
without the need for any printed
bars, strips or markings.
IDS-3D also incorporates the
same tried-and-tested automatic
cleaning system as the mRC-3D. A
cassette with a film in front of the
lens ensures proper functioning of
the system at all times. The camera
is able to see whether the film
has been smudged and cleans this
whenever required.
The launch of IDS-3D means
that the market now has its own
unique ‘all-in-one’ system. The very
same dual-sensor IDS-3D camera
has built-in process algorithms to
ensure simultaneous closed-loop
corrections, such as:
prepress
Web printers reap
benefits of merger
Immediate recognition and
signalling of incorrectly positioned
print plates and irregularities and/
or printing errors in relation to the
virtual TIFF image and/or approved
print.
The first orders for this highefficiency, closed-loop, all-in-one
quality control system have already
been placed.
The IDS-3D camera signals the
end for previous systems, which
used different types of cameras for
different functions on rotary presses.
As from now there is a single
solution for everything: IDS-3D. It’s
also an extremely beneficial solution
for retrofit upgrades for tasks
sometimes carried out manually
on rotary presses, such as colour
corrections and fountain solution
control.
Pictured: QI joint chairmen Erik van Holten
and Menno Jansen at the entrance of the
QIPC office in Oosterhout
The IDS-3D looks like and is positioned
in the same way as the mRC-3D.
The difference is ‘under the bonnet’
Q.I. Press Controls & EAE
Contact Job van Hasselt, Asia Pacific
Area Sales Director,
email: J.v.Hasselt@qipc.com
Australia & NZ: Ferrostaal Australia
Contact Nigel Alexander, email nigel.
alexander@ferrostaal.com
Ph: +61 2 9338 3900
www.qipc.com
www.eae.com
32 GXP NL 1408
gxpress.net
news
leaders
Flexibility is key at Fairfax
➤ Behind every great
achievement are the
contributions of dozens –
hundreds, often – of people,
products and technologies.
And so it is with Fairfax Media’s
transformation of its newspaper
production facilities, where a “simple”
printing plate is delivering remarkable
results in a variety of situations.
Painstakingly over the past two
years, the Australian news media
group has restructured production
to meet the changing needs of print
publishing, decentralising to match
capacity requirements and free up
costly real estate.
The key plants in North Richmond
(NSW) and Ballarat (Victoria) – as well
as that of the Canberra Times – have
each been converted from thermal to
Fujifilm’s LPN-NV violet plate, which
is flexibly meeting the needs of longrun, tight deadline production not
just for coldset newspapers, but also
heatset and UV products.
In North Richmond, for example,
a system based on LPN-NV plates
and Krause LS-Jet series platemakers
supplies five different types of plate
– singles and panoramas, in a variety
of sizes to suit the single-width
Uniset and double-width Geoman
presses, one tower of which has been
converted to make it compatible
with the Uniset.
The same plate that is used
routinely for nightly runs of metro
gxpress.net
news
leaders
flagship the Sydney Morning Herald
and Australian Financial Review and
a variety of other newspaper work,
is also delivering 2400 dpi imaging
resolution for heatset magazines
and semicommercial UV-cured
products, the latter without the
need for baking.
There, two further Nela Vision
punch-benders have added flexibility
and redundancy in a transformation
which is seeing production almost
double in less than a year.
“What we have worked to do
is create as much redundancy as
possible, while meeting the needs
of diversity and flexibility of this
amazingly productive site,” says
Fujifilm technology
plays an important
role in Fairfax
Media's production
transformation
Warren Hinder, Fujifilm Australia’s
Graphic Systems National Newspaper
Specialist.
There’s a similar story for
Melbourne daily The Age and
southern editions of the AFR
in Ballarat – where the existing
Uniset press has been extended
with additional towers, folders
and heatset dryers – and Canberra,
where UV runs on two towers of
the existing Geoman press. In both
platerooms, the combination of
Fujifilm plates and Krause CTP again
delivers the quality and flexibility
demanded by the varied workload,
with extra Nela benders adding
redundancy.
In all cases, Fujifilm Australia has
taken full project responsibility for
the equipment and consumables:
“By thoroughly understanding
Fairfax Media’s needs, we have been
able to supply plates and equipment
which truly complement their
requirements and support their own
achievements,” says Hinder.
The Fairfax print sites at
Beresfield NSW and Wodonga
have been using Fujifilm violet
plates for many years, along with
Krause CTP and Nela bending
equipment. Fujifilm has introduced
its thermal newspaper plate to the
Mandurah (WA), Tamworth and
Dubbo (NSW), Murray Bridge (SA),
Launceston (Tasmania) and Ormiston
(Queensland) sites.
The fully-automatic Krause LS
Jet platesetters deliver a choice of
performance levels from 120-300
single plates per hour, their single
exposure point concept contributing
to imaging accuracy.
Fujifilm’s (and Hinder’s)
relationship with Fairfax Media is a
longstanding one, extending back
to 2006 when they supported the
introduction of computer-to-plate
technology to the Sydney Morning
Herald. Hinder sold the original
bender equipment for the then new
Fairfax Chullora site in the 1990s
and was responsible for the Napp
photopolymer plates used at its
Broadway letterpress site in the 1980s
introduction of phototypesetting to a
then letterpress environment.
“This has effectively given me a
30-year relationship with Fairfax,”
he says.
The current projects are part of
a $30 million three-year contract to
supply Brillia violet light-sensitive
and thermal heat-sensitive plates to
all group sites in Australia and New
Zealand.
Fairfax publishes more than 200
titles including metropolitan and
regional titles and magazines in
Australia, and more than 70 national,
daily and regional titles plus 26
magazines in New Zealand.
Fujifilm Australia
Graphic Systems
Offices in Sydney, Melbourne,
Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Auckland
Phone: 1300 650 504
Web: www.fujifilm.com.au
India: +91-(0)124-4325500
Malaysia: +603 5569 8388
Singapore: +65 6383 9933
www.fujifilm.com
GXP NL 1408 33
press room
Control upgrade specialist
gxpress.net
P
ublishers and vendors in India are
facing up to the challenge of greener
production.
WAN-Ifra India research engineer
Anand Srinivasan says it is an effort for which
there is worldwide recognition: “India gave a
voluntary commitment at the Copenhagen
Accord that it will reduce carbon intensity
from 20 to 25 per cent by the year 2020,”
he says.“It is a huge commitment by a
developing nation. The reduction in carbon
intensity is going to be achieved by increasing
the efficiency of operations of our industries
– less use of raw materials, fuel and electricity.
Soon we can expect more environmental
regulations and stricter implementation that
will affect our operations.”
India is currently the fifth largest emitter
of carbon dioxide in the world. However,
since the country is home to a sixth of the
world’s population, emissions per capita are
currently low.
Today, the print industry faces several
green challenges. People associate print
with deforestation and reading in electronic
devices is considered greener than print
reading.
“We can of course argue in favour of
print,” Srinivasan says. “Many newsprint
mills produce newsprint only from
recycled fibres; a lot of virgin pulp comes
from the trees of certified forests. One
newspaper copy is read by several people
and importantly, the used copy can be used
for several purposes and recycling is easy
compared to electronic devices.
“However, there are still several
initiatives that printing plants can
implement to be more environmentally
friendly and win public support.”
He says publishing companies must adopt
lean production methods, make responsible
purchases and buy products that use recycled
newsprint, use newsprint that originates from
certified forests and use products that has
labels like FSC and PEFC. Providing secure
34 gxpress.net
August 2014
India turns to
green tech
The ‘business of green’ is now an
integral part of the corporate social
responsibility of the publishing
industry, writes Nirmalya Sen
Arnand Srinivasan lists several environmental impacts of
newspaper printing:
Usage of raw materials: Newsprint, ink, aluminium and chemicals that
leads to depletion of natural resources, deforestation and pollution from the
chemicals used
Heavy use of water: Newsprint production requires a lot of water -- around
80,000 to 100,000 litres of water are used to produce a tonne of newsprint,
which also depletes a natural resource, in India
Air pollution: Fuel burned in vehicles for transportation of raw materials
and products to customers, diesel generator sets, heatset inks and VOCs used
for cleaning
Water pollution: Leakages during storage and use, waste water discharge in
newsprint plants and CTP effluents in printing plants
Use of electricity: One tonne of newsprint manufactured can consume
about 1,500 kwh. A middle-class home in India could use that power for six
months. Printing plants use a lot of electricity too.
A WAN-Ifra graph
(below) gives
an indication on
contributions; figures
vary and are not same
for all printing plants;
Left: Sanat Hazra at
SWUG Australia last
year.
storage and waste management are also areas
of importance in ‘going green’.
Local manufacturers are also making a
contribution, among themMaharashtra-based
TechNova Imaging Systems, which makes
low-impact inkjet-based CTP systems.
General manager Deepak Chawla says
India’s rapid development is set to make it a
very significant contributor to global carbon
footprint.
Increased growth means increased
manufacturing and related activities, which
in turn means an increased level of carbon
emissions.
In the past ten years, the use of
incinerators in the graphic arts industry in
India has also gained popularity, and trends
indicate this will continue in the future. As
people are becoming increasingly aware of
their responsibility to the environment, a
positive change in attitude is expected. A ban
on plastic bags below a certain thickness
is very likely, which will result in the rise
of new industry segment for ‘paper bags’.
Similarly, the paper carton business is likely
to see a huge boost and there is likely to
be a migration of print jobs from offset to
flexo. With its technology partners, TehNova
is constantly monitoring industry trends
globally, in order to be prepared for demands
for lower environment-impact technologies in
the Indian markets, Chawla says.
Among publishers, BCCL, Hindustan
Times, Dainik Bhaskar, The Hindu, Dainik
Jagran, Lokmat, RPL, Indian Express and Hind
Samachar are just a few newspapers that have
taken a lead in opting for green solutions in
India, while many others have also shown
an equal interest and are in process of ‘going
green’.
Earlier this year, BCCL technical director
Sanat Hazra said one of the Times of
India publisher’s future projects would be
production monitoring via iPad and urged
usage of green technology,“think and act
green and you will save money, and think
how it is helping the customer”. The company
prints the Times of India, dailies the Economic
Times (640,000 copies), Mirror (one million),
TIMS (1.65 million), Ei Samay & Onno Samay
(560,000) and Maharastra Times (820,000)
plus supplements and magazines at 12 of
its own printing plants – mostly manroland
equipped – and 24 contract sites, most of
which have Manugraph CityLine and HiLine
single-width presses.
And, there is a payoff. Times of India’s
reduction in water consumption is enough
for 6.32 Indian villages; savings in energy is
gx
sufficient to light 1,923 homes. n
n
Harland Simon is being kept busy
with projects in the USA.
Controls and drives have been
upgraded on two Goss Magnum
presses at Advance Central Services
Michigan’s Ann Arbor facility.
Harland Simon has replaced GMI
ink desks, folder SLC500 PLCs and
Allen-Bradley 1395 drive modules,
while centralising compensation,
ink and damp control. The company
has completed similar projects at
Advance Central Services Alabama’s
production facilities in Huntsville
and Birmingham, which also support
commercial print.
Four P6000 desks are interfaced
to existing GMI inkers for ink control,
and now serve as the central location
for couple trim, damp pan and ink
duct roller adjustments.
Allen-Bradley CompactLogix PLCs
– with its RSlogics 5000 diagnostic
software – and Allen-Bradley
PlowerFlex drive modules were used,
with all the diagnostic software is
available at a maintenance PC.
Six new 200HP PowerFlex
regenerative DC drive modules
replaces aging or obsolete 1395s, and
obsolete SLC500 master drives PLCs
were replaced with CompactLogix
PLCs and reconfigured the new drive
master PLC to enable master/slave
selection and operation. A RIPSet
system calculates ink presets and
there is also upper-level management,
monitoring and calibration of register
presets.
In addition to its commercial print
customers, Advance Central Services
Michigan supports MLive Media
Group with production, distribution,
purchasing, accounting, technology
and human resources. The company
prints the Grand Rapids Press at its
Walker production facility, along
with several other titles, including
the Kalamazoo Gazette and the
Muskegon Chronicle.
• New consoles and presets are
part of an control upgrade at the
Gaston Gazette in North Carolina.
Harland Simon says its upgrade of the
GMI inkers – including Prima RIPSet
preset technology – delivers detailed
and couple-specific presets, reducing
startup waste and enhancing quality.
Halifax Media Group prints a
variety of work at its Gaston Gazette
site in North Carolina. A growing list
of commercial customers includes the
New York Times.
• In Finland, Harland Simon
is replacing Wifag WPOS control
systems at Lehtisepät Oy. The printing
company of newspaper group43
Keskisuomalainen Oyj has
five print locations producing
56 publications. Harland Simon
will replace the first and second
generation systems on an OF790/470
press at their Jyvaskyla site, using offthe-shelf Rockwell Automation PLCs
and drives, ensuring local availability
and long production and support
lifetimes.
Meanwhile, Wifag is updating
control, drive and paster systems
on a Berliner-sized OF790 press at
Gannett’s Shreveport, Louisiana,
print site. Four new control consoles
are to be installed – along with
new drives and control electronics
– six autopasters modernised and
web threading improved in a
project set to significantly reduce
waste and setup times. New
consoles will include EAE Print
production planning. The presses
were part of a 1991 installation
at Ringier in Switzerland, moved
and reconfigured by GWS in 2008
and recommissioned in Shreveport
two years later. It was only the
third Berliner format press in the
US market. The Shreveport plant
is one of 43 operated by Gannett
Publishing Services and prints
The Times, which had a weekday
circulation of about 35,000 in 2012,
and 50,000 on Sunday.
Increase
your profit
gxpress.net
sd.line – the complete solution
deltaspray
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delta.sd
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preparation
delta.f
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crossflow filtration
The advantages of the Venturi Cap
cleaning concept:
And Canadia’s Electronic
Design Group is working through
the modernisation of 21 reelstands
at the Post-Dispatch in St Louis,
Missouri. Goss static belt reels on the
first 11 pasters are being upgraded
to enhance performance, improve
reliability and eliminate obsolete
components with plans to complete
the balance next year.
The upgrade – which include RTP
control panels with built-in splice
control and tension regulation – is
well underway and on track for
completion by mid August.
print workflow & ctp
• individual "clog free" spray nozzle
control
• low operating costs – no external
power supply, no compressed air
The advantages of the deltaspray:
• tool less nozzle replacement and
interchangeable spray bars
• reduced system maintenance
• easy installation
• notably reduced maintenance
• clearly improved machine availability and productivity
• less dampening solution usage
and waste
• higher press availability
• higher print efficiency
Schibsted Trykk Oslo will
reduce waste and increase efficiency
at what is Norway’s largest
newspaper printing plant, thanks to
an upgrade order.
Printa press control systems are
to be modernised on a ten-tower
Goss Colorliner by Honeywell Process
Solutions under the order.
A phased upgrade will protect
existing assets and allow the
company to maintain performance
into the future. Honeywell will
upgrade the Printa press control
systems to the latest Profibus
technology and update existing
controllers for the ten-tower, twofolder press line. Control desks
and interfaces will be upgraded to
Windows 7 support and the Printa
production management system will
gx
also be upgraded. n
n
The advantages of the delta.f:
• ideal filtration quality
• no need for consumables
due to ceramic membrane
• permeate performance of 80 l/h or
140 l/h allows sufficient back flow
for one or two dampening solution
circulators
• quick and easy installation
sd.line – delivers higher profitability!
technology and services
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gxpress.net
August 2014
35
mailroom
gxpress.net
Kerala
calling
M
alayala Manorama
is pairing the
five Mitsubishi
presslines it ordered last
October with five Muller
Martini packaging lines.
The presses and
equipment are being
installed at three Kerala
print sites, in Kozhikode,
Kottayam and Kollam.
Five identical lines
will include NewsGrip
conveyors and two
NewsStack universal
stackers, attached to
the compact four-tower
DiamondSpirit SA presses.
Each will handle 40-page
broadsheet newspapers at
75,000 cph. Installations of
the presses is due late this
and next year.
Chief editor Mammen
Mathew says the
A five-press
Mitsubishi order
is being matched
with Müller
Martini packaging
investment supports the
publisher’s commitment to
print: “Printed newspapers
continue to be the main
source of our company’s
revenue and that will
remain the case for the
foreseeable future,” he says.
The daily newspaper
with a circulation close
to 2.3 million copies is
the flagship of an Indian
publishing operation
responsible for more than
40 periodicals/magazines,
plus websites, TV and radio
stations.
Malayala Manorama
began as a four-page weekly
newspaper in 1888, and
has become one of world’s
largest daily newspapers.
It is published from 18
printing centres – 11 in
Kerala, five in Indian cities
outside Kerala, and two
located outside of India.
Side-gatherer innovates for
Bangalore publisher
New Delhi based bindery equipment manufacturer Pramod
Engineering has developed an unusual gathering system for an
Italian publisher in Bangalore. Managing director Divesh Nath
says the locally-designed 30-station Glory G-30 side-gathering
machine devised for Edis Publishers is designed to pick-up folded
bible-paper forms in addition to products in the 60-130 gsm
range, producing catalogues, magazines and book blocks at up to
5000 cph. The width of all stations can be set from one position
and the machine operated by a team of four people.
Postpress upgrade for Postmedia
P
ostmedia Network has contracted
Harland Simon to upgrade postpress
controls at its Windsor Star, Ontario
site, following projects in Montreal,
Saskatoon and Vancouver.
To cope with growing inserting business,
a 16-station Magnapak 630 is being moved
from Ottawa, and controls on two NP630
inserters are being upgraded.
ICON controls, legacy drives and obsolete
PLCs are being replaced on the NP630
36 gxpress.net
August 2014
inserters, the GSN controller, Sunspark
interface machine, Heidelberg management
systems and inhouse insert controller, and
standardised Harland Simons InsertNet and
MMS software combined with off-the-shelf
Allen-Bradley and standard PC hardware.
Windsor Star director of production
Doug Shillington describes it as “an exciting
time” for the Star’s packaging department.
Moving the MP630 will allow current lines
gx
to be expanded to meet client demands. n
n
MM has postpress stitched
as Heidelberg trims
Müller Martini is the big
winner from the withdrawal
of Heidelberg from the
saddlestitching and perfect
binding markets.
The Swiss specialist will
take over service and support
for the discontinued products,
while some packaging
orientated products will be
manufactured for Heidelberg
by Chinese OEM partner
Masterwork Machinery.
Heidelberg chief executive
Gerold Linzbach says
production of the finishing
machines at its German sites is
“no longer competitive” under
current market conditions. It
will continue to make folding
machines – at the former Stahl
site in Ludwigsburg – and
supply Polar paper guillotines.
Masterwork will make the
Diana folder-gluer, to be sold
and serviced by Heidelberg.
The announcements follow
comments in June, when
Linzbach spoke of “portfolio
optimisation” including new
business models for products
on which margins were low.
The “humbled” German
sheetfed press maker expects
to save about 30 million Euros
a year from the measures.
The Leipzig site is to be
closed and a total of 650
staff cut at Ludwigsburg and
Wiesloch-Walldorf.
Muller Martini says it will
take over the worldwide
service and spare parts business
and “complete know-how”
of the machines produced in
Leipzig by the end of 2014, for
an undisclosed sum.
Chief executive Bruno
Müller says the transfer
is an “optimal solution”
for Heidelberg customers
since print finishing is its
core business: “We will do
everything we can to transfer
the know-how efficiently to
our organisation because we
want to provide Heidelberg
customers with reliable
service support smoothly and
seamlessly,” he says.
• Muller Martini will launch
a new and ‘cost-effective’
NewsGrip F conveyor at WANIfra’s the World Publishing
Expo in Amsterdam.
Flexible and claimed to be
“the fastest and most economic
conveyor in its class”, the new
newspaper system addresses
Müller Martini
chief executive
Bruno Müller says
the transfer is an
‘optimal solution’
for Heidelberg
customers
current needs for end products
geared toward target groups,
shorter lead times and resulting
process complexity.
The NewGrip F – which
makes its world premiere at
the Amsterdam show (October
13-15) – is seen as a new
backbone product to underline
the Swiss maker’s “innovative
strength” in the mailroom
equipment sector.
Müller Martini will also
show its Connex.Mailroom
data and process management
system, which records and
compiles production data in
real time, offering optimisation
gx
options and transparency. n
n
The power generation
group of giant Babcock &
Wilcox has acquired press
peripherals maker Megtec
Systems. The US company
formed by the 1997 merger of
the French-owned Materiels
Equipements Graphiques
(MEG) with American rival
Tec Systems, is a major player
in the heatset web segment,
making dryers, splicers and
a variety of heat and solvent
recovery systems.
The Babcock & Wilcox
Company is an international
provider of clean energy
technologies and services,
mostly for nuclear, fossil and
renewable power.
President and chief
operating officer of the
Power Generation Group, J.
Randall Data says Megtec’s
industrial environmental
business is “highly
complementary” to the
group’s utility environmental
business, while its engineered
products business including
drying, coating and material
handling equipment provides
new growth opportunities.
insert & Heatset
He says no changes
to sales, service or other
personnel are planned “in the
medium term”.
KBA is working with Italian
systems developer Logica to
bring production planning
and control systems to the
Asian market. The latest
outcome is the teaming of
the DataProduction data
capture module with the KBA
ProductivityPlus software
suite to capture data, preview
current jobs and view the
production status as well
as monitoring production
processes via a BDE terminal.
German large-format
heatset pioneer Stark Druck
will bring a new 80-page
Lithoman autoprint into
operation this December.
The highly-automated
long-grain manroland web
joins eight existing presses at
its plant in Pforzheim. It will
have a web-width of 2250
mm and the full suite of the
German maker’s automation
features and technical
gx
n
solutions. n
gxpress.net
Complex drying, finishing
for ‘single-source’ hybrid
G
oss is to deliver an end-to-end hybrid
print system including inline finishing
for German print service provider
Mohn Media. The Gutersloh, Germany, print
service provider plans to have the new system
– based on a 24-page Goss Sunday 2000 press
with a 1.5 metre web – in operation before the
end of the year.
Ability to source the wide-web, singlecircumference press and complex inline
finishing equipment from a single supplier
was of “key importance”. Goss will supply
the five-unit Sunday press with inkjet
personalisation and inline coating, glueing,
diecutting and prefolding components from
its Contiweb Vits subsidiary.
The press will have a 1450mm web width,
semiautomatic plate loading, a pinless folder,
Contiweb CS zero-speed splicer and Ecotherm
dryer, as well as an additional made-to-order
web drying configuration featuring further
chill rolls and a remoistening unit.
Mohn Media chief executive Axel Hentrei
says the intention is streamline processes
to improve production flexibility: “Once the
new Goss press line is up and running, we
anticipate significant time-savings on regular
jobs as well as less waste and a more efficient
use of resources in general,” he says.
The 1450mm wide/six-pages-across
format will deliver up to 65,000 iph combined
with the flexibility of the single-circumference
(two-pages-around) format.
Based in Güttersloh, Mohn Media has as
its clients renowned publishing houses, as well
as industrial and service companies, leading
European consumer brands, retailers and mail
gx
order companies. n
n
Fit for profitability.
Surprise your clients and increase your earning power.
State-of-the-art technology from Muller Martini creates competitive advantages:
your clients will appreciate the high-quality products and the creative added value.
Connex ensures your profitability by providing the highest level of availability,
unbeatable changeover times and intelligent production flows. Our modular
product program, hybrid systems and extensive MMServices ensure you are
equipped for the markets of today and tomorrow.
Muller Martini – your strong partner.
Muller Martini Australia Pty Limited
Sydney +61 (0)2 8707 7300, Melbourne +61 412 749 761, Auckland +64 (0)21 790 600
Fax +61 (0)2 9773 1245, www.mullermartini.com/au, info@au.mullermartini.com
newspaper history
gxpress.net
rodkirkpatrick
W
hen World War I was about
to begin 100 years ago, it was
front-page news in the Sydney
Morning Herald, but not frontpage headlines.
Front pages were not then generally devoted
to news, and the Herald did not make Page 1
a page devoted primarily to news until April
15, 1944. But it began filling the first column
of Page 1 with one-sentence summaries of the
major news from January 1903. On August 3,
1914, the ‘Summary’ column began: “Germany
has declared war against Russia.”
Editorially, the Herald declared it as “the
gravest crisis that has faced the British people
since first they became members of a worldwide empire” and the Melbourne Argus said
that the European conflict had “undergone a
startling change”.
In an era when news headlines were
generally single-column, the Argus had
a three-column, six-deck headline, all in
capitals, beginning: ‘RUSSIA AND GERMANY.
WAR DECLARED ON SATURDAY. GREAT
BRITAIN’S DECISION AWAITED.’ The
Adelaide Advertiser did not mince words:
‘ARMAGEDDON! EUROPE ABLAZE.
GERMANY JOINS AUSTRIA. DECLARES WAR
AGAINST RUSSIA.’
Three days after its first front-page mention
of war, the Herald ‘Summary’ began with
grimmer news that Great Britain was now
involved. Readers had to turn to Page 7 for
the story, with a wandering single-column
headline, but a concise introduction: “Britain is
at war with Germany.”
For the Australian newspaper industry,
World War I radically changed the economic
basis of operations and made a major
impact on journalistic techniques. Imports
of newsprint fell by half over four years while
prices for it rose by 600 per cent between July
1914 and July 1921. Cable charges also jumped
600 per cent. While actual sales of papers
increased, advertising revenue tended to fall,
but not savagely. For Queensland country
papers, the war was a period of “grave anxiety”.
During the war, both the volume of news
and the hunger for detailed news from the
front grew. Because the competition to be
first in publishing the news increased, many
cable messages that would ordinarily have
been sent at standard rates were now sent at
urgent rates. One result was a terser journalism.
Proprietors, faced with rising costs, increased
sales and newsprint shortages, cut the size of
newspapers. Terseness became a necessity, not
an experiment.
In country districts not served by daily
newspapers, the demand for daily war-news
bulletins was high. Parents, relatives and
friends of those who had enlisted to serve
in the Australian Infantry Force wanted the
latest news from the different battle fronts.
For instance, in NSW, the bi-weeklies at Hay
and Gundagai and the weekly at Molong were
publishing daily war-news ‘extras’ by the end of
August 1914.
war headlines
turned inside
INDUSTRY
gxpress.net
Rod Kirkpatrick tells how depleted newspaper
staffs coped with coverage of World War I
At Hay, the Riverine Grazier began posting
short cable messages about the war daily, or
more frequently, on its noticeboard. On August
25, 1914, the Grazier announced: “At the request
of a number of the townspeople, we have
decided to issue a daily ‘extra’, containing the
latest telegraphed news of the progress of the
war.” The newspaper charged 1s 6d (15c) a
week for the extras but delivery was limited to
the main part of Hay.
It was much the same at the Gundagai
Times which asked on August 28 for “40
volunteers to contribute 1/- (10c) per week
each, say for three months, in order to prevent
any curtailment of the messages, or the fixing
of a charge for the extraordinaries issued daily
to the public”. The Molong Express was making
“a small charge” for its daily extras and the
weekly Snowy River Mail at Orbost, Victoria,
charged a penny for each of its daily extras. The
Coleraine Albion also charged a penny, but its
extras did not appear daily.
Study Australian newspapers published
during World War I, especially after April 1915,
and you can almost hear the pages toll with
a muffled drumbeat as they present the daily
war casualty lists. Your eyes flick down the subheadings: ‘Killed’,‘Wounded’ and the scores of
names listed.
Australians today know the Gallipoli
campaign began on April 25, 1915, but the
news of the landing and its significance
trickled through at the time. On April 30, 1915,
Melbourne’s Argus carried in small type in
the left-hand ear of its masthead: “Australians
under fire/Landed at Gallipoli/Fighting
against Turks/Conduct commended.” The
story on Page 7 gave little indication of the full
significance of the landing.
The immediate cost of Gallipoli became
clearer in the Argus a few days later: “41 die
of wounds” (May 4); “49 killed; 40 wounded”
(May 6). But a much fuller sense of what
Australians look back on as a turning point
in the nation’s history did not come until
May 8 when the Argus published (on Page 19
of a 24-page edition) British journalist Ellis
Ashmead-Bartlett’s report of the Gallipoli
landing. A banner headline ran across the
top of his report: “Australians at Dardanelles:
Thrilling deeds of heroism”. Various books,
such as Harry Gordon’s An Eyewitness History
of Australia, carry extracts from the AshmeadBartlett report which is attributed with helping
to create the legend of Anzac.
Referring to the Australians as “these raw
colonial troops” and “this race of athletes”, the
reporter observed there had been “no finer feat
in this war than this sudden landing in the dark
and storming the heights, above all holding on
while the reinforcements were landing”.
Charles Edwin Woodrow Bean, who
narrowly defeated Keith Murdoch in the
contest to become Australia’s official war
correspondent, went ashore at Anzac Cove fiveand-a-half hours after the first landing and was
the only correspondent to stay until December.
He later wrote the official history of Australia in
the war. A journalist of a later era, Les Carlyon,
has written two outstanding books on the war,
Gallipoli (2001) and The Great War (2006).
The war produced an interesting sidelight
on the so-called power of the press. In 1916 and
1917, just about every newspaper in the nation
gave solid editorial support for a “Yes” vote for
conscription of young men to serve in the war.
Both referenda were defeated.
Apart from the economic cost of the war,
many papers were left short of qualified
production staff because so many men enlisted
in the AIF. At John Fairfax, 97 of the 446
employees enlisted, with 21 being killed and 28
wounded.
Fortunately, the war came when
mechanised typesetting was becoming the
norm in country papers. Linotypes, and
variations of them, were reducing the number
of compositors needed.
Nationally, the number of newspapers
reached a peak immediately before World War
I, declined slightly by 1919, and continued to
decline over the next 60 years. The war, a period
of grave anxiety, had long-term impacts on
Australian newspapers and for Australia’s social
gx
fabric. n
n
GXpress welcomes Caitlin Miller
Caitlin Miller –
‘broad-ranging’ media
tastes
Self-confessed social
media addict and former ACP
Magazines account manager
Caitlin Miller has joined GXpress
in a new sales and business
development role.
Based in Terrigal on the
NSW Central Coast, she brings
wide print and new media
experience to publisher MPC
Media.
“Devouring business news
online and via social media
while reserving weekend time
for printed newspapers, she
has the broad news media
appetite of her generation,”
says managing editor Peter
Coleman. “She is already
Charting change
and innovation
What has changed and what
has stayed the same in newspapers’
rollercoaster ride of the last 15 years?
WAN-Ifra has published a ‘collector’s
set’ of the Innovations in Newspapers
World Report commissioned since 1999.
“Fifteen years is a lifetime in the
newspaper industry,” says deputy
chief executive Larry Kilman, “and this
unique document is testimony to the
breadth of transformation that has
occurred in that time.
“Since the report was first published,
the newspaper industry has undergone
a radical transformation, with digital,
social media, citizen journalism
and interactive content now at the
forefront. But the reports have been
prescient: much that occurred in 1999 is
familiar today. “The books not only reflect how
quickly news media have changed, but
also how much stays the same – the
details and approaches change, but the
basic challenges remain fairly constant.”
Founder and president of Innovation
and editor of the reports Juan Antonio
Giner says the newspaper industry is
“leading the digital transition” with
more and better multimedia integrated
newsrooms, journalists and managers
than ever.
bringing fresh ideas and
attitude to the business, and
we’re delighted to welcome her
as a key member.”
“Her experience in
publishing with ACP (now
Bauer Media) – building
partnerships with companies
of all sizes – and a strong
interest in sport – means
she understands and knows
exactly where our readers and
advertisers are coming from,”
he says.
A blogger, social media fan
with more than 3000 followers,
Caitlin is returning to publishing
after leaving to start a family –
she is the mother of two girls
– during which time she built a
business in celebrity make-up…
and an Instagram following. At
ACP Magazines, she liaised with
stores and agents, working also
on promotions and specials.
Her past experience includes
insurance sales, property
management and retail
management on Hamilton
Island and at London’s Covent
Garden Hotel.
“Publishing sales and
writing is where my heart and
passion is,” Caitlin says. “I am
looking forward to meeting
and building relationships with
new and existing partners,
and helping expand GXpress’
influence in the industry
globally.”
You can contact her
on 0422 272 200 (+61 422
272200) or email caitlin@
gxpress.net
Caitlin succeeds Lisa Hendry
who is stepping back from
GXpress after more than two
years, following a move to
Geelong to spend more time
with her young family and
pursue other projects.
“We’re grateful to Lisa for
her efforts for GXpress and
our sister sporting goods and
outdoor trade title Sportslink,
and wish her well for the
gx
future,” says Peter Coleman. n
n
The Hindu grasps an
opportunity in Tamil
T
amil readers are getting the best
of both worlds with the launch
of a regional-language version of
The Hindu.
Kasturi & Sons corporate general
manager Bharath Ganapathi says the
edition successfully penetrates the
regional niche, delivering “a brand
they loved and trusted, but in their
mother tongue”.
The launch follows audience
research which showed a need for
a Tamil-language print edition, and
complements what is south India’s
most widely read English daily.
Bharath Ganapathi says The Hindu
has maintained its lead in the face
of heavy competition in the English
print media market for many decades.
“The newspaper’s reputation for
authenticity and credibility, as well as
its award-winning team of journalists,
has earned the trust of millions of
loyal readers during the past 136
years,” he says.
However, continuing growth in the
market for Indian regional language
newspapers – both in circulation
and ad revenue – presented an
opportunity. Ganapathi says the
publisher also found demand for a
Tamil newspaper that had The Hindu’s
values.
“Armed with this overwhelmingly
positive research, we put together an
editorial team of 150 people for The
Hindu in Tamil, headed by an editor
with more than 25 years of experience
on a leading Tamil language
magazine,” he says in an INMA blog.
The decision to name the brand
The Hindu (in Tamil) was made
to capitalise on the equity that the
mother brand had built over the
course of a century. An editorial
mandate – to deliver the same quality
of journalism that has been delivered
in the English language for 136 years
– was supported by product design
reflecting that mandate.
A 360-degree marketing campaign
titled ‘The world comes alive in
Tamil with The Hindu’ generated
buzz around launch and drove
subscriptions. It included a 12-day
teaser to keep interest levels high
and generate advance subscription
enquiries – considered “a lofty goal”
by industry analysts in light of wellentrenched players.
Loved and
trusted
brand, in
their mother
tongue
“However, this goal
was achieved following an extensive
campaign that included radio, outdoor,
social media, print, and television
spots,” he says. Advance subscription
requests via SMS touched exceeded
15,000 in two months.
A website was launched on the first
day, and a Facebook page had picked
up 100,000 likes in four months and
has now gone on to more than half a
million.“There was also significant
traction that could be seen in the
number of shares and discussion
threads on the news items that were
posted on the page,” he says.
“The long months of preparation,
research, planning, and marketing
culminated in this success. In a short
time, The Hindu Tamil had gone from
being ‘the new kid on the block’ to a
force to reckon with both as an editorial
product as well as an audience delivery
gx
tool for marketers. n
n
industry events
gxpress.net
Time critical for ANP delegates
A
It’s time: ASEAN
Newspaper Printers
conference goes to
Manila
speaker from News Corp
Australia will be among
keynoters when technical
group ASEAN Newspaper Printers
takes its annual conference to Manila
next month.
The one-day technical
programme, bookmarked by golf,
social events and the annual meeting,
is planned for the Shangri-La Makati
hotel from September 21-23.
Chairman Mohamed Hassan
Mohamed Ali says the decision
to hold the conference in the
Philippines capital has been
welcomed and supported by
colleagues in the country: “We have
chosen Manila because until now,
we have we never held our ANP
conference there, and there are many
newspaper printers who would
benefit from it,” he says in a posting
on the non-profit organisation’s
website.
The shorter event will allow more
local delegates to participate, but
still include regular components
including a golf competition,
city tour and welcome reception
(September 21), the conference,
workshops and gala dinner
(September 22), with time for the
annual meeting and user/supplier
networking on September 23.
Theme this year is “It’s time….” –
chosen because of the importance of
Full two-day agenda for Delhi delegates
F
orty speakers are slated to speak
across newsroom, printing and
crossmedia topics at WAN-Ifra’s
India conference in Delhi next month.
The 22nd annual event for South
Asian publishers will also discuss
opportunities for engaging young
readers, monetisation and efficient
operation at Le Meridien hotel from
September 17-18.
Among confirmed speakers are
WAN-Ifra chief executiveVincent
Peyregne, TN Ninan (chairman
of Business Standard and a board
member of the World Editors
Forum), Kevin Anderson (regional
executive editor of Gannett Wisconsin
Media, USA), Mariam Mammen
Mathew (chief operating officer of
Manorama Online), Mint editor R
Sukumar, Ola Stenberg (digital editor
of VG, Norway), K Balaji (director
of Kasturi & Sons), Rahul Kansal
(executive president of Times of India
publisher Bennett, Coleman & Co),
Nikhil Ganju (Indian country head of
Tripadvisor), DD Purkayastha (chief
executive and managing director of
ABP Pvt and chairman of the WANIfra advisory council), Kartik Taneja
(channel sales head for Google India)
and Florian Nehm (head of corporate
sustainability and EU affairs at Axel
Springer, Germany).
The conference will also see the
formal release of a new WAN-Ifra
special report on Newsprint waste
management, of which K Balaji is
author.
The event – returning to Delhi
after a gap of eight years – is
expected to attract about 400
delegates from across South Asia
and rest of the world. It also includes
an expo component and parallel
pre-conference workshops on data
journalism, new media metrics, and
densitometry, all on September 16.
Registration and full details are at
www.wan-ifra.org/india2014 or email
gx
v.antony@wan-ifra.org n
n
Back to ‘media city’
for WPE 2015
WAN-Ifra’s World Publishing
Expo will be held in the media city
of Hamburg again next year.
Organisers of the former
IfraExpo and conference say the
45th event will be held from
October 5-7, 2015, following
consultation with exhibitors and a
unanimous ‘yes’ vote.
It will be the third time the
World Publishing Expo has been
held in the seaport city, to which
more than 10,000 delegates visited
in 2010.
Hamburg is the second
largest city in Germany and the
eighth largest in the European
40 gxpress.net
Union. About 100,000 people
work in media and information
technology, the 23,000 companies
including Der Spiegel, Die Zeit,
Stern, Axel Springer Verlag, Bauer
Media Group, Gruner + Jahr,
Google, Facebook and Xing.
WAN-Ifra says the combination
August 2014
of easy access, moderate hotel
prices and low auxiliary costs
for exhibitors make conditions
optimal for the Expo and its
related conferences, including the
seventh Tablet & App Summit,
the 13th International Newsroom
Summit, and the World Printers
Forum.
More than 130 exhibitors
have already booked around
6,500 m2 of exhibition space
at this year’s World Publishing
Expo in Amsterdam from
October 13-15 October. More
about this year’s Expo at www.
gx
worldpublishingexpo.com n
n
time to newspaper printers, the need
for timely execution and properlytimed maintenance. Hassan says it
is also time to look again into how
we package and deliver information
to readers, and at the processes
to ensure minimised waste and
improved efficiency.
Time is however, short for
those wishing to attend, with
full details on the ANP website
or email to secretary.gen@
aseannewspaperprinters.com
“I would like to urge all of you,
be it newspaper printers/publishers
and vendor supporters to assist us in
making this conference successful,”
gx
says the chairman. n
n
WAN-Ifra
teams with
NAA for US
congress
WAN-Ifra will partner the NAA to
take the World Newspaper Congress to
Washington next year.
Traditionally, the NAA holds its
mediaXchange event in the city in a
presidential election year, the next
being 2016.
The 67th World Newspaper Congress
and 22nd World Editors Forum will be
held from June 1-3, 2015. Details are at
http://www.wan-ifra.org/DC2015 The Congress and Editors Forum
– held annually since 1948 – have
been held in the USA on five previous
occasions, including in Washington in
1970 and 1996.
Newspaper Association of America
president and chief executive Caroline
Little says she is thrilled to welcome
the Congress to Washington in 2015:
“The event is a tremendous opportunity
for global publishers, editors and
advertisers to gather and exchange
ideas about the future of our industry.
“We look forward to showcasing
how the US newspaper industry has
transformed by innovating its print,
digital and mobile offerings.” WAN-Ifra chief executive Vincent
Peyrègne says the event is returning
to Washington at a crucial time: “A
gathering of publishers and editors from
more than 80 countries in the American
capital will be an opportunity for a wide
exchange of business strategies, editorial
practices and policy positions that will
gx
be beneficial for all.” n
n
gxpress.net
Dr Karl tree
hug campaign
struts recycling
credentials
Trees hug back in a new
Australian environmental campaign
launched by The Newspaper Works last
month.
Popular science icon Dr Karl
Kruszelnicki fronts the national
advertising campaign which
congratulates Australians for being
among the best newsprint recyclers in
the world.
The campaign, titled The trees
are hugging back, was developed
for TNW’s environmental advisory
group and has Kruszelnicki getting up
close with a tree to say thank you. It
highlights that print newspapers and
Tree friendly: The
Newspaper Works’
campaign leverages the
popularity of science icon
Dr Karl Kruszelnicki
magazines are produced
using recycled fibres and sustainably
managed forests. Australia has one
of the best newspaper recycling
rates in the world, recycling enough
newspapers every year to fill 7605
swimming pools, or stretch to the
moon and back.
“Around 25 million newspapers
are in circulation in Australia every
week, so our readers’ efforts nationally
to recycle newsprint is significant,”
TNW chief executive
Mark Hollands says. “Initiatives of
the environmental advisory group
are another example of the ongoing
collaboration between newspaper
publishers. As a result of public
education and kerbside recycling
programmes, Australia’s newspaper
recycling rate is one of the best in the
world, with 78 per cent of newsprint
being recycled.
TNW’s environment executive
director Peter Netchaef says
the campaign is an
opportunity to highlight
the importance of the
industry’s ongoing environmental
responsibility. It was running for nine
weeks in magazines and metropolitan,
suburban and regional newspapers
across print and digital formats.
The environmental advisory
group succeeds the PNEB, formed in
1990 to advance newsprint recycling
and improve product stewardship.
Participating publishers are News
Corp Australia, Fairfax Media, APN,
West Australian Newspapers, Pacific
gx
Magazines and Bauer Media. n
n
Alliance channels academic
and industry research
A
Mill upgrade ‘a real team effort’
Community and employee representatives joined
Norske Skog Australia for the official opening of the Boyer
mill paper machine conversion. Cutting a ribbon to mark
completion of the $85 million project were the local mayor,
and the mill’s general manager and union representative.
The 18-month project involved the conversion of one of the
mill’s two newsprint machines to produce LWC paper, which
is being branded as Vantage. Norske Skog regional president
Andrew Leighton thanked federal and state governments
for supporting the project, adding to the “significant capital
investment” by the mill’s owners. “This has been a real team
effort across our entire business and literally hundreds of
people have been involved to make it a success.” Almost
200 Tasmanian firms were involved in the project, with local
gx
expenditure of more than $40 million. n
n
Cutting the ribbon: Derwent Valley Council mayor Martin Evans, Boyer
union representative Rodney Graham and general manager Rod Bender
mong outcomes from the World
Editors Forum in Turin was a new
global partnership to promote
research and innovation.
WAN-Ifra has brought together academic
and industry stakeholders in the new
International Alliance for Media Research and
Innovation, with nine members joining the
steering committee.
They are WAN-Ifra, EPFL (Ecole
Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne,
Switzerland), iMinds (Vrije Universiteit
Brussel, Belgium), PUCRS (Pontificia
Universidade Catolica do Rio Grande Sul,
Brazil), NextMedia (an initiative of Finnmedia,
Finland), the Media Innovation Studio in the
School of Journalism and Media at UCLan in
England, Aalto University School of Business
(Finland, to be confirmed), Médias Suisses
(the publishers’ association of the Frenchspeaking part of Switzerland), AFP (Agence
France-Presse) and Grupo RBS (Brazil).
The initiative – which it says, responds
to the emergency situation” the industry is
in –will operate under the umbrella of WANIFRA’s Media Innovation Hub.
A document setting out aims and
intentions forsees “the future of news media
being invented right now, all around the
globe, by hundreds of different companies,
universities, and entrepreneurs.
“However, their separate efforts, research,
prototypes, and rollouts receive inconsistent
attention and analysis. Many good ideas
fail only because of a lack of development
support. Others get hyped beyond their real
value.”
Four objectives are to share a strategic
vision and understanding, to connect various
efforts to partners and resources, facilitate
cooperation between news publishers and
the academic and research environment, and
to train media professionals and “encourage
multi-disciplinary approaches enhanced by
closer collaboration with academic centres
associated to the project”.
It is envisaged a project manager will be
appointed in October.
WAN-Ifra chief executive Vincent Peyrègne
says the document is a starting point and
a statement of principles: “It is a work in
progress, and we welcome comments and
participation.”
More information and the document are
at www.wan-ifra.org/node/104703 or email
gx
stephen.fozard@wan-ifra.org n
n
peoplenews
industry
gxpress.net
Jailed Ethiopian named
for 2014 freedom prize
W
AN-Ifra has named jailed
Ethiopian journalist
Eskinder Nega for its 2014
Golden Pen of Freedom press freedom
prize. The award was announced in
Turin, Italy, during the opening of the
World Newspaper Congress and World
Editors Forum.
A relentless advocate for freedom
of expression, Nega became an
emblem of Ethiopia’s struggle for
democracy, his commitment to
human rights landing him in jail on
at least seven occasions in the past
ten years. He is currently being held
in Kaliti Prison outside of Addis
Ababa, serving an 18-year sentence
as a convicted ‘terrorist’ for having
challenged the very same laws used
to imprison him, and for questioning
whether the Arab Spring protests
could be repeated in Ethiopia. World Editors Forum president
Erik Bjerager said the Ethiopian
government has tried to present
Eskinder Nega as a rabble-rouser
bent on fomenting violent revolution:
“However, accounts from other
journalists, backed by court
documents and the hundreds of
articles he has written, portray a
tenacious writer who has called
only for peaceful change and
reconciliation.”
Eskinder Nega’s newspapers
Asqual, Satenaw and Menelik
were among 13 titles closed in a
clampdown following 2005 elections
in which the ruling EPRDF party
claimed a disputed victory.
Accepting the award at the request
of Eskinder Nega’s family, Swedish
journalist Martin Schibbye – himself
a former prisoner of the Ethiopian
regime, jailed alongside Eskinder
Nega for 11 months between 20112012 – reminded delegates that Nega
“at many points” faced a choice:
“He could have chosen an easy
life, he could have chosen another
profession, but the love for the truth,
for his country, for his fellow human
beings, and for Ethiopia, made him
gx
into a journalist.” n
n
‘Harvest’ instills pride in print
A seminal 20-year-old film
about graphic communication and
its influence on civilisation has
been updated to reflect changes in
technology.
It’s a big ask, but much of Harvest
of Wisdom comes in the form of
an illustrated lecture, created by
US printing industry visionary and
scholar Nolan Moore a year before
his death in 1995.
Now a joint effort by the
Nolan Moore Memorial Education
Foundation and the graphic
communication institute at Cal Poly
has remade the second half of the
hour-long film.
The update is led by Jerry Waite
and Phil Snyder of the University of
Houston along with Harvey Levenson
of CalPoly’s graphic communication
institute – through the support
of the Nolan Moore Memorial
Education Foundation created by PIA
MidAmerica after Moore’s death –
42 gxpress.net
August 2014
and is now available online.
Levenson (pictured in the video)
says that despite its age, the film
has stood the test of time. Moore
intended it to be used in classrooms,
and demonstrate how written
communication and print affected
civilisation and the dissemination
of knowledge. “Indeed, the film
is a statement on the relevance
of print throughout the ages and
the important and continuing
accomplishments of the printing
gx
industry.” n
n
• See the hour-long video on our
website.
Goss International has promoted
Tim Mercy to a new role as Asia
Pacific managing director.
Most recently a sales vice
president in Asia, he now leads
a unified Goss
sales, service
and support
organisation
serving
newspaper,
commercial
and packaging
operations
throughout the
region, with the
exception of China.
Mercy reached Goss via Harris
Web and Heidelberg, spending 30
years of his 40-year career in the
graphic arts industry with these
companies. He has been based in
Asia for the past 20 years.
Goss chief executive Rick Nichols
says the appointment continues
the company’s alignment based on
four regional centres responsible
for the Americas, Asia, China and
Europe. Mercy has been “a valued
resource” for printers, publishers
and converters in the region for two
decades, he says: “He is uniquely
qualified to unify and lead the Goss
team in that region and to help us
continue to deliver the highest levels
of value, product performance and
support.”
A graduate of Northern Illinois
University – where he earned an
MBA as well as a Bachelors degree
in industry and technology – he
worked previously with a leading
US commercial web and direct mail
company.
• Marketing manager Greg
Norris is among those shed by Goss
International in cut of its Americas
teams, US magazine News&Tech has
reported.
Director of newspaper sales Doug
Gibson has also left the company
– to join Newspaper Solutions Inc
– in the changes which follow the
appointment of Mike D’Angelo
as managing director. He told the
magazine the “upper-management
reduction” went across the board
throughout departments in the
Americas.
Goss is currently installing a 6x2
Uniliner press at the Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette and the world’s first
automated Magnum Compact, due
to be commissioned at Advance
Publications in Staten Island, New
York.
After leading Adobe’s Asia
Pacific enterprise sales for the past
year, ANZ managing director Paul
Robson now moves to regional
president.
He succeeds Craig Tegel who is
leaving the company at the end
of this month after 17 years with
Adobe.
Worldwide field operations
executive vice president Matt
Thompson says Tegel led extensive
growth for Adobe in the region,
and he is confident business will
continue to thrive under Robson’s
leadership.
Robson will continue to be based
in Sydney headquarters, travelling
frequently to oversee operations
elsewhere in Australasia, and in
southeast Asia, Korea, India and
Greater China. He joined Adobe as
ANZ managing director in 2012 from
Hewlett Packard,
having transferred
to the company
from Compaq.
His CV includes
the founding
of Bridal Gifts
Direct in 2003,
building turnover
to $5 million in
four years. He is
also a director
of Tresillian, the Royal Society for
the Welfare of Mothers and Babies,
which is involved in the delivery of
child and family healthcare.
Würzburg register court
has followed shareholders’
recommendation, appointing
Dagmar Rehm to the KBA
supervisory board.
The appointment follows HeinzJoachim Neubürger’s decision to
leave the board, leaving the seat
vacant. It is the first time since the
company’s listing on stock exchange
nearly 30 years ago that a woman
has held a seat as shareholder
representative on the supervisory
board of what is the world’s oldest
and second-largest printing press
manufacturer.
Rehm (50) is chief financial
officer at Bilfinger Industrial
Technologies. She has a a degree
in economics, worked in finance
and accounting from 1989-1995
at the former AEG and until 2005
held senior commercial positions
at German rail operator Deutsche
Bahn. She later became senior vicepresident corporate controlling at
tour operator Thomas Cook. She
moved to construction and services
group Bilfinger Berger in Frankfurt
as chief financial officer of the
concessions division and has held her
gx
n
present position since 2013. n
newswrapper
Fun at the Forum, a feisty Zemiro, awards business and a
waning moon at the Crescent, as Peter Coleman wraps it up
W
e held publication of this
issue until after Australia’s
The Newspaper Works had
held its Future Forum, an
event still known by the former PANPA
brand. Coverage of this year’s event is in
pages 14-17.
Invited down as a judge on the
technical awards, I also had an
opportunity to see the Newspaper of the
Year process from the inside... popping
up to North Richmond afterwards to
take up an invitation extended by Bob
Lockley at SWUG (see report page 22).
As it turned out, a majority (perhaps
all, but I do not have this information)
agreed the substantially-expanded
Fairfax Media site should take this
year’s inaugural ‘print centre of the year’
award.
The new category is timely, and
while I thought we chose the right
winner, the efforts made by News
Corp Australia in management (and
cultural) development across a range of
its sites is also worth recognising. The
nominated Sydney Print Centre was a
runner-up, but similar work has been
done at other sites including Murarrie
(Qld) which I wrote about last issue.
The ‘big night’ of the NOY gala
dinner is always a highlight, spiced this
year by host Julia Zemiro, who used the
event to attack her employer (News,
with other major publishers, owns the
competition) over what she claimed
was a fanciful report of her Eurovision
coverage.
Always notable is how the awards
forwardplanning
2014
Aug 27-30
Sep 3-6
Korea International Printing
Machinery & Equipment Show
(KIPES) and K-Digi Print (Korea
Digital Print & Solution Show),
Kintex Exhibition Hall, Seoul
(www.kprintweek.com)
Indoprint (with Indoplas and
Indopack), Jakarta International
Expo, Kemayoran, Indonesia (www.
indoprint.net)
Sep 17-18
rise and fall in stature according to the
success of the publications reporting on
them. The Australian dedicated a long
piece to “outrage and accusations” when
it was pipped by The Age for the metro/
national Newspaper of the Year title a
couple of years back
But last year’s result – when what
we thought a much-improved Oz was
honoured – and this month’s accolade
for the Weekend Australian, have
obviously met with approval in Holt
Street.
During the Forum, the CEOs panel
was asked whether they would prefer a
newspaper with a report of the Bledisloe
Cup match to one without. No crossTasman slurs here, but a carefully
pointed reference to print deadlines,
which Julian Clarke (for the News titles,
which did) happily took up
In what I shall therefore call a
Bledisloe Cup moment, none of the
newspapers I saw the following day
managed to report their PANPA
successes in print. Whether they diss
the success of others remains to be seen.
WAN-Ifra India 2014 annual
conference (including Newsroom,
Printing and Crossmedia Advertising
Summits), Hotel Le Meridien, New
Delhi (www.wan-ifra.org)
Sep 28-Oct 1 Graph Expo, Chicago, Illinois, USA
(www.graphexpo.com)
Sep 21-23 ASEAN Newspaper Printers annual
conference, Manila, Philippines
(aseannewspaperprinters.com)
Oct 13-15 WAN-Ifra Expo and conference,
Amsterdam, Netherlands (www.
wan-ifra.org)
Our recent delve into news printing
history with the Cossar tales feature has
brought interest, new contacts and this
gem from Colorado, USA. It’s the story, told
by CBS News reporter Barry Petersen,of
the Saguache Crescent, of which Dean
Coombs is all things… which means
editor, proprietor, Linotype operator (and
mechanic), pressman (on an 1915 sheetfed
press) and delivery hand.
The video – posted by Gold Coast
(Queensland) mechanic George Finn on the
Metaltype.co.uk forum – is on our website.
Intriguingly, Petersen suggests there
may not be another newspaper in the USA
– and by his implication, the world – set
on a Linotype, something we believe to be
incorrect.
It’s a good news paper – “I don’t do bad
news,” he says, “everyone knows that” –
and with no kids, succession is in doubt.
There’s a vacancy here for someone with an
equal level of commitment, since Coombs
(pictured) says, “I don’t know anyone I
dislike enough to give the Crescent to.”
Not me, thanks... like Malcolm Turnbull
at the Future Forum on media regulation,
“I’ve seen that film.”
Nov 14-17
Nov 18-20
2015
May 13-15
2016
All In Print China 2014, Shanghai,
China (www.mdna.com)
WAN-Ifra Digital Media Asia,
Singapore (www.wan-ifra.org)
PrintEx15, co-located with Visual
Impact, Sydney Olympic Park,
Homebush, NSW (gamaa.net.au/
trade_shows/printexex15/)
May 31-Jun 10
DRUPA Print & Crossmedia
Solutions trade show, Dusseldorf,
Germany (www.drupa.com)
Contact the organisers for fuller information about
gx
n
any of the above events and to confirm dates. n
Generic
Generic
gxpress.net
gxpress.net
...new Magnum Compact
Combining compact inker modules with powerful automation and agility features, the
Goss Magnum Compact press introduces advantages never before available in the singlewidth sector. The result is a versatile, cost-effective option for newspaper, semi-commercial
and book production, including multi-product business models and ultra short run lengths.
LOCAL CONTACT: Goss International, Unit 16, 35 Dunlop Road,
Mulgrave, Victoria 3170, Australia
+03.9560.1666
44 gxpress.net
www.gossinternational.com
August 2014

August 2014 print edition

Transcription

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