March 2015 print edition as PDF

Transcription

The news publishing
technology magazine
gxpress.net
Vol 15/1 March 2015 Asia-Pacific
Inside:
• Behind Fairfax’s SND win
• Right-sizing high-volume print
• Pradeep Shah interview
• Hunkeler pulls in the sheets
plus NewsLeaders features
watch
what
happens
How Apple’s
smartwatch changes
the platform dynamic
for news media
companies
inside
death sentence: Digital
Newspaper technology
Publication production
digital publishing
gxpress.net
gxpress.net
Media India speakers give
English papers five page 15
watch now: Some have
wearables plans in hand,
some don’t page 16
giving us the sheets:
InnovationDays exhibitors
follow the money page 22
In a hurry: Swiss daily
Walliser Bote wants multiple
editions, now! page 23
press match: High-
volume production calls for
right-sizing page 24
single minded:
Manugraph India chief
Pradeep Shah talks to
Nirmalya Sen page 27
our thanks to these Advertisers:
CCI/Escenic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Goss International . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Harland-Simon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Media Super. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Publish Asia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
World News Media Congress . . . . . . . . . 21
NewsLeaders:
EidosMedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Goss International . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
ProtecMedia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
QI Press Controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
technotrans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Krux partners for geolocation
B
ig Data provider Krux is
expanding in Sydney, and has
agreed plans to build Digital
Element’s IP geolocation technology
into its platform.
Krux, whose clients include
publishers the New York Times, Wall
Street Journal, Axel Springer and
the Washington Post, will deploy
NetAcuity Edge hyperlocal IP
intelligence technology to improve
geographic targeting capability for
its global client base.
The cloud-based cross-screen
data management platform
captures data connected devices
–smartphones, tablets, desktops,
laptops and connected TVs –
allowing real-time actions across
web and mobile browsers, apps,
e-commerce and advertising.
Integration of the Digital Element
technology will make it easier to
segment audiences, geographically
target advertising and localise
website content.
Krux operations vice president
Jos Boumans says Digital Element’s
IP geolocation technology enables a
Jo Gaines is one of three former
Brandscreen people joining Krux
“very granular” level of geotargeting,
which allows advertising and
website content to be localised with
precision: “We selected NetAcuity
Edge because it is the most accurate
data set available globally.”
Founded in 1999, Digital Element
is a pioneer of IP geolocation
technology. Its technology combines
IP routing infrastructure analysis
with anonymous location insight,
gleaned from a network of global
commercial partners.
Locally, the US-headquartered
data tech company’s rapid regional
growth has led to the launch of
an international research and
development centre in Sydney and
expansion of its local team.
The Sydney unit is the company’s
second globally, after Silicon Valley.
It is being headed by Seth Yates,
who has joined the company as
technology vice president.
Co-founder and chief technology
officer Vivek Vaida says Krux has
expanded its footprint onto four
continents in a year: “Yates’ extensive
expertise in media technology will
help us to meet the needs of our
clients while maintaining a true
around-the-clock engineering
operation,” he says.
Krux appointed Stu Spiteri as
its Singapore-based Asia-Pacific
managing director last year and has
just added Jo Gaines (pictured) as
country manager for Australia.
Yates was founder and
chief technology officer of
Brandscreen, which was sold
to Zenovia in March, and was
previously with Independent
Digital Media and Fairfax Digital.
Spiteri was chief executive officer
at Brandscreen and Gaines had
gx
been chief revenue officer. n
n
An MPC Media publication
Volume 15 Number 1
gxpress.net
March 2015
Managing editor Peter Coleman
phone: +61 7-5485 0079, mob: +61 407 580 094,
email: mpcmedia@ozemail.com.au
Sales manager Lisa Hendry: +61 487 400 374,
email: admin@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, +61 7-5485 0079
Printed by Times Printers Private Limited, Singapore.
See us at www.gxpress.net and digital.gxpress.net
Published by MPC Media
(Pileport Pty Ltd)
ABN 30 056 610 363
Subscriptions A$60 pa. (inc GST) within Asia and
Australia. Other rates on application
© Pileport Pty Ltd 2015. 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 March 2015
Helping steer a vision for Cxense
Hearst adds paywall to papers
Big data company Cxense has formed a media
advisory board with John Paton and Kjell Aamot
as its first members. The Digital First Media chief
executive and former Schibsted chief executive
will give strategic advice on the company’s
product suite, aimed at helping use of data to
gx
increase site engagement and digital revenue. n
n
Hearst Newspapers is to use Newscycle’s
circulation management system for 14 of its
metro newspaper properties.
The cloud-based system is being deployed
in California, Connecticut, Texas, Michigan,
Illinois and New York, with the Digital Paymeter
gx
subscription system at larger metro sites. n
n
digital.gxpress.net
Multimedia
works shine
in SND
awards
W
hat’s outstanding
about the work of
The Age and the
Sydney Morning
Herald recognised in
the Society for News Design’s ‘best of
digital design’ awards is the absence of
comparable work from the region.
Check out the shortlisted work – the
SND doesn’t name publishers, including
project names and links instead – and
you’ll find it dominated by the likes of
the New York Times, the LA Times and
other North American brands.
However, the Fairfax Media sites
have taken five awards in the 2014
competition in a field of more than 900
entries from around the world.
Other winners in the broader AsiaPacific are Asahi, ThePaper.cn and
GulfNews.com
Three Fairfax projects are
nominated, along with the portfolio
of Mark Stehle (for art direction and
design) but it is one of these,‘And then
there were none’ – about Australia’s
endangered species – which garners
most acclaim. Its team of Stehle, Felicity
Lewis, Nathaneal Scott, Joe Benke, Bridie
Smith and Tim Doldissen are recognised
for single subject feature projects, and
use of multimedia.
Stehle, Lewis, Scott, Konrad Marshall,
Brendan Esposito and Doldissen are
named for ‘Will to win’ and Stehle, Lewis,
Matthew Absalom-Wong, Nino Bucci
and Tom McKendrick for ‘Waverider’.
In the individual portfolios category,
Stehle is recognised for art direction
and design for ‘Will to win’, ‘And then
there were none’, ‘One more summer’ and
‘Flying Docs’.
The awards recognise excellence
in digital design in news media and
winners were announced at the Ball
State University Indianapolis Center.
Fairfax executive editor –
photography and presentation Matt
Martel says the design team is thrilled to
be honoured, being the only Australian
media organisation to win this year:
“We are immensely proud that the
digital design features and portfolios
we produce for the Sydney Morning
Herald and The Age mastheads are
recognised among the best on offer
internationally.”
He told GXpress the Fairfax team
included both people from a print
background who have been with Fairfax
for a long time, as well as newer digital
hires from recent years. Absalom-Wong
– who is joint art director of The Age –
had no print experience when he joined,
while Stehle, Lewis and Benke all had
strong print backgrounds.
“What’s been interesting has been our
increasing need for developers,” he says.
“Initially, we looked at what we could do
easily with our print staff, but we realised
we needed to be much more sophisticated
and highly skilled. As far as highengagement goes, tools such as property
price increase calculators are fantastic.”
From both digital
and print: (from
left) Nathaneal Scott,
Matthew AbsalomWong, Felicity Lewis,
Mark Stehle and Joe
Benke
Picture: Eddie Jim/
Fairfax Media
Below: A cassowary
illustration from
‘And then there were
none’, a multimedia
piece about Australia’s
endangered species
Skills range from cartoonists (the
likes of Alan Moir and Cathy Wilcox)
to photographers (among them Kate
Geraghty and Brendan Esposito) and
then designers and developers. “We can
do anything from a pocket cartoon to a
large database-driven tool,” he says.
The philosophy is first and foremost,
“to think about our readers.
“We want to make it easy for them
to love Fairfax’s work. We experiment
with different ways of presenting
information and we are at the forefront
of pushing out new ways of presenting
the news.
“We also a not scared to make
mistakes and change the way we do
things.
“Across photography, design,
graphics and illustration we want to
bring all of our staff with us. We want
to teach print people digital skills, and
if they don’t end up as hardcore coders,
that is fine with us.”
Projects often come from reporters
or section editors, with an approval
process to make sure work that will
find an audience… and also make
sure there is enough visually engaging
material to do a good job.
“We can certainly select stories,
but we are more likely to work in
a collaborative way with reporters,
editors, photographers and video
producers,” says Martel.
He says empathy in the creator
is not necessarily a driving force in
the choice: “We need to give people
enough time to do the work and to be
visually creative, but we as designers/
creatives work across a huge variety
of material. That’s one of the really
interesting parts of our roles. We also
sweat the small details. Five of us have
spent large chunks of today debating a
yes/no icon for a NSW election ready
reckoner.”
After a few years of trial and error,
methodologies have been developed
to make sure the pieces always work.
“Nowadays, we do the design and then
we know we can code pretty much
anything. It has freed us to do better
work,” he says.
For a selection of the Fairfax work,
see http://www.smh.com.au/national/
interactive-hub. The full SND shortlist
is at www.snd.org/2015/03/winnerslist-2014-best-of-digital-designcompetition/
Clicking through the list of
shortlisted projects is a timeconsuming but very rewarding task.
• The 17 print newspapers in
the running for SND’s World’s BestDesigned newspaper competition have
also been chosen, and the winner will
be announced at an SND Workshop in
Washington, this April.
Chosen from more than 200
entries, they are: The Washington
Post (USA), Politiken (Denmark),
Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden),
Excelsior (Mexico), The National Post
(Canada), De Morgen (Belgium),
Informação (Portugal)
Welt am Sonntag (Germany),
The Grid (Canada), La Nacion
(Argentina), Los Angeles Times (USA),
The Guardian (UK), Dagens Nyheter
(Sweden), De Volkskrant (Netherlands),
Die Welt (Germany), New York Times
(USA), and Folha de São Paulo (Brazil).
gx
Peter Coleman n
n
gxpress.net March 2015 3
digital publishing
coffee and
coaching for
start-ups
gxpress.net
Newscycle beefs Asia
Pacific in global plan
A
ustralia will host a new
‘centre of excellence’
under a plan announced
by Newscycle Solutions, which
continues to strengthen its team in
the country.
Paul Schofield has been named
regional vice president of customer
operations, based in Sydney
where Bryan Hooley was recently
appointed business manager.
It is also expanding global
hosting operations with the
appointment of former Digital First
Media chief technology officer Bob
Mason as global vice president of
hosting. Both will report to chief
operations officer, Scott Roessler.
Schofield will run service and
support of Newscycle’s existing Asia
Pacific customers and manage its
Malaysian development centre and
Singapore support and services
teams. He joined Newscycle in 2013
from Atex, Inc where he was vice
president of audience development,
and has been responsible for
development and support of
Newscycle’s audience software.
The company says formation
of 11 centres for product, services
and hosting teams is part of efforts
to improve product innovation,
software quality and advanced
professional services.
Located in North America,
Europe and Australia, the centres
“will focus on functional areas
vital to Newscycle’s missioncritical business”, including
product development, quality
assurance, hosting, application
performance, project management,
implementation services and
customer support.
The model will enable Newscycle
to establish best practices across
its entire product and services
portfolio. For product teams, the
centres will concentrate on agile
software design, development and
delivery, with the focussed approach
helping optimise collaboration,
predictability, flexibility, code reuse
and support for open integration
standards, the company says.
Primary development teams
will be based in Newscycle’s US
offices in Bloomington (Minnesota),
Melbourne (Florida), and Lindon
(Utah), with secondary development
and software resource teams based
in Denmark, Sweden, Germany,
the UK and other regional offices.
Quality assurance teams will be
located in Bloomington, Melbourne
and Lindon.
More resources are being
dedicated to hosting, project
management, implementation
services and customer support
efforts, with these centres based
in Minnesota, Florida, Michigan,
Canada, Denmark, Sweden,
Germany, the UK and Australia.
Chief executive Preston McKenzie
says the “transformation model”
is designed to address clients’
changing needs: “We believe the
Centre of Excellence model will
provide Newscyle with the focus and
best practices necessary to deliver
the most dependable, reliable and
gx
truly breakthrough solutions.” n
n
Caffeine and coaching are among
the incubator incentives being offered
by ppi Media ahead of its Open Days
event (June 22-23). The German software
developer is inviting IT, media and
computer science students, graduates
or start-ups to vie for a year’s support
including the use of an office at their Kiel
development complex... and access to the
coffee machine.
“Thirty years ago, we were a highpotential start up, too,” says product
and innovation management senior vice
president Manuel Scheyda. The ‘free
coffee for a year’ initiative is pitched
at those who have good concepts for
starting a company but are lacking the
necessary equipment to put their ideas
into practice. The opportunity to tap
the experience of ppi’s 120 employees
includes coaching by division heads,
developers and management.
Applicants have until May 1 to present
their ideas, and the winner will be
announced at ppi’s Open Days event in
Lubeck on June 22.
• Programme for the Open Days event
mixes the experiences of customers with
the views of industry leaders and updates
on the German software developer’s
product programme.
Among confirmed speakers are Funke
Service managing director and IT head
Michael Kurowski, Frédéric Fabre (managing
director of Roto Garonne), Francis
Munywoki (innovation director at Kenya’s
The Standard Group and Michael Mendoza
(chief executive of UK-based Lineup
gx
Systems).Details from the website. n
n
gxpress.net
Newsrooms
to merge in
‘amazing’ new NZME building
A
PN News & Media will merge
its NZME Auckland operations
in a new building set to open in
November.
The move is part of the rebranding
of APN New Zealand as NZME and
includes the New Zealand Herald, The
Radio Network and GrabOne. It will bring
together Herald and Newstalk ZB staff
together in a single newsroom. The move
will commence on November 1.
Group transformation director Sarah
Judkins says the aim is to bring about a
new corporate culture: “It’s hard to create
a new culture moving one business into
another, but with a brand new location it
will be much more natural – like creating
one new business rather than bringing
three businesses together,” she told The
Newspaper Works, the industry group of
which APN is a member/owner.
“We want to be a business that is futurefocused, in tune with our audience, with
what New Zealanders want and what’s
going on – whether in digital, print or
radio.”
Details of the newsroom merger are still
to be determined, but Judkins says Herald
and Newstalk staff would “keep their own
character” while likely to collaborate on
breaking news.
“It will give them the ability to cover
a broader range of subject matter and
provide a more nationwide perspective,
leveraging radio assets like Newstalk
(which is based in Christchurch).”
The building is currently being fitted
out by property developer Manson TCLM,
and features “lots of natural light, showers
and other amenities to encourage staff to
cycle, and lots of spaces where staff can
gx
congregate to foster collaboration”. n
n
The new
NZME
building
makes
a bold
statement
about the
future
of news
media
Empower
the newsroom
Gannett packaging brands
Planning tool pinpoints papers
Analytics plug-in ready
US publisher Gannett says readers spend
From small community papers with
WoodWing has released a production
more time with an expanded print edition
since it started teaming its USA Today brand
with those of its local newspapers in 34
markets. Surveys showed readers wanted
more content and USA Today was “a solution
gx
right under our noses”. n
n
4 gxpress.net
March 2015
circulations under 1000 copies to metro giants,
booking space has just got easier. An online
tool called the Newspaper Locator – www.
thenewspaperworks.com.au/newspaperlocator – helps agencies plan newspaper media
gx
campaigns around TV broadcast areas. n
n
From idea to digital publication in less than a day?
Yes, sure!
analysis plug-in to its Enterprise software. The
cloud-based product helps monitor production
for print, online and digital content. Visual
status reports give details of individual
stories and related content, including articles,
gx
layouts, images, audio and video. n
n
ccieurope.com
gxpress.net
March 2015 5
escenic.com
W
digital publishing
ith Snapchat fast gaining
traction with young mobile
users, News Corp Australia
has jumped to a first place
on the Discover news tool.
Huge visitor numbers are being
reported with Snapchat formats
including the Our Story feature,
comparable with those of high-rating
TV programmes.
Curated news stories on Discover,
tailored for mobile, target a young
audience with brands including CNN,
Daily Mail, Yahoo! and Vice also in the
January launch. Popular with 18-34
year-olds, Snapchat is estimated to be
reaching more than 100 million active
users every month.
News.com.au general manager
Julian Delany says News is using the
very visual platform as a “full-screen,
creative canvas for storytelling”. Users
can swipe through five to ten stories
daily, each headed by a top snap from
which readers can scroll down to read
the full text. While it will not drive
viewers directly to the news.com.au
desktop and mobile websites, it will be
“a useful tool” in bolstering awareness.
“I guarantee most Snapchat users aren’t
newspaper readers,” The Newspaper
Works reported.
While expectations for traffic were
not especially high, other users have
noted spectacular audiences for Our
PUBLISH
ASIA
gxpress.net
2015
28-30 APRIL, BANGKOK
Tapping non readers
with Snapchat features
gxpress.net
Success for News
on Snapchat: ‘I
guarantee most
Snapchat users aren’t
newspaper readers,’
says Julian Delaney
Story clips – which last 24 hours before
disappearing – with one viewed almost
25 million times.
Gigaom has also reported a Snapchat
screenshot of a contribution to New
York’s Snowmageddon Our Story had 25
million unique views while users took a
screenshot of it 5000 times.
Snapchat did not confirm the figures,
but says those sent to users who get a
snap into a story are accurate.
• Elsewhere, another UK publisher
has reported success with WhatsApp,
exceeding results on other social media
channels.
The Oxford Mail – which belongs
to Gannet’s Newsquest subsidiary –
is claiming 1265 subscribers in six
continents after six months of running
the service, according to The Guardian.
But despite outstanding results,
publishing via WhatsApp remains
clunky requiring the use of only the
smartphone connected to the account.
It’s a problem the paper’s head of
content Jason Collie has partially
addressed by changing his HTC for an
iPhone 5S and learning shortcuts.
The growth of the WhatsApp service
– based on morning and evening mail
shots plus breaking news – contrasts
with the paper’s print circulation of
12,773 which fell 22.9 per cent in the
first half of last year.
Collie says WhatsApp links bring in
four or five times more clicks than the
daily email bulletin, and six or seven
times as much as Twitter. “The project
has exceeded expectations both in the
size of our audience and feedback from
readers,” he told The Guardian.
The BBC trialled WhatsApp during
elections in India in May last year and
for Ebola news in October. Collie says
the service has been useful on traffic
reports and to create threads on specific
topics such as football and court cases.
“If there’s a big event going on, then
that’s what people really want to use it
for, they keep themselves updated along
with the other news stories we have,” he
gx
says. n
n
MEDIA SUPER
EASY ADMIN | MEMBER SUPPORT | LOW COST | GREAT INSURANCE COVER
CEO CONFERENCE | NEWSROOM SUMMIT ASIA | ADVERTISING SUMMIT ASIA |
PRINTING SEMINAR | MASTERCLASSES |
ASIAN MEDIA AWARDS PRESENTATION | PUBLISH ASIA EXPO
WWW.PUBLISHASIA.COM
6 gxpress.net
March 2015
Choose the fund that’s been supporting the print
and journalism industries for over 25 years.
Call 1800 640 886 or visit mediasuper.com.au
Print. Media. Entertainment. Arts.
Superannuation. Insurance. Retirement. Financial Planning.
gxpress.net
7
2015
Disclaimer: This advertisement provides general information only, and does not take into consideration your personal objectives, situation or needs. Before making anyMarch
financial
decisions
you should first determine whether the information is appropriate for you by reading the Product Disclosure Statement and/or by consulting a qualified financial adviser. Issued March 2015
by Media Super Limited (ABN 30 059 502 948, AFSL 230254) as Trustee of Media Super (ABN 42 574 421 650) (USI SUPER 42574421650001, USI PENSION 42574421650799). MSUP 36916
digital publishing
newspaper systems
gxpress.net
gxpress.net
➤ The smooth integration
of freelancers and external
contributors into newsroom
operations is one of
the benefits of Swing –
EidosMedia’s new web-based
interface for the Méthode
platform.
W
hile CNN and others are
working to expand the use of
drones for reporting, Cirque
de Soleil has presented a
stunning demonstration of their accuracy.
In the USA, news publisher CNN has
announced a project to test cameraequipped drones for news gathering, after
gaining special permission from the FAA.
In partnership with Georgia Tech
Research Institute, it will collect data about
drone use, which will be analysed to help
develop rules for them. CNN’s legal senior
vice president David Vigilante says the aim
is to “get beyond hobby-grade equipment”
and to establish what options are workable
for high quality video journalism. Unlike
some other countries, the FAA does not
issue licenses for drone use which is
currently restricted following reports of
near encounters with aircraft.
With concerns also about the possibility
of drones falling on people or property,
regulations vary from country to country.
While preparing this, the Noosa News wrote
of a drone “weighing about a kilogramme”
falling on a house in the Queensland
suburb of Sunshine Beach, and in the USA,
the FAA said 41 pilots reported seeing a
drone or unmanned aircraft during flight
in October.
On this page are pictures snapped of a
drone – commissioned by the local council
– in use at night during a crowded January
music festival event in Tamworth, NSW.
Bangkok Post photo producer Sithikorn
Drones dance and dive
as the debate goes on
Drones and fans: A
still from the Cirque
de Soleil film and
(top) a drone comes
in to land alongside
a busy footpath in
Tamworth
Wongwudthianun has spoken at two WANIfra conferences about the use of drones
in covering public gatherings and other
events in the city, and at Digital Media
Asia last November, flew a drone across the
conference hall, catching it in the air.
That professional drone technology is
getting increasingly more sophisticated, is
without doubt, with “dancing drones” from
Cirque de Soleil presenting an impressive
demonstration of drone control. The
company partnered researcher ETH Zurich
for a short film in which quadcopters
disguised as lampshades come to life and
dance around an electrician in a Disneylike fantasy. The film was produced entirely
through human interaction, and without
CGI animation.
Creative director Welby Altidor says it was
“easy to start to give them personality”. Each
drone had a name, a personality and “some
element of motivation. Like getting back to
its lampstand safely, perhaps. See the video
gx
on GXdigital, digital.gxpress.net n
n
Mathrubhumi live with multichannel editorial
Mathrubhumi, one of
India’s leading Malayalam
language media companies
with more than 80 daily
publications producing over
370 pages daily, is live on Atex
editorial CMS.
Based in Kerala in southern
India, it has a total circulation
of more than 1.3 million – with
approximately 7.5 million
readers – and a website at
www.mathrubhumi.com
Director of marketing and
electronic media Shreyams
Kumar says they are looking
forward to increased
efficiencies and collaborative
effectiveness from having all
users on a database-centric
8 gxpress.net
March 2015
system: “We will utilise the
power of the system to publish
across any media type in the
near future. With the Atex CMS
solution we will be able to react
quickly to a rapidly changing
and challenging marketplace
and bring innovative offerings
to our customers.”
Project manager
Babuprakash Kalathil says the
wide-ranging platform helps
multi-channel newsrooms
create, manage and deliver
content to any print or digital
channel while keeping firm
deadlines and the highest
quality editorial values.
IT deputy general manager
Baiju Madhavan says pagination
is fast and flexible “and that
yields increased efficiency.”
Mathrubhumi will also use
the remote entry capability of
the system for its bureaux.
Founded in 1923,
Mathrubhumi now has 15
editions published from
different cities inside and
outside India, including
the UAE. Nine editions in
Kerala are published from
the publication centres in
Calicut, Thiruvananthapuram,
Kottayam, Ernakulam, Thrissur,
Kannur, Palakkad, Malappuram,
and Kollam. Another four
editions are published in
Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai
gx
and Delhi. n
n
news
leaders
‘From the
coordinators’
point of
view this
is a ‘fire
and forget’
process,’
says
Massimo
Barsotti
“A lot of our customers are
running newsroom operations
where some of their content comes
from freelancers and other external
contributors,” said Massimo Barsotti,
EidosMedia Chief Marketing Officer.
“The challenge for them is to find
a better way to coordinate these
resources than the usual exchange of
emails and phone calls.”
This was the case for a largecirculation daily published by a
European media group. The paper
has over 600 external correspondents
who contribute regularly to the
title’s online and offline content.
Swing opens up the
newsroom workflow
To integrate these contributors into
the workflow, it was decided to use
Swing, the new web-based interface
for their Méthode editorial platform.
When a coordinator needs a story
from a freelancer, they send them
a Méthode task as if they were a
journalist there in the newsroom.
“Freelancers fire up Swing on
their PC or Mac,” said Massimo
Barsotti. “They receive the task and
open it. Often the page space in
the print edition has already been
allocated and this is attached to the
task so the freelancer can write to fit
the space.”
At any time while working on
the story, the writer can generate
a PDF giving an exact preview of
how the story will look on the page.
Photos on their local machine can be
dragged and dropped into the story
and then zoomed and cropped to fit
the picture slot. When the story is
ready, it is uploaded to the workflow
and appears immediately on the
page.
gxpress.net
news
leaders
“From the coordinators’ point
of view this is a ‘fire and forget’
process,” he said. “They assign a
task. Later when they receive an
alert that the story has been filed,
they go to the page and see the
story already laid out, complete
with photos. They make any
adjustments that may be necessary
and the page is ready to go.”
Of course when external
contributors are so closely involved
with the workflow their access
and actions must be carefully
controlled. Méthode allows
permissions to be configured for
each group of users. For these
freelancers, permissions are limited
to receiving tasks, creating the
requested text and filing the
finished story.
The Swing interface is also
highly customisable so that each
group of users sees only the
functions and workspaces they
need. So freelancers have an inbox
for incoming tasks and an editing
space for typing their story into a
simple template structure. Swing’s
many other functions remain
hidden to them.
“As news operations become
more open and flexible, they are
increasingly involving contributors
at different locations both inside
and outside the organisation,”
said Massimo Barsotti. “The kind
of open but controlled access
provided by Swing is a powerful
tool for managing this kind of
distributed operation.”
Swing now incorporates
most of the news creation and
management functions previously
available only on the Windows
client. They include mediamanagement functions that
allow reporters on the move to
enrich their stories with video
clips and photo galleries. Editors
and coordinators can also work
effectively from outside the
newsroom by using Swing’s
task assignment and workflow
monitoring functions.
“We see Swing fully
complementing the Windows client.
It’s already capable of handling all
but the most complex newsroom
operations, while giving the user
the freedom to take part in the
workflow from anywhere using
virtually any platform. In addition,
it’s geared to producing great
content for digital, enriched with
online-only items like videos, maps,
tweets and comments, so we expect
it to become the editor of choice in
the near future.”
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 1503 9
comment
gxpress.net
gxpress.net
IT’s all about trust
Newbie John Juliano looks back on his first year as a salesperson
johnjuliano
S
elling is hard work. When a
day is going well, by the end
of it I stink of sweat and my
clothes smell like I’ve just
finished a hard gym workout.
I’m a new salesperson. I
entered into this contract a year ago after
being sold on the idea by the company’s
chief executive and senior vice president
of sales, two very good salespeople.
I’ve always hired salespeople, not been
a salesperson. I knew that being a good
salesperson requires, more than anything
else, follow through, keeping commitments
and being persistent.
But to me, salesmanship always seemed
as if it had a certain amount of duplicity
or insincerity. The glib statement ‘if you
can fake sincerity, then you’ve got it made’,
was never far away from my mind. As part
of selling, speaking with people and being
friendly with them, while at the same
time trying to sell them something always
seemed, somehow, immoral.
I’ve consulted in the newspaper
industry and produced products for
the newspaper industry for most of my
adult life. Before that, cross-industry
design, prototype and performance issue
consulting. What I have always sold, in my
mind, is integrity.
In a war story session about times
gone by, I related a story to a salesperson
from another vendor about refunding a
customer’s money after a product failed to
meet the customer’s and my performance
expectations. The salesperson looked at
me blankly for a few moments and then
said, ‘‘That’s why you sleep well at night,’’
and went onto another subject.
The head of an American vendor
once fondly and laughingly told me a
story about stocking a printer with the
preprinted results of what the software
he was selling was supposed to produce.
In his demo, he pressed a button, the
preprinted pages spewed forth, the sale
was made, and the customer never knew
that no software existed. I was aghast. ‘‘Did
you deliver the software?’’ I asked. Another
blank look. ‘‘Of course, I did,’’ he replied.
‘‘I sold it didn’t I?’’ I’ve never figured out
where that lies in the integrity continuum.
He made the sale against his competitor
and delivered the product. The customer
would never have bought vapourware.
I spoke with the people I trust about
selling before accepting this opportunity,
given my personality and my fears. Their
answers were, as all good answers are,
10 gxpress.net March 2015
very simple and clear: be who you are and
never compromise your ethics. Then, look
for prospects who have problems your
products can solve.
In our industry the timeline for a
sale is usually nine to 18 months. In
January 2014, I started selling. Fourteen
months later and hundreds of cold calls,
unsolicited emails, two trade shows and
a road trip from Wisconsin to Alabama, I
have a good pipeline and my first major
deal is making a decision in the next few
weeks.
I was offered the selling contract
because I know so many people in our
industry, but only one person in my
pipeline is someone I knew before last
January. How much is luck? Newspapers
are buying – the North American pool
of vendors has dropped to less than a
handful. How much is good salesmanship?
I tend to look at it more in terms of
Edison’s famous quote, “one per cent
inspiration, 99 per cent perspiration”.
And yet, to my surprise, I enjoy this much
more than I thought I would. Perhaps
it’s because for the first time in my life, I
don’t have to work. Perhaps it’s because
I’m more mature, can take a long view and
have experience being sold to. Perhaps
I always would’ve enjoyed this, and just
didn’t know it.
The only measure of success for a
salesperson is making sales. It’s a bright
line, easy to see and understand.
My contract is with a very good vendor,
who makes very good products. But, my
experience as a vendor has taught me that
the best product doesn’t always win; bets
should be placed on the company with the
best marketing and sales team.
The salespeople I compete against
are lifelong salespeople. They are the
professionals to my amateur status. I
should learn this quarter whether I really
can run with the big dogs. Pay attention to
the signature at the bottom of this column
to learn more about my success.
I had a conversation with Jason
Holmes, General Manager of Advocate
Digital in Victoria Texas, that unexpectedly
turned out to be about this very topic.
At the Mega Conference in Atlanta
recently, I spent some time speaking with
reluctant newspaperman, Dan Easton, of
the Victoria Advocate Publishing Company.
Dan married into the family. As a software
engineer working in the oil industry,
Dan swore that he would not enter the
newspaper business. Seven or so years later
Dan runs the show and is an uncontested
success with 27 per cent of his revenue
coming from digital. To learn about their
success Dan put me in touch with Jason.
Jason credits his success to some very
easy decisions:
Solve the ‘Innovator’s Dilemma’ – which
basically says that you can’t succeed at true
innovation when that innovation threatens
the workings of the organisation. Jason
credits Dan’s commitment to creating an
entirely new organisation to implement
this innovation. Advocate Digital.
I ended my column about the last
Mega Conference with a question about
print and digital, “Can’t we concentrate
on two goals at once”. Jason’s surprising
answer is ‘‘no.’’
A separate company that handles all
digital immediately dispenses with the
adage that legacy salespeople can’t sell
digital. Jason is quite clear that sales people
who have sold traditional print can very
successfully sell digital, but no one can sell
digital and legacy at the same time. With
digital moved to a separate organisation
the problem disappears. (The print people
can sell digital if they wish, and some do
occasionally.)
Salespeople must trust their products,
and Jason solves this with lots of training.
The sales people must trust and believe
in the products if they are going to be
successful selling, which brought it all back
and around.
If you believe in your products and
understand what they can do it’s easier to
maintain your integrity as a salesperson.
It is said that a rising tide lifts all boats.
The mood at last year’s Mega Conference
was one of optimism, tinged with a bit of
surprise that everyone else felt this way.
This year the optimism seemed to give
way to confidence and no surprise that
everyone felt like this.
To me this was most evident in an
exchange with someone at a newspaper
chain who mentioned that his contingent
flew to the conference in a private jet. It’s
been a very long time since anyone at a
newspaper tradeshow mentioned to me
that he and his group had flown in on a
private jet.
• Newspaper systems industry veteran
John Juliano writes regularly for GXpress
Magazine. He is North American vice
president of business development at Miles
gx
33. Contact him at john@jjcs.com n
n
F
airfax Media is “seeing a positive
return” from its investment in Big
Data, Andrew Lam-Po-Tang says.
The chief information officer,
chief technology officer and director
of group services says the Australasian
publisher is working to increase reader
engagement, make subscriptions more
attractive and increase advertising
inventory.
In one of the 17 case studies in INMA’s
‘Making Big Data smarter for media
companies’ strategic report, released
in December, Lam-Po-Tang says
Fairfax uses data to guide an array of
interactions with users. Specifically, it is
building “propensity models” to improve
content recommendations, with the goals
of increasing reader engagement and
satisfaction; making subscriptions more
appealing; and increasing its advertising
inventory.
Lam-Po-Tang, who finished a contract
term with Fairfax at the end of this
month, told INMA correspondent Jeremy
Fox the publisher had also experimented
with different means of surfacing
those recommendations to readers. As
potential subscribers moved through
its acquisition funnel, Fairfax analysed
their behaviour to optimise conversion,
and used uses both multivariate and A/B
testing for optimisation. It is developing
churn analysis and predictive modelling
for existing print and digital subscribers
to help reduce churn.
Data is also part of the Fairfax
Big data
delivers
at Fairfax
strategy to improve ad targetting and
provide advertisers with an array of
targeting options. The company is
performing a yield analysis of its online
inventory to optimise sales and pricing.
It has launched a data services business
providing an array of data and analytical
services to advertisers.
Fairfax also has launched new
businesses in events and content
marketing. It plans to expand its data
analytics by using its propensity models
to drive growth in those revenue streams.
Two key lessons have been to have
a defined mission from the start, and
to have patience as you embrace new
digital opportunities. A pilot to analyse
subscriber churn five months after the
launch of its main digital subscription
packages and bundles, proved too early
because of insufficient data.
Lam-Po-Tang says Fairfax is careful
to ensure customer privacy, using its
information security policy and security
actions to safeguard customer data
throughout its network; it is transparent
with users about what data it will collect
and works to secure their informed
consent.
Some of Fairfax’s more modest
data strategies have been active for a
considerable period. More ambitious
efforts are relatively new, but have still
succeeded in generating a positive return
on investment within just a few months.
• New Fairfax CIO is Robyn Elliott,
who has been recruited from pay TV
provider Foxtel Australia, which she
worked for from 1997-199 and from
2002 to last year. In between, she worked
for IBM Global Services Australia as
principal of customer relationship
management and business intelligence.
He background also includes roles at
McIntosh Securities/Merrill Lynch and
gx
Accenture. n
n
Two key
lessons have
been to have
a defined
mission from
the start,
and to have
patience
as you
embrace new
opportunities
Reformed hacker for CeBIT gig
INYT takes subs on the road
E-paper is ‘almost automatic’
Once one of the FBI’s ‘most wanted’
Every new subscription is a good one,
and the International New York Times has
been taking sales to the road. We caught up
with them on a stand at Brisbane Fitness and
Health Expo, where Gold Coast-based Corey
Chandler had just returned from a “very
gx
successful” Singapore event. n
n
German daily Gelnhäuser-Neue-Zeitung
hackers, Kevin Mitnick is on the speaking
circuit with a date in Sydney. At CeBIT
Australia (May 5-7) he joins a line up which
includes a chief evangelist, a digital prophet,
the former chief technical officer of NASA and
gx
the founder of the Google Brain Project. n
n
has launched a new website based on
Protecmedia’s CMS Iter Web. Bidirectional
integration means journalists work for all
channels through a single interface. Thus the
e-paper version is generated simply – and
gx
almost automatically – from the newsroom. n
n
digital publishing
UK-headquartered 5
gxpress.net
Data tool set to
optimise pricing
M
ather Economics
– a pricing advisor
conspicuous at
local conferences – has
moved further into the Big
Data space with a packaged
capture product.
The Atlanta, Georgia,
based firm has launched
a software-plus-hardware
tool which consolidates
offline and online user
and advertising data in
a single location. It says
Listener addresses issues
faced by publishers such
as decreases in traditional
print subscriptions along
with declining advertising
revenues.
“They are challenged
with recouping that
revenue via other channels
and typically lack true
visibility into the data and
analytics needed to be
successful,” says president
Matt Lindsay – ‘publishers are
challenged’
Matt Lindsay.
The product works in
“near real time” to capture
user data across a site and
combine it with additional
offline information about
customers and prospects.
Publishers gain a deeper
understanding of the
content that site visitors
most value, along with the
resulting advertising and
audience revenue from
each customer’s interaction
with the content.
From this they can
segment behavioural
patterns and make
decisions on product
bundling to increase print
and digital subscription
revenues, monetise online
content and maximise
advertising revenues.
Listener gathers,
aggregates and analyses
available data using a
turnkey, hosted platform,
providing a holistic view of
data via the web. This data
enables comprehensive
analysis of how changes
in subscription pricing,
content placement and
advertising rates will
impact overall revenue and
gx
profitability. n
n
fifteen is expanding its team
as part of a strategic focus on
business development in North
America. Managing director
Rod Fenwick says the moves
follow “a great response”
from existing US clients to
its cloud-based AdDepot
application: “We recognise
the need in many North
American media companies
for a comprehensive ad sales
and management tool that
can be used to generate
new advertising revenues
while managing the complex
processes used in the different
media channels.”
David Parker has been
appointed sales vice president
for North America and will be
based in Atlanta, supported by
a New York technical team.
Lineup and ppi Media ad
systems will work in harmony
in a new Metro US installation
currently being implemented.
German developer ppi
says its PlanPag planning and
AdPag classified pagination
solutions will be used for
editions in Boston, Philadelphia
and New York.
With more than 1.2 million
daily readers, Metro US is the
most read free daily newspaper
in the country. It is part of
Metro International network,
which operates 74 daily
newspapers in Europe, Asia,
North and South America.
Metro will initially integrate
the two solutions in its existing
workflow, although president
and chief executive Yggers
Mortensen says the plan is to
fully integrating the solutions
of ppi, which he describes as
“the perfect partner”.
Google DFP customers
will be able to make use
of an ‘out of the box’
integration with Cxense’s data
management platform. The
solution – providing advanced
segmentation and targeting
capabilities – works for both
Google DFP Small Business and
DFP Premium customers.
Atex has launched the digital
asset management solution
it announced last October at
the World Publishing Expo in
Amsterdam.
Features include a picture
desk, dossier creation and
video management as part of
the company’s digital media
platform. Atex says the product
is open, fast and scalable
with a NoSQL database. It can
serve a variety of purposes
including implementation
of a centralised content
management infrastructure,
consolidation of asset
managements systems, creation
of an actionable data platform,
content workflow for remote
editors, or implementation
of user generated content
policies.
Global sales director
Federico Marturano says
customers had asked for
a digital-oriented flexible
platform, and expanding the
Web CMS technology was a
gx
natural foundation. n
n
gxpress.net
news Deeper
into India
N
ews Corp has pushed
further into India with
an agreement to buy
VCCircle, an information,
training and events company.
The deal is expected to close
this month.
Based in Noida and with a staff
of more than 100, the ten-year-old
business runs news sites VCCircle.
com and Techcircle.in in addition
to research platform VCCEdge
and training and events business
VCCircle Training.
The last six months have seen
two other News acquisitions in
India, a $30 million deal to buy a
quarter of PropTiger in November,
and financial planning service
Bigdecisions.com the following
month.
News Corp chief executive
VCCircle – founder P.V. Sahad joins News
Corp’s India team
Robert Thomson says the
“significant investment is a sign
of faith in India’s future and our
enthusiasm for working with and
building up emerging talents in the
country.
“India is an increasingly
meaningful part of our portfolio,
which is itself increasingly digital
and global.”
VCCircle Network founder and
chief executive P.V. Sahad says
being part of News will enable it
to accelerate growth plans: “For
the past decade, we have built a
strong franchise with proprietary
data, information, content, and
networking capabilities around
India’s digital business world,” he
says.
Sahad joins News Corp’s India
team and will report to strategy
senior vice president Raju Narisetti.
VCCircle.com tracks M&A,
venture capital, private equity,
investment banking, and emerging
companies and sectors, and was
the first such website in India to
launch a premium subscriptionled offering, while Techcircle.in
tracks India’s booming technology
gx
startups. n
n
Huff puffs into
town in Fairfax
joint venture
Fairfax will challenge UK online
news publishers Guardian Australia and
the Daily Mail with a local partnership to
publish the Huffington Post.
Fairfax Media will hold a 49 per
cent of the Huffington Post Australia
business, which will have a Sydney-based
newsroom and its own team of writers.
Chief executive Greg Hywood says it
will be part of an expanding portfolio
of digital assets: “We look forward to
working closely with The Huffington Post
to build the brand and bring its digital
media innovation to Australia.”
Content from global stories and trends
will be combined with “hyperlocal”
content and will include a version of the
popular good news page. Huffington
Post chief executive Jimmy Maymann
says Australia’s digitally savvy population
made it appealing destination: “It is a rare
combination of both a digitally advanced
economy and a relatively young digital
media market,” he says.
The site will appear in the second
quarter of 2015 and is expected to be
among the top five sites in the Nielsen
gx
n
online ratings in three to five years. n
Storytelling rebooted for Washington conference
Vox.com cofounder Melissa
Bell has joined the programme of the
World Editors Forum in Washington.
The explanatory news site is
pioneering new digital storytelling
techniques that are drawing huge
audiences. Bell, who founded the site
last year with former Washington
Post colleague Ezra Klein, will take
part in an Editors Forum session
with Emily Banks (lead news editor
for mobile content at the Wall
Street Journal) and Lou Ferrara
(vice president for sports, business,
interactive and entertainment news
at the Associated Press).
‘Storytelling rebooted’ – featuring
pioneers who are using algorithms,
explanatory journalism and new
formats for enhanced storytelling – is
12 gxpress.net
March 2015
among highlights of the Forum, part
of the World News Media Congress
and World Advertising Forum being
held from June 1-3. More than 1000
delegates are expected to attend.
Melissa Bell was director of digital
platforms at the Washington Post
and one of the Post’s most-read
bloggers when she and Klein left
to found Vox.com in early 2014. At
Vox, she holds both a technology
and editorial title as senior product
manager and executive editor.
Before joining the Post, she lived
in India four years while helping
launch HT Media’s Mint, which has a
content-sharing agreement with the
Wall Street Journal.
A Vox.com innovation is its Vox
Cards, which offer context to articles
and explanations of key concepts,
and are linked to keywords in
articles.
Other speakers include:
• Vivian Schiller, former
president and chief executive of
National Public Radio and former
global chair of news at Twitter;
• Torry Pedersen, the chief
executive and editor-in-chief of
Verdens Gang, the leading news
site/newspaper in Norway that is
among the most profitable news
organisations in Europe;
• Martin Baron, executive
editor of the Washington Post, who
oversees the Post’s print and digital
operations. Under Baron’s leadership,
The Post newsroom won two Pulitzer
Prizes in 2014, including the a public
service medal for a series of stories
based on classified documents leaked
by Edward Snowden;
• Emily Bell, director of the
Tow Center for Digital Journalism
at Columbia University’s Graduate
School of Journalism, whose speech
to the Reuters Institute last year was
nothing less than the year’s most
definitive statement on the future of
journalism; and
• Troy Young, president of
Hearst Magazines Digital Media,
who oversees the digital content,
technology, operations, product and
business development strategies
for 18 brand websites such as
Cosmopolitan, Popular Mechanics,
Elle, Esquire, Good Housekeeping,
gx
Harper’s Bazaar and Seventeen. n
n
Williams takes Copyright role
Readers share digital dynamic
Your host at INMA’s big night
Kim Williams is a close fit to replace Brian
Johns at Australia’s Copyright Agency. Johns
chaired the rights organisation’s cultural
fund which has given $15.7 million to writing
and the arts, while former News Ltd chief
executive Williams has led Musica Viva and
gx
the Sydney Opera House Trust. n
n
Research by its ECOlab laboratory ahead
Terri-Karelle Reid – who doubles as
of a new website for El Colombiano focussed
on visual and conceptual needs of its audience,
giving users a bigger chance to participate
in the digital dynamic. Results have also
been welcomed by journalists now using
gx
Protecmedia's ITER Web CMS. n
n
brand manager of Jamaican daily The Gleaner
and host of TV talent show Rising Stars – plays
host when INMA awards are presented during
a gala World Congress dinner on May 12.
Judging is based on criteria including
gx
results, concept and creativity. n
n
gxpress.net
news
leaders
newspaper systems
➤ The future of the news
company is in the new digital
ecosystem. But for this, two
very clear goals must be
attained:
D
• Having a corporate
strategy whose aim is to transform
and align the interests of all
departmental areas; and
• Looking for monetisation
from the outset, making ensure
that operating costs do not exceed
revenue.
Protecmedia technology serves
this purpose. The Milenium Cross
Media solutions platform makes
it possible to put this 360 strategy
in operation since it integrates
with an open architecture and a
multichannel perspective, the areas
that constitute the backbone of
The 360 digital strategy
the business activity: Advertising,
Multimedia Newsroom, Circulation,
Subscriptions and Audience
Awareness.
This approach allows the news
company to define smoothly the
speed of transformation and the
business models that it wishes to
implement in its organisation.
Protecmedia’s solutions make
available to the publisher the latest
technology in all areas, in order to
continue a relevant social role in
the new digital scenario. This is the
case of a convergent and productive
newsroom, capable of creating
contents for any medium without
increasing staff, while maintaining
quality levels in the preparation for
multimedia products with the added
values allowed by the web, tablets and
smartphones, and augmented reality
incorporated into the printed product.
The same occurs with advertising,
where it is necessary to carry out
multimedia campaigns with the
adverts placed in the most attractive
way possible, with different
originals adapted to the nature and
possibilities of each media.
Audience awareness is another
vital aspect to increase the success
of business decisions. Gathering all
of the data about readers’ tastes
and subsequently analysing them, is
the key to improving and offering
what the audience really wants. This
New Delhi
speakers set print
newspapers’
death sentence
Solutions catalogue
Milenium Cross Media’s modularity makes it possible to stagger and plan
better the investment. Every suite is able to run autonomously and can be
integrated with other solutions that there are at the news company.
ADVERTISING
• Management of cross media campaigns and packs from a single order.
• B2B and B2C approach – Mobile sales with tablets.
• Dashboard – Business analysis – Reports.
• Preflight – Production and archive of multimedia originals.
• Customised strategy for AR/QR codes.
• Automated placement in all channels.
MULTIMEDIA NEWSROOM – MULTICHANNEL OUTPUTS
• Cross media creation and preparation of editorial products from
single interface.
• Editorial agenda planning.
• Mobile journalism.
• Multimedia output management – web, print, mobile.
• Monetisation of the web and digital platforms.
• Digital asset management (DAM) – eCommerce.
AUDIENCE MANAGEMENT
• Management of traditional and digital subscriptions.
• Circulation – Distributors’ portal.
• Analysis and segmentation of audiences.
capacity to adapt strengthens the
brand and loyalty.
As company, Protecmedia
has always had an outlook of the
news company as a whole that
has to run harmonically because
their editorial products are the
outcome of teamwork. All areas
are interconnected and the
technological evolution has torn
down walls among them.
This global business vision has
been understood and estimated
by the industry and Protecmedia
has grown up step by step from its
formation in 1979 until its current
presence in 25 countries with offices
in Madrid, Paris, Mexico, Munich,
Lisbon and Chile, and distributors
in India, Malaysia, UAE, Canada,
the USA and Russia. More than
500 publications are managed and
published with its solutions.
In fact, Protecmedia is
considered by most of its clients
as a business partner rather than
a mere supplier. Keeping focus on
make products instead of tailormade, Protecmedia takes an active
approach in all projects, being
strongly committed to resolving the
specific needs and problems of its
partners, getting involved in putting
them into place and guaranteeing
their ongoing evolution.
Achieving these marks of identity
requires a highly specialist team of
professionals in different areas, one
that is in permanent contact with the
day-to-day reality of the industry and
that is totally dedicated to providing
the best possible service. For this reason,
Protecmedia spends the largest part
of its resources on the training and
continuous education of its staff.
Protecmedia
Contact Javier Grané,
email jgrane@protecmedia.com
www.protecmedia.com
14 GXP NL 1503
gxpress.net
news
leaders
isruptive technology
development in mobile media
will continue to plague print
media, writes Nirmalya Sen.
Speakers at the day of WAN-Ifra’s
Digital Media India 2015 in New Delhi
last month gave English newspapers
five years on the outside and local
language newspapers about ten years to
able to survive before being completely
overwhelmed by digital media. This would
force media companies to devise effective
strategies for digital and mobile content in
India, they said.
Keynote speaker Raghav Bahl, founder
of Network18, India, said, “We are seeing
how content is moving to a tiny screen on
our mobiles which works almost like a
supercomputer.”
Bahl said with the advent of
smartphones and social media, print
engagement has been challenged like
never before. “People look for instant
gratification,” he added. “The device is
turned at the cost of all other forms of
media.
“It used to be you read the newspaper
in the morning, heard the radio while
driving to work and watched TV in the
evening when you got back home. It’s not
like that anymore. The mobile medium
has created a conversation.”
Bahl said the spread of mobile media
has created a niche for a native advertising
editor. “Children now know digital media
instinctively,” he added.
S. Mitra Kalita, executive editor
(at-large), quartz.com USA, said
engagement is no longer a separate
function in a newsroom. Speaking
on the session “Content and tools to
reach a digital audience”, she said the
internet expects interaction. “Sometimes
engagement is the content. Journalists
have to remember that they are not just
reporting a story but they are members
of a community too, and they should be
able to think from that perspective. We
at Quartz have accepted the reality and
joined the conversation. Machines don’t
commit journalism, humans do.”
Kalita said she pursed one very popular
story through her reader engagement
drive. “A man wrote to us and said he
raised 12 kids to believe that they would
have no benefits of entitlement. It turned
out to be that I was interviewing this guy
to tell me more about his kids and his
experience and that happened through
engaging with him through our reader
connect effort. Soon, it turned out to
be a story that was very popular on our
website.” digital media india
gxpress.net
Make digital core
With more than 200 million
internet users today and with
a projection of 300 million
Indian language internet users by
2017, India is a hot place for news
publishers, writes Nirmalya Sen.
It is also predicted that the
surge in the growth of language
internet users would happen
mainly via mobile devices. Nandagopal Rajan, new media
editor of the Indian Express, says
the 85-year-old English language
newspaper also has one of the
oldest news websites in India.
“We have now relaunched
it and transformed it to service
the growing need for digital
content,” he told delegates to
WAN-Ifra’s Digital Media India
conference in New Delhi in
February.
The indianexpress.com website
has 31 million page views and
2.7 unique visitors, according to
US-based web analytics company
ComScore.
Rajan said the entertainment
component is slim on the site
and it is a pure-play hard news
website. “We have 2.5 million
followers. Non-fans of the website
engage 60 per cent more than
non-fans. Our web content is
accessed form mobiles 83 per cent
of the time.
“We do a lot of web analytics
ourselves and can tell how many
users from a city like Bangalore
are accessing our website and
from what kind of device. We use
this data to our advantage.
Quartz editor-atlarge S. Mitra Kalita
– ‘engagement is no
longer a separate
function’
FAST FACTS:
• In India social = mobile
• Facebook reports that 90 per
cent of their 112 million Indian
users access sites from a mobile
device
• Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn
to follow
• If you choose to focus on one
area in 2015 make it mobile
• Your mobile audience will
soon be the vast majority of
your digital audience
“The website also has exclusive
web-only content and stories are
packaged exclusively for it and we
also sharpen our stories for our
young readers. We have 700,000
followers on Twitter and a lot of
our hits also come from outside
the country.”
WAN-Ifra’s new director of
global advisory Ben Shaw said
there had been a two per cent
decrease in print circulation
globally over five years, but it
grew at two per cent last year.
Print advertising on the other
hand, clocked a 13 per cent
decrease over five years and fell 6
per cent the last year.
Digital circulation recorded a
2019 per cent growth over five
years and increased by 60 per
cent over the last year. Digital
advertising on the other hand,
increased 47 per cent over five
years and grew 11 per cent
increase over last year,” he added.
Quoting WAN-Ifra’s Digital
Nathalie Malinarich, editor – mobile
and news formats, BBC News Online,
UK, said. “BBC is all about shooting good
videos and they are also mobile-friendly.”
“Surveys show that 90 per cent of
media consumers watch television. More
than 50 per cent of YouTube views are on
mobiles.”
The reader connect is spontaneous in
places like Iraq where reporters are in the
frontlines with soldiers, she said.
Divya Reddy, president of digital media
and IT, Sakshi Daily, India, a Telugu daily
Advertising in India report he
said online ad spend in the Indian
market is projected to grow by
30 per cent in 2015. Total online
ad spending was estimated at
Rs 3,595 crore (about US$587
million) – 11.5 per cent of total
US$ and Indian combined market.
Search and display shares are vast
majority, according to the report.
Shaw said social and videos
are growing the fastest in India
– video grew by 56 per cent last
year to Rs 330 crore, mobile grew
46 per cent last year to Rs 385
crore and social grew 41 per cent
last year to Rs 495 crore.
“If you accept slower growth
because digital isn’t yet core to
your business, you are giving the
Indian media space over to other
players,” he said.
“Indian publishers may not
have the lead time Western
publishers had due to the
extremely fast rise of mobile
usage. For every $1 gained in
digital revenue, $7 are lost in
print revenue. Digital gains can’t
make up for print losses.”
Fewer than a fifth of the
Indian population is connected
to the internet but it is growing
quickly. “It already rivals the
second largest internet market
(the US),” he added.
Indian Internet usage has
already reached a ‘tipping point’
but will not follow historical
trends, he said, adding “your
digital unit should grow 30 per
gx
cent year-on-year.” n
n
from Telangana, said the newspaper’s
website sakshi.com, uses a lot of user
generated content for reader engagement.
“The website is an extension of our
newspaper and television channel. There
is a lot of cross-trafficking.”
She said the site’s popularity is driven
by 18-34 year-olds and 80 per cent of the
website’s visitors have a graduate degree
or higher.
“We have no restriction on time and
space unlike our newspaper and television
gx
channel.” n
n
cover story
gxpress.net
gxpress.net
watch
what
happens
I
Watching: Anders Kring (centre) with
colleagues and members take time out
from a Stibo Accelerator workshop
16 gxpress.net
March 2015
s Apple Watch a platform… and
what does it mean for news media
companies? Or is it merely a
milestone in the development of
reader-focussed content delivery?
What is certain is that it can’t
be ignored, given the impact
other offerings from One Infinite
Loop have had. Around the world, media
companies are trying to second guess the
answers, many having underestimated the
role tablets, smartphones or even the web
would have.
As GXpress goes to press following
the company’s live briefing, the fuss over
Apple Watch seems to be over how costly a
piece of bling it might become, with prices
as high as $17,000 being mentioned.
And while the capability is pretty much
known, its potential will be driven by the
imagination of those writing apps for it.
As will Google Glass, since public
antipathy drove it underground in
January; just because its Explorers
programme has been shut down,
developers haven’t stopped working
on business applications and you can
imagine that like so many products that
have appeared ‘before their time’ Glass will
also re-emerge in a consumer context.
Nothing remotely new about wearables
of course, just because they are about to
receive the Apple imprimateur: major
sports brands and fitness specialists have
been at it for a long time.
Makers of fitness kit such as running
shoes and treadmills have been developing
levels of connectivity for several years, as
With the details
still emerging,
some will watch (!)
while others have
already taken a
lead on Apple’s key
wearable, as Peter
Coleman reports
of course have those in the heartrate and
footfall measurement business. One of the
segment leaders, Suunto has a Bluetoothenabled smart GPS watch which connects
with sensors in your bra or teeshirt –
and of course, your smartphone – and
elsewhere there’s even a gem-set ring that
rings, or rather flashes to advise a Tweet.
Our MPC colleagues on the Sportslink
desk (www.sportslink.biz) tell us the hot
technologies in Munich at the Wearables
Week which was part of the ISPO sporting
goods fair last month were fabric sensors
and sticky-plasters, with a top global
award made for festival wristbands which
cope with the communication bottlenecks
routine at huge events.
Car makers have discovered that
connectivity is a driver to new vehicle
purchase, and the trend towards the
Internet of Things has even spawned
a high-tech motorcycle helmet with a
cover story
gxpress.net
gxpress.net
... and Guardian app update takes a Moment to glance
The Guardian says its app
is being updated to provide a
brand-new experience created
specially for Apple Watch and
the result of a couple of months
of “discussing, designing,
experimenting, testing and
building”.
Team member Tom Grinsted
says the Moments feature will be
simple, glanceable and instantly
personal. “Instead of generic lists
of content that aren’t well suited
to a watch, it recommends
a single moment – a
tailored experience at any
given time – combining insight
from editorial teams with the
customisable homepage of the
Guardian app,” he says.
“So in the morning you can
expect a quick briefing to catch
up with the news, a beautiful
gallery to distract you while the
kettle boils for your afternoon
tea, a match update if your
favourite football (soccer) team
is playing, or a reminder in the
evening for an article you saved
to read later.”
Subhajit Banerjee says that
along with the top news story of
the moment and push alerts for
breaking news, there will also
be the best photos of the day,
glimpses of feature content such
as recipes, life and relationship
advice, music and film reviews,
science and technology podcasts:
“The tone for the weekend will
be different from the week,
matching the pace and variations
of the two.”
Notifications will be a richer
version of alerts, giving updates
heads-up display.
Research by IDTech – which is the
organiser of an expo event in Berlin next
month – says the wearable technology
market will rise from $24.2 billion in 2015
to what seems a very modest $64.3 billion
in 2025. As electronics move from bulky
devices to ones that can conform to the
wearer, the value of sensors in wearable
technology devices is expected to rise
from $700 million to $5.8 billion alone in
that period.
So many ways to keep in touch: But if you
can expect such developments to keep
flowing with ever-greater frequency, what’s
a publisher to do about it?
Already some are doing – like The
Guardian, which is updating its app to
deliver glancing Moments of news – and
some are talking about it.
For the benefit of the latter, the Danish
parent of CCI/Escenic, Stibo is pushing the
topic along, through its own Accelerator
initiative and through half-day workshops
partnered with WAN-Ifra.
Already a workshop organised by
WAN-Ifra’s Global Alliance for Media
Innovation has been held at Neue
Osnabrücker Zeitung in Germany’s Lower
Saxony, and others are planned including
at Digital Media Europe next month.
Kim Svendsen, who shares time as
Stibo Accelerator director and a ‘day job’
as marketing manager of CCI Europe
and Escenic believes the Apple Watch
launch will be a game changer and –
“learning from the experiences with
the news industry being late in both the
smartphone and the tablet publishing
game” – there will be a demand for
an introduction workshop that moves
18 gxpress.net
March 2015
Above: More images
from the Guardian
Watch app
leaders in a news organisation from ‘no
knowledge about wearables’ to ‘we know
enough to be able to decide our strategy’.
“That’s significantly better than the
usual, ‘there’s a trend out there, but we’ll
wait and see what happens’,” he says.
All of which is on top of the role of
the Accelerator itself. Late last year, Stibo
brought five masters students from Aarhus
University and the Danish School of
Journalism into an incubator environment
at its Højbjerg headquarters. Two of these,
Jonas Skytte and Ganesh Ram are working
specifically on the role of smartwatches in
news delivery.
“New mobile and wearable technology
holds great promises, but there are big
challenges to keep in mind with users
being always available, always connected,”
says Svendsen. “The research project we
are conducting aims to define a set of
design guidelines with recommendations
for both visual appearance and
interactivity models news publishers
should consider when designing for
wearables.
“Even minor design flaws can push the
users away from the news brand and have
a negative impact because notifications
on watches demands our attention and
on breaking news, or anything
else they follow in the app. A
glance feature offers a snapshot
of the Moment available, with
the option to tap through for
more on the Watch app itself, or
handoff to their phone for “the
full iPhone app experience”.
Petr Krojzl says the app make
use of “use of all the technology
available” while trying to push it
right to the limit. Team members
emphasise that it’s a first pass
and are urging feedback to be
gx
embraced in future updates. n
n
distracts us from the real world. But if
publishers make the right design choices
when embracing wearables in their
offering, the device itself fades into the
background and will actually enhance the
everyday life of the consumer.”
Among mentors is news media
design guru Mario Garcia, who has been
following developments for some time.
“As a visual storyteller, I am fascinated by
the prospects smart watches offer,” he told
GXpress, “especially for design aspects of
presenting information on the face of a
watch.
“The role of design will be extremely
important. I have done my own sketches
of how I would envision elements for a
wearable platform.
The word wearable resonates with
me as I think of possibilities. Anything
we wear we want to look good, right?
The smart watches are not going to be
different, and the models already shown
by Apple are stylish enough that any of
us would be happy to carry them on our
wrists.
“The question will be how much
intrusion we will want for a platform
that will be so close to our skin, so totally
connected with us. Editors and designers
are already mapping out strategies. A new
era for news consumption opens.
“The media quintet is here.”
Copenhagen-based Berlingske Media –
which last month became part of Dutchowned Persgroep, acquired from David
Montgomery’s UK-based Mecom Group –
is among those ‘mapping out strategies’…
and taking advantage of its proximity to
Stibo to participate in a workshop as a
partner.
Head of Berlingske Media Lab, Anders
Kring thinks publishers can’t go on
adding dedicated content teams. “Fifteen
years ago, nobody would have imagined
a team just writing for web, or five years
ago one just for mobile,” he says, “but we
can’t go on like that with a roomful of
journalists just writing for smart watches
or the next thing.
“The focus has got to be on context.”
A former games producer who moved
through Newscorp’s NDS and Zmags,
before coming in on Berlingske Media as
head of digital development and lately a
brief to hunt down projects with potential.
Fired up by Jawbone’s Hosain Rahman
at SXSW in 2013, he’s been fulltime
on wearables since December, and
increasingly focussed on Watch: “It’s
funny to look back to the way people
talked about tablets – asking ‘why do we
need it’ – until the iPad tablet came out
and it suddenly became part of everyday
life,” he says. “That’s where I see us right
now.”
Apple’s involvement can make or break
this as a news media platform, and I’m
extremely excited about what can happen,
how people will adapt to it.” Notably, he
says aspects of the Apple vision are “quite
different to Google’s”… which could be
critical in its relationship with publishers.
One way or another, devices know
where you are and how fast you’ve moving
(up, down or along), how well you slept
and what your pulse and temperature
is, and Kring says new teams need to be
related to that: “We need to think about
what situation they are in, how much time
they have, what mood they’re in, at work,
at home, with their lover…
“Much more than teams for each
platform, we need a unified team that
focusses on context; we mustn’t allow
ourselves to be limited to just platform.
The introduction of Apple Watch is a good
point to do that.”
While data fed back – with consent
– from a user’s smartwatch provides the
basis to speculate what they’re doing, it
doesn’t (yet) provide insights into what is
going on in their brain.
So there have been surprises from
research so far. That people would be
willing to read long-form journalism on
the smartwatch, for example, alongside
tiny micro-interactions of news and
information. Aarhus University students
Jonas Skytte and Ganesh Ram are already
convinced that personalisation is also
extremely important to ensure that
matched content is pushed to users.
that really pushed the platform to the
max.
“I’m so much looking forward to
what marketers are going to come up
with, not only for Apple Watch, but all
smart watches once we reach the magical
number of 100 million sold copies.”
Anders Kring and
(right) images from
Mario Garcia‘s
cooperation with
Stibo Accelerator and
Berlingske Media
‘The
media
quintet
is here,’
says
Mario
Garcia
This, says Kring, is the hard bit: “It’s
not like they’re on a laptop or phone;
if we’re disturbing them time and time
again, it’s got to be with the right stuff,”
he says.
After seeing the “emotional” Watch
launch event – with the personal
connection of being able to send your
heartbeat to another watch – Kring told
us he was thrilled by the potential of
what he saw: “Apple will once again take
a nerdy technology and move it into a
mainstream ‘commodity’, and make the
transition from a tool towards a lifestyle.”
Although there was nothing “new and
shiny” in Watch – and its 18 hours of
mixed use battery life “will limit usage”
– he says Apple is doing exactly what he
expected them to do: “It is only when
a platform or a technology is getting
mainstream, we see the true potential
of it, as providers for the particular
tech or platform needs to be even more
innovative, concrete and raise the bar
even more, in order to stand out from the
rest of the providers. It is in this magical
spot that we truly see the potential of the
platform.”
Looking back to his days in the games
business, he cites the example of Sony’s
PS2: “It was only in the last days of the
PS2 (even after the PS3 had come out),
when there was 150 million devices out
there, that the true great games came out,
Among typical early movers, Australia’s
Fairfax Media had “nothing to announce”
on apps for Watch, despite its involvement
with Google’s Glass last year. But
mobile director Stefan Savva told us the
publisher was “extremely interested in the
emergence of post-smartphone platforms
such as wearables.”
While not expanding on this at present,
he was quoted last year saying content
available in cars would rival wearable
devices like Glass “when it comes to the
next big platform for mobile content
discovery”.
After launching a Google Glass app
for the Sydney Morning Herald last year
“out of our desire to experiment with
new platforms and new user interfaces to
consume news.”
But while it was a really interesting
experiment – with a lot more future
thinking like this to do over the coming
year – he says Google is “clearly taking
the long term view on Glass so we don’t
expect anything material to change in the
short term.”
He told GXpress this month that while
Fairfax is witnessing incredible mobile
growth across all its digital brands, “it is
becoming clear that mobile publishing is
altogether a completely new proposition
with a lot more complexity to execute
than desktop.
“The growing number of different
user experiences will force a staggering
amount of product choices onto
publishers. The mobile web is just one
way to consume content – Watch is
another.
“How people interact with Watch and
what content they find valuable is still to
be seen but we expect the content utility
of Watch will be in short interactions.
So publishers already familiar with the
unbundling power of the Internet are now
looking at wearables and wondering how
much further they can unbundle their
content to provide value.”
At “a really exciting time to be working
in news”, and with so many mobile
opportunities, he says the tough questions
all publishers face is “not what to do, but
what not to do”.
gx
Therein lies the dilemma. n
n
Generic
workflow & CTP
gxpress.net
gxpress.net
Faster
plates, more
economical
cleanout
A new imaging engine
takes Agfa’s Advantage
N-TR HS platesetter to 350
newspaper plates an hour.
The CTP system – the
letters stand for trolley
load, high-speed – is
seen as an option for
publishers who want
to extend editorial and
advertising deadlines, as
well as replace multiple
slower platesetters with
faster ones. The unit has a
trolley to transport plates
from a yellow safelight
environment to the imager,
giving customers greater
environment options.
Apart from less
equipment, benefits
include reduced labour
costs and less floor space.
Agfa has also
introduced a new cleanout unit for newspaper
users of its N94-VCF violet
chemistry-free plates. The
Attiro is designed with a
cascade concept to save
IN COOPERATION WITH NAA
money on maintenance
and gum. Three small gum
sections clean out the
plates with concentrated
gum reused as it cascades
from the third section to
the second and then to
the first.
• Also new is a version
of the Arkitex production
workflow for newspapers
based on HTML5. The
“next generation”
software can be deployed
onsite or cloud-based, with
a browser-based interface
which can be accessed
from laptops, tablets and
smartphones, or even
touchscreens in pressroom
gx
environments. n
n
Multiple output, HTML
proofing in new workflow
A
first Fujifilm
implementation of
Adobe’s Mercury
RIP architecture will process
multiple jobs and allow
browser-based remote
previewing.
The company claims
upgrades to its XMF
workflow in version 6 and
the first deployment of the
Adobe architecture will bring
dramatic improvements in
file processing times. Fujifilm
Australia product manager
Richard Ramirez says one
significant advantage will be
the system’s ability to conduct
load balancing by processing
20 gxpress.net
each page of a single job
simultaneously during
rendering: “This results in
higher processing speeds
to maximise the utilisation
of system resources, which
in turn deliver significant
productivity improvements
when outputting pages
to a digital press or when
producing variable output,”
he says.
Parallel processing of
multiple jobs will achieve
a processing capability up
to ten times greater than
before, depending on
operating environment, and
processes can be assigned
different
orders of
priority.
Ramirez
says the
ability to
efficiently
process
multiple jobs
in XMF V6
March 2015
allows output devices to
be used more effectively.
Even in the event where
the output to a platesetter
or proofer overlaps,
the system can reduce
processing ‘standby time’ to
a minimum, ensuring that
each output device is used
efficiently.
The RIP speed of a single
XMF unit now equates
to five platesetters such
as Fujifilm’s 67 pph Luxel
T-9800, reducing the number
of RIP devices required and
improving consistency.
HTML 5 compatibility
in the XMF Remote R10
module for all client
functions means remote
functionality is available
even when the use of Java
is not possible for security or
other reasons, and start-up
gx
time is shorter. n
n
Left: A screen shot of the new
XMF V6 workflow
Groundbreaking
order automates
workflow at
Dainik Jagran
P
lanning is underway to
implement ppi Media’s
print workflow at
Dainik Jagran, the daily
newspaper that claims to be the
world’s most widely read.
Jagran Prakashan has opted
for a package which includes the
German software developer’s
PlanPag (planning and
production), AdX Print, AdPag
and AdMan (for advertising) and
ProPag automatic page assembly.
Executive president Sandeep
Gupta says reliable workflow
suited to multi-edition and multicentre working which delivers
accuracy and speed meets “the
need of hour”.
Dainik Jagran claims more
than 56 million readers and 231
local editions published in 11
Indian states. Its titles appear in
Hindi (Dainik Jagran, Nai Dunia,
Nav Dunia), Urdu (Inquilab),
Gujrati (Gujrati Mid-Day), English
(Mid-Day), Punjabi (Punjabi
Jagran) and compact bilingual
(iNext).
Streamlining and optimising
complicated processes, ppi’s
‘classic’ workflow enables
simultaneous working on editorial
pages, and the scheduling
and placement of content and
advertisements, with a central
approach to page planning.
The project officially
kicked off in February with
a project meeting and the
setting up of initial systems
in Jagran’s publishing houses.
ppi will provide workshops,
training programmes and
basic installations, standing
side-by-side with staff to bring
them up to speed on the new
software. The first modules go
WORLD
NEWS MEDIA
live in October with all work
– including production of the
English-language morning daily
Mid-Day and its local editions
from Mumbai – scheduled for
completion in early 2016.
Sandeep Gupta says the
decision to kick off the New Year
with a new partner will maintain
their current market position
today and to continue their
tradition of growth well into the
future.
ppi Media chief executive
Norbert Ohl says the
implementation will be an
exciting time: “We have known
the professionals at Jagran for
several years and have no doubts
that working together we can
get this ground-breaking project
up and running. We are proud
to have found such a renowned
customer – the Hindi daily has
an impressive track record and
is among the most popular daily
newspapers in India.”
In addition to its daily
newspapers, Jagran Prakashan
is active in areas including
magazines, radio, internet, belowthe-line-marketing and mobile
gx
value added services. n
n
Pictured: Jagran Prakashan executive
president Sandeep Gupta
CONGRESS
WORLD EDITORS FORUM
DC 2015
WORLD ADVERTISING FORUM
WASHINGTON, D.C. · 1-3 JUNE 2015
WASHINGTON HILTON
1919 CONNECTICUT AVENUE NORTHWEST
WASHINGTON, DC 20009 USA
PLEASE REGISTER ONLINE
WAN-IFRA.ORG/DC2015
KBA revamps inkjet
range, works with HP
digital newspaper printing
gxpress.net
gxpress.net
A new series of KBA inkjet web presses offer upgradeable
Giving us
the sheets
Y
Top: HP took its 122
metres/minute T230
web to Lucerne and
announced high
definition nozzle
architecture
Below (clockwise)
Screen’s Truepress
Jet520HD, Domino’s
K630 and Xerox
Impika’s Rialto with its
integrated sheeter
Far right: KBA had
plenty to talk about
but said its new
RotaJet series was too
big to show
ou can’t blame the makers of
digital print systems for sliding
newspapers aside to concentrate
on more potentially lucrative
areas. Nobody has got rich making digital
newspaper print systems – something
Hunkeler knows above all – and may
never do so.
But as in so many areas before,
the news industry is benefitting
from technology developed for other
markets. At its base level, that means the
technology upscaled for HP’s T350 inkjet
webs is based on that in a $50 office
printer.
And at Hunkeler’s biennial
InnovationDays event in Lucerne, it was
clear where the money was: On sheetfed
and packaging.
Even the Impika technology’s racehorse
capabilities had been harnessed up to a
sheeter for the co-developed Xerox Rialto;
a bit like Memjet printing envelopes…
not quite carthorse functionality, but you
get my point. Described as “the first true
collaborative effort” following acquisition
of Impika, it was shown as a concept at
DRUPA in 2012, with a clever innovation
the peltier-effect IR dryer which can be
used for both heating and cooling.
And given that the first thing
Hunkeler’s newspaper finishing system
does is sheet the web, perhaps the
compact integrated approach would have
legs if it wasn’t for the 48 metres/minute
production speed… or perhaps it’s just
the thing for seriously remote sites. But
if Xerox is seriously interested in the
newspaper market – as it once was – it
hasn’t told us.
Perhaps the same is true of Domino,
which finally entered the inkjet web
market with the single-colour K630i,
based on the MonoCube product of its
Graph Tech acquisition. It’s been a long
time out of the newspaper market, but
given the company makes seven-colour
presses for other market segments, you
can mark this one – like the inkjet web
Indian maker Monotech Systems at
Printpack in February – ‘more to follow’.
Canon has also got other things on
its corporate mind with the new (Océ)
ColorStream 3000 Z series, which among
other things, is designed to accommodate
paper that is stacked rather than rolled.
Four systems offer between 48-127
metres/minute.
Nor can you blame KBA for exploiting
its engineering capability to take the
RotaJet web width up to as much as 1300
mm for the benefit of industrial markets.
Four new models in the 895-1300 mm
bracket are all upgradeable in width
terms, although the original RotaJet 76 is
not. The traditional press maker is also
working with HP on markets including
corrugated packaging.
HP’s own inkjet contribution to the
Lucerne action was the 122 metres/minute
T230 web – it also had an upmarket
Indigo 7800 at the show – which was
paired with inline Hunkeler finishing. This
is another compact unit with a 520 mm
print width.
Again, HP is looking to broaden
capability with recently-announced high
definition nozzle architecture, set to
take thermal inkjet to 2400 dpi. More of
interest may be the 244 metres/minute
‘performance mode’ speed.
Screen brought the high-definition
Truepress Jet520HD inkjet web it
introduced last year to the show, teaming it
with both Hunkeler and Horizon finishing
to emphasise the flexible capabilities of
its new 1200x1200 printheads and widegamut inks. First installations have taken
place in the Netherlands and Switzerland,
with additional orders reported from the
USA and Japan.
Notable is the ability to run a range of
substrates from 40-250 gsm, among them
standard offset stocks. At the show it was
printing perfect-bound cookery books as
well as multilanguage brochures.
Müller Martini, a regular at the
Hunkeler event, was also sheet-focussed,
presenting its Presto saddle stitcher in a
digital configuration with Heidelberg’s
TH56 Stahlfolder. They make a valid point,
too, that run lengths for magazines and
periodicals – and newspapers, for that
matter – are decreasing, while product
variety is on the increase… a familiar
argument for digital printing and perhaps
even sheet handling.
Is it an alternative to the Hunkeler
newspaper unit? Well it certainly opens
up a wider range of products, for which
the increasing number of print engines
mentioned are also suitable.
gx
Peter Coleman n
n
web widths from 895-1300 mm.
The new press systems were part of a US launch during
GraphExpo as the German maker positions itself further into the
commercial digital segment.
Five L Series presses are nominated RotaJET 89 (web width
895 mm), 100, 112, 123 and 130, and KBA says it will be possible
to upgrade the 89 to a wider width, and also upgrade a singlecolour system into a four-colour one.
However, the existing RotaJET 76, which has a printing width
of 781 mm, cannot be extended.
The press maker has also announced a collaboration with HP
to develop inkjet solutions for corrugated packaging.
The RotaJET L series is modular, and aimed at markets
including book, direct mail, magazine, newspaper, packaging
gx
and industrial printing. n
n
Slower, but new inkjet web
reaches a peak of quality
As newspapers look for digital printing solutions with
a wider range of options, Screen has added a more flexible
midrange inkjet web with what it calls ‘high definition’ quality.
The Truepress Jet 520HD joins a family of which more than
700 have been made since its launch in 2006.
New printheads can deliver 1200 x 1200dpi with variable
droplets using high-density ink formulations to achieve widegamut colour definition. The paper transport and drying systems
are also new, enabling papers from 40-250gsm to be handled.
Screen has also upgraded its Equios workflow software
with this release, making it able to process variable data at the
achievable quality level.
Screen Australia managing director Peter Scott is delighted
with the focus on quality, “although at up to 120 metres per
minute, the 520HD is no slouch.”
The maximum 1200 x 1200dpi quality is achieved at 50 metres
per minute. Substrate flexibility will suit the press to production
of a variety of newspaper and advertising-related products at
remote and interstate sites. The first installations have gone to
direct mail houses in Europe – Nic.Oud in the Netherlands and
gx
Baumer in Switzerland. n
n
Monotech debuts inkjet in Delhi
They weren’t at Lucerne, but Indian maker Monotech
Systems is nonetheless set to make an impact on its home
market. At Printpack in February it presented a long-awaited
inkjet web – a 150 metres per minute unit with a maximum web
width of 660 mm – to a welcoming market.
Monotech is already established through its flatbed printers
and industrial inkjet systems, but the inkjet web is a departure
with its water-based inks and 600x600 dpi resolution.
Machines will typically be built to order, with printheads from
Konica Minolta, Ricoh and Kyocera depending on application
gx
and customer preference. n
n
Bright IDEA set to be ‘largest’
Organisers say IDEA’s biennial Australian Digital Show will
be the ‘largest technology event in the southern hemisphere’.
The event at Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre
from October 16-18, 2015, expands on a theme which drew
attendance of more than 22,000 in 2013.
A presentation theatre has been upgraded to seat 400 in
front of two giant screens, four creative learning centres are
gx
being introduced. n
n
22 gxpress.net
March 2015
Swiss daily in a
hurry for inkjet
S
wiss daily newspaper
Walliser Bote is in
a hurry to be the
first in the world printed
entirely using inkjet web
technology.
Publisher Mengis in
Visp, Switzerland, will team
HP's T400 colour inkjet
web with manroland's
FoldLine finishing and
Müller Martini mailroom
technology when it
switches production to
digital in July.
Contracts were signed
last month and team
members are certainly
in a hurry to be the first
newspaper publisher to rely
on fully digital production
of its daily.
In addition to its
variable format and cut-off
folding system, manroland
will also supply software
for finishing and overall
workflow integration.
MasterQ software – which
sorts the job data for
job processing – will be
integrated with provides
Mengis’ MIS system, while
WorkflowBridge functions
as an intelligent finishing
controller.
The 22,000-circulation
six-day daily Walliser Bote
serves the Upper Valais
region of Switzerland,
renowned for Zermatt
and the Matterhorn. With
circulation decreasing
and its existing 32 yearold press outdated, the
publisher had looked for a
new approach.
Digital printing
will enable increased
regionalisation for
the newspaper and
opportunities for other
contract work for its
printer, managing director
Martin Seematter says.
These include
production of book blocks,
mailings, signatures
and print products for
personalised advertising.
The folding technology
“opens up never before
imagined possibilities”
with the entire press
system strengthening
Mengis’ position and
securing jobs.
The “beacon project”
will see Mengis offer batch
sizes of one and create
new business models for
gx
readers and customers. n
n
press room
gxpress.net
gxpress.net
Press
match
Peter Coleman looks at
the benefits of ‘right-sizing’
and new technology
I
deas and innovation continue
to be the driving force for press
manufacturers vying for business
in an increasingly competitive
market. And at the top highvolume end, the stakes are greater
than ever.
Yet in each geographic
(and demographic) market,
requirements differ. There’s no ‘one
size fits all’ even for publishers of highcirculation newspapers.
A decade ago, the need to produce
a lot of large and colourful newspaper
products at the last moment – notably
editions of UK tabloid The Sun – largely
spawned the development of triple-wide
manroland Colorman presses. Parent
News International bought 12 of the
five-tower XXL presses for its showpiece
Broxbourne site – capable of printing
a million newspapers an hour – and
another seven for Merseyside and Scottish
plants.
With Sunday editions and contract
24 gxpress.net
March 2015
work such as the Daily Telegraph, the
presses now account for two-thirds of
the 60 million newspapers still printed in
Britain each week.
In India – where circulations are
even greater and printed newspapers
buck a global trend by continuing to
gain readership – and to a lesser extent,
other parts of Asia, the requirements are
different. Huge print orders for relatively
smaller products mean that the flexibility
for example, of being able to increase
pagination in two-page increments is
extremely valuable.
And there are other considerations,
notably coping with often unreliable
power supplies, inconsistent paper quality
and volatile exchange rates.
In between are markets such as Europe
– and especially Germany – where acute
regionalisation of daily titles has created
a demand for presses able to switch
from edition to edition with a minimum
of time and materials lost. And the US,
where there’s little money for press
upgrades but a renewed realisation that
despite reduced sales and advertising,
well-managed printed papers can still
make a lot of money.
Similarities between the South Asian
and Japanese newspaper markets have
helped manufacturers such as Mitsubishi,
TKS and Seiken gain orders in India.
Five new Mitsubishi DiamondSpirit
SA lines – from a new compact design
introduced at the 2013 World Publishing
Expo in Berlin – formed that year’s
biggest press order, and are now being
installed at Malayala Manorama sites
in Kerala in southern India. Lighter
and more than a metre lower than its
predecessor, the double-width, onearound press has been designed to fit
buildings built for single-width presses.
The DiamondSpirit SA is one of a new
breed of press designed specifically to
address the needs of the growing Indian
and Asian markets, using less power and
wasting less paper on start-ups.
Made for India: The
manroland Cromoman
4x1 at Times of India
in Kolkata (above)
– which has floorlevel, right-angled
reelstands – was the
first of a new press
series
Right: TKS’ 4x1 Color
Top 5000UDI is the
choice of Mathrubumi
in Kerala, with four
now installed or on
order
Another feature is a ‘soft stop’ function
– which uses residual energy to slow
and stop the press without breaking
webs when an unexpected power outage
occurs – claimed to be more economical
than UPS systems. This has become an
important issue, with publishers including
the Times of India moving away from
inhouse generators as exchange rates
push up the cost of diesel fuel.
Launched as a four-page weekly in
1888, Malayala Manorama now has a
circulation of 2.3 million copies and is
published from 18 printing centres, 11 of
them in Kerala.
Also in that busy state, rival
Mathrubhumi is adding a further TKS
Color Top press to the three it has
already installed. The company has been
progressively installing the 5000UDI 4x1
presses since 2011, when it commissioned
a new factory in Trivandrum. The latest
order is for a six-tower line for Calicut,
where Mathrubhumi has its head office.
Again the 92-year-old title has multiple
New
press
designs
address
the
specific
needs
of the
Indian
and
Asian
markets
press room
gxpress.net
gxpress.net
Indian odyssey:
A newly-installed
4x1 Mitsubishi
DiamondSpirit –
which prints editions
of The Hindu and
BusinessLine at Kasturi
& Sons’ plant just
outside Bangalore
(above and right) –
was viewed by WANIfra India delegates
in 2013
Below: A manroland
Cromoman 4x1 at
Times of India in Pune
editions to produce – ten of them in
Kerala – as part of a circulation of more
than 1.5 million.
TKS kit is also in use at HT Media
in Greater Noidia, where an 80,000 cph
Color Top 5100UDI replaced older – and
only recently extended – manroland lines
18 months ago. The ten-tower 4x1 press
has right-angle reelstands and a new
TKS system which allows simultaneous
production of two different products, such
as a 28-page Hindustan Times and a twosection (18 and 12 pages) HT City.
Claimed to be the biggest Englishlanguage newspaper in the world, the
Times of India has also been working
to upgrade capacity and productivity at
its 12 print sites and the 24 sites of its
contractors.
Impressive statistics – recently quoted
as 360,000 tonnes of mostly-imported
newsprint, 7500 tonnes of ink and 4.4
million printing plates to print 77 billion
pages a year – also bring huge challenges.
Publishing company Bennett, Coleman
& Co has been buying manroland presses
since a Geoman was commissioned in
1997, and took colour to Delhi in 2004
with the maker’s 4x2 Colorman and 4x1
Regioman presses. Recently, recognising
product and price pressures, manroland
has followed up at Times of India with a
4x1 design evolved from the single-width
Cromoman. A first example, installed in
Pune in early 2012 has H-type units and
floor-mounted reelstands at right-angles
to the pressline, adding to web-width
(and product) flexibility. Again, compact
design – including a 5.4 metre height at
Pune – addresses installation into existing
buildings without air conditioning.
Fluctuating exchange rates dictate
the benefits of buying locally however,
and Indian maker Manugraph – whose
CityLine and HiLine single-width presses
are in use at the TOI contract sites – has
26 gxpress.net
March 2015
been working to build a presence in the
4x1 space.
Ahead of the Mitsubishi order, one
of the first 4x1 Manugraphs went into
Malayala Manorama’s Alappuzha site –
where it is now reported to be printing
160,000 copies a night at up to 65,000 cph
– and the publisher has since installed
three similar presses.
Beyond these Smartline presses
Manugraph has recently announced a
marketing link with Japanese maker
Seiken covering the 80,000 cph space,
offering the Seiken 85 in India, Sri Lanka,
Bangladesh and the Gulf. Seiken already
has installations in India including Tamil
daily the Daily Thanthi (Seiken 65) and is
prominent for its single gripper conveyor
installations.
In other markets, the 4x1 advantages
may be less important but can still be
worthwhile where a succession of shortrun products are concerned. Australia
has two 4x1-equipped plants, one a Goss
Uniman S at Border Mail Printing in
Wodonga – now part of Fairfax Media
– and the other at APN Print’s Yandina,
Queensland site. Here a double-width
manroland Regioman is the productive
coldset workhorse, teamed with a singlewidth, two-around heatset Uniset tower.
As in all new press installations, the
bottom line is savings… in reduced paper
waste – frequently also achieved with
reductions in cut-off or page width –
manning and product ‘right-sizing’.
As I write this, a two-page house ad
in a broadsheet daily – laudable though
expensive – is a reminder of the costs
which come when section sizes have to be
matched on a two-around double-width
press. Even mature markets are finding
the substantial savings possible – and
scope to consolidate the production of a
number of titles or presses – well worth a
review of plant options.
Last year News Corp Australia
manufacturing manager Marcus Hooke
disclosed that new presses were not out of
the question for its Melbourne print site
– where the group’s biggest tabloid is still
produced on presses originally installed
two decades ago... when potentially more
appropriate 4x1 and 6x2 press formats
had scarcely been thought of, let alone
built.
Naysayers continue to write off the
surprising Australian print market, but
if you’re likely to be printing newspapers
for another decade, optimising plant
to minimise the cost of manning and
gx
materials can still deliver a return. n
n
P
ress maker Manugraph India is
‘sticking to its knitting’, despite
economic challenges.
The family-owned company
– which claims 60 per cent of
the domestic market in its segment – is
focussing on innovations which help
customers upgrade their print and colourpage requirements progressively, Pradeep
Shah says.
And while currency fluctuations
are challenging, it will remain “largely
unaffected in a macro sense”.
As managing director, Shah now leads
the business founded in 1972 by his father
Sanat – now chairman of the Bombay
Stock Exchange listed company – and
shares the role with his brother Sanjay,
who is also vice chairman.
He says that while adding to its core
single-width offering with a new compact
press and novel add-on colour unit,
Manugraph has recently inked a deal with
Japanese maker Seiken Graphics which
will see it bring the 80,000 cph Seiken 85
to India and Manugraph products – which
include its own 4x1 press – promoted in
the Japanese market.
“This is good exposure for MIL because
we can finally tap into a market which
has been out of reach before,” Shah says.
“Moreover, since both companies have
well-established sales and service support
systems in place, customers in both
countries can benefit with this tie-up.
Strategically, it will help us provide stateof-the-art printing solutions to customers
in both countries and increase our global
market presence.”
In the single-width market, the new
Ecoline press – anchored by a compact
four-colour tower – is designed primarily
for newspapers with limited space
capacity and defined budgets, with better
use of manpower through single-level
operation. “With the growth and demand
of smaller cities and the growing trend
of outsourcing printing jobs to smaller
printers in mind, we have succeeded
in engineering a product that is highly
suitable for this growing market and we
hope to fill this niche space domestically,
and later expand globally,” Shah says.
Manugraph also introduced its add-on
2C print unit in late 2013, which mounts
on existing Newsline/Hiline Y units to
make colour possible with minimum
investment.
These are part of a pragmatic approach
to challenges – for both MIL and its
customers – which include currency rate
fluctuations, but which Shah is hopeful
Single
minded
Manugraph is responding to
the realities of the market by
focussing on what it does best,
Pradeep Shah tells Nirmalya Sen
will not impact the business in a macro
sense. “To counter such eventualities, we
are working on innovative solutions like
focusing on promoting add-on projects
to enable customers to upgrade their
print and colour-page requirements in a
phased manner,” he says. “In this way,
they can keep their investments at a
minimum during these uncertain times
and wait for the financial markets to
settle down before making any long-term
commitments.”
Budget constraints had been the
primary challenge in the domestic 2x1
segment in recent years, and Shah says
Manugraph felt that a more cost-effective
Above: Pradeep Shah
Top: The compact
single-width Ecoline
Below: SWUG
Australia delegates
check out the
Manugraph press
at APN Print in
Rockhampton in 2013
solution for the 2x1 segment was needed
in the Indian market. “With that in mind,
the Ecoline was designed which addresses
all the critical factors of cost, space and
shorter run lengths, among other things,”
he says.
With the 2C, the 36,000 cph M360
press and BK folder are also part of
the response, having all been designed
“keeping market realities in mind”.
“In fact, the book folder has surpassed
our expectations with demand for
it is growing, not just in India and
neighbouring countries, but also in
Southeast Asia, with a recent installation
in Vietnam.”
The book press was installed at a
customer site in Myanmar last month,
but its greatest success has been in India
with installations in West Bengal, Gujarat
and Andhra Pradesh and more orders in
the pipeline. Shah attributes success with
the book folder to their quick response in
attending to the book printing industry’s
requirements.
“The folder is designed to give
customers 100 per cent folding accuracy
with quick changeover times. Additionally,
zero down time, consistency, quality and
fast makeready times are all ‘must-haves’
for what is a 365x24 hours industry.”
Currently Manugraph products for local
and global markets are all manufactured
in India, although its Manugraph America
facility in Elizabethville, Pennsylvania,
still makes its Dauphin-design units as
required by its local market. “Its job is
primarily to serve to the requirements
of US customers for new machines and
add-on projects, as well as upgrading old
MDGM or ‘other make’ machines,” Shah
says. “Overall, our teams work in tandem
to provide real-time printing solutions to
customers.”
As for the future, he still believes in
the role of print: “Digitalisation may be
the realistic future, but given that digital
content is consumed across multiple
platforms from computer screens to
smartphones which are in some cases
smaller than even six inches, some artful
expressions that would be a pleasure to
read in print might not be the same on
small screens.
“Therefore, in my opinion, print will
not be entirely obsolete even though the
demand for it may evolve in time,” he says.
“Our priorities at MIL will always be to find
complete and innovative printing solutions
for customers, and we look forward to
seeing how the future of the industry takes
gx
shape especially in India.” n
n
Generic
press
hall
Balaji to chair World Print Forum
gxpress.net
Kasturi & Sons
Two more presses for
Borneo print 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 fivetower 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 Englishlanguage dailies make up the
majority of the 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 retain our
gx
competitive edge,” he says. n
n
director Kasturi Balaji
has been named to chair
WAN-Ifra’s new World
Printers Forum.
The author of last
year’s report on newsprint
handling, he joins 11 other
global members in the
new group which aims
to encourage innovation
and the continued
development of printed
news media. Chennaibased Kasturi & Sons is the
publisher of The Hindu.
He says the group will
focus sharply on how
printed products – largely
newspapers from news
media organisations
and companies – can be
kept relevant and be
sustained into the distant
future: “The Forum
seeks to achieve this
by addressing all printrelated questions and
encouraging innovation,
product development and
productivity.”
Though much news
From being a drag last year, Norske Skog’s Boyer magazine
paper project is expected to boost revenues in 2015, the newsprint maker
says. Overall, the group has reported fourth quarter gross operating
earnings (EBITDA) of NOK 190 million, down from 208 million in the third
quarter. In Australasia however, paper prices are “to a large degree stable”
because of long-term contracts and the logistical advantage the company
has over non-domestic producers. “Export volumes for newsprint out of
Australasia track international prices in Asia and is still expected to be
challenging,” says president and chief executive Sven Ombudstvedt.
Increased operating revenues and cost of materials in the period was due
to full production on the Boyer machine. Demand for newsprint in Oceania
decreased by six per cent in 2014, compared to 17 per cent in 2013. Demand
for magazine paper in Oceania declined by two per cent last year.
Blanket maker ContiTech has celebrated the 50th anniversary of its
Northeim location in Germany. The site, which is home to the Elastomer
Coatings business unit, celebrated with 6000 employees and their families.
Executive board member Hans-Jürgen Duensing emphasised how the
company has changed in the last ten years: “ContiTech Northeim has stood
up to the competition. It has learned to become more international and has
invested greatly in innovation and environmental conservation,” he said.
With their first KBA Commander CL scoring an innovation award
soon after it went live, French media group Sipa-Ouest-France has ordered
another. The 4x1 press was commissioned at France’s largest newspaper
group last northern autumn, earning the publisher a Trophées de
l’Innovation Presse prize for best print innovation of 2014 in November.
Now an almost identical Commander CL is on order for installation in the
northern spring of 2016. Ouest-France prints in Rennes – currently with five
presses – and in La Chevrolière near Nantes (two presses). Printing plant director
Emile Hédan Printing says with pressure on printed newspapers from digital
media, the group felt it had to renew its press fleet: “We have to continue to
modernise our printing plants due to the media shift and prepare them for the
gx
future by increasing full colour capacity, efficiency and economy. n
n
28 gxpress.net
March 2015
media innovation today
is directed at digital
developments, printed
newspapers continue to
attract 2.5 billion daily
readers and produce
more than 93 per cent
of newspaper company
revenues globally.
Rick Stunt, group
paper director of the UK’s
Daily Mail Group Media
has been elected vicechairman. Members of
the board – half of which
represent publishing
and printing companies
and half materials and
equipment suppliers – are:
Dieter Betzmeier
(manroland Web Systems,
Germany);
Dr. Michael
Hirthammer (Sun
Chemical, Germany);
Thomas Isaksen
(DDPFF – Den Danske
Presses, FaellesindkøbsForening, København,
Denmark);
Herbert Kaiser
(Koenig & Bauer,
Germany);
Jan Kasten (ppi
Media, Hamburg,
Germany);
Graham Macfarlane
(Felix Böttcher, Germany);
Mohamed Hassan
Mohamed Ali (Star
Publications and member
of Asian Newspaper
Printers, Malaysia);
Winfried Schaur (UPM
Paper, Germany);
Josef Schiessl
(Süddeutscher
Verlag Zeitungsdruck,
Munich, Germany); and
Peder Schumacher
(president V-TAB,
chairman Nordic Offset
Printers Association,
gx
Sweden). n
n
Advance invests in
PA press upgrade
M
ore colour and reduced
paper usage will result
from upgrades of the Goss
Metroliner at Pennsylvania Media
Group in Mechanicsburg. The
changes expand printing capacity
to enable it take on the printing of
60,000-circulation Lancaster daily LNP.
John Luciew at the group’s Pennlive
news site reports that the US$3.6
million investment by Advance Central
Services Pennsylvania – which owns
the production facility – will result in
20 jobs, as it adds other contract work
to that of printing the three-days-aweek Patriot-News. Luciew reports that
Lancaster is the company’s first sevenday-a-week print client, with an 80,000
circulation Sunday title in the contract.
A four-colour tower and extra folder
are being added to the 15-year-old
Metroliner tower, with additions to
conveyers and controls. As part of the
moves, the Patriot-News has changed to
the narrower page width, but will gain
extra sections and features.
Vice president and general manager
of ACS PA Paul Thomas says the
investment will make the plant one of
central Pennsylvania’s leading printing
facilities. It is a member of the WANIfra’s International Newspaper Quality
Club and has received multiple awards
for print quality and distribution: “We
have tremendous capacity in both
volume and colour,” he says.
“We care a great deal about quality
reproduction, and (the investment)
increases our capacity for even more
pages, more copies and greater speed.
And we are currently in discussion with
gx
other regional clients.” n
n
pressroom
gxpress.net
Pictured: Plates for the next job are loaded
on the Autoplate automatic changers
while the press runs
Below: Express Newspapers managing
director Kumar Nadesan (right) with Peter
Kirwan and Keerthi Abeynayake of MD
Scan Engineering, Goss’s Sri Lankan agent
➤ Every once in a while,
technologies align and a
star is born: So it is with
Goss International’s Magnum
Compact book and newspaper
press.
Almost two years since the
concept was first disclosed, a demo
press has been built and shown,
and with the first two installations
progressing, the anticipation is
palpable.
“We can’t wait,” says Asia
Pacific sales vice president Peter
Kirwan. “We have many interested
newspaper publishers waiting to see
a running press, as well as several
book printers.”
After a showing at the Goss
factory in Shanghai, the first
customer installation is just being
completed in Staten Island, New
York, now that building alterations
have been completed. Advance
Publications will use the six-tower
pressline – the folder of which has
been installed on an upper floor
level – to print a large number of
contract publications in addition
to its own flagship Staten Island
Advance.
Centre of attention in the Asia
Pacific is Express Newspapers (Ceylon)
in Colombo, Sri Lanka, which has
ordered a three-tower press with
a 546 mm cut-off, set to ship next
month. It will print daily and weekly
newspapers and semicommercial
magazines, taking advantage of the
press’s quick changeovers to produce
time-sensitive editions in multiple
languages.
Already a WAN-Ifra open house
and workshop there is being
planned, as well as private showings.
Express managing director Kumar
Nadesan says the Magnum Compact
will deliver benefits on many levels:
“Apart from giving us more page
capacity, the highly-automated press
will make our daily production more
streamlined and efficient,” he says.
Evolved from the much-loved
Community, the Magnum
Compact brings together trusted
technologies from Goss newspaper
and commercial systems. Levels of
automation unique for a singlewidth press deliver game-changing
opportunities and turn conventional
production concepts upside down.
Key is the press’s compact fourhigh tower – which slides apart
for maintenance access – with its
integrated automatic plate changers,
gxpress.net
news
leaders
news
leaders
Stars align for Goss
Magnum Compact
presetting, automatic register
control and ink filling.
At Express Newspapers, the
Autoplate technology will enable a
full set of 24 plates to be changed
in less than five minutes – including
ink presets – or a single plate in less
than one minute, ideal for multiple
language editions of the flagship
daily Virakesari. Apart from three
editions of the 65,000-circulation
Tamil daily, the press will print
tabloid daily Metro News, weekly
and fortnightly newspapers and a
monthly magazine.
As the newspaper market
transforms, Kumar Nadesan says
Express wants to be sure that it is
able to respond: “The Magnum
Compact press is a game-changer in
being able to offer that versatility
as well as the immediate benefit of
time and waste savings,” he says.
“This made it our best choice to
accommodate different editions,
jobs, and the possibility of short runs
for special editions or commercial
publications.”
Fast automatic plate changes
mean that plates can be changed
and good copy achieved faster
than on any other single-width
newspaper press on the market,
making the Magnum Compact viable
for short runs as low as 500 copies.
As it progresses to being one
of the most technologicallyadvanced newspaper publishers
in the region, Express also looks
back with confidence to a long
relationship with Goss: “We have
relied on our existing Community
SSC press for many years,” he
says. “The productivity, flexibility
and automation of the Magnum
Compact press will ensure our
competitive edge well into the
future.”
Equally suited to book and semicommercial work as newspaper
printing, the Goss Magnum Compact
press – with its full range of time
and waste-saving features – is an
attractive choice for the company
and many others like it.
And as the nature of news
publishing changes, interested
publishers throughout the world
are looking at options to use it to
print publications which would
traditionally have been the province
much bigger presses… while
delivering unique opportunities for
micro-zoned publishing and greater
economy.
Goss International
Singapore Singapore: +65-6462 4833
www.gossinternational.com
Goss Graphic Systems
Australasia
Melbourne: +61-3 9560 1666
matt.sharkady@
gossinternational.com
GXP NL 1503 29
NZ boosts recognition
for apprentices
presshall
gxpress.net
Generic
gxpress.net
A focus on promoting and celebrating New Zealand
Evolving APN shuts one
print site, revives another
P
rint publishing has
fallen to less than
half of the business
which once called
itself Australian Provincial
Newspapers… and which will
close yet another print site this
year.
Yet the evolution has made
APN News & Media – and its
chief executive Michael Miller
– the darling of analysts and
investors, with shares rising on
the strength of quadrupled net
profits. Miller has also been
talking about a new content
marketing business called
Emotive – in which it will
have a majority stake – which
has APN’s streaming radio
platform iHeartRadio as its
first client.
Perhaps because investors
don’t want to hear about print,
details from the presentation
emphasise growth in ‘sexy’
areas such as radio and digital
publishing, and one chart even
suggests print is growing.
And while the full-year
market presentation discloses
that the Toowoomba print
site is being closed, there’s
less mention that newspaper
printing is being resumed in
nearby Warwick after a pause
of several years.
At the Warwick Daily News
site, where an elderly Harris
Cottrell V15 was shut down
almost a decade ago, sheetfed
production had continued
with an upgrade to its offset
equipment. Now a mothballed
Manugraph Cityline press from
Ballina is being installed there
and will take on some of the
work from Toowoomba.
The Toowoomba print site
was upgraded as part of a
comprehensive programme in
2006/7 which addressed out-ofdate plant at the sites acquired
with the 1988 formation of
APN. It was one of four new
sites equipped with Manugraph
presses, all but one of which
have closed or are closing.
Production will now rest
with Rockhampton, Warwick
and the productive coldsetheatset plant at Yandina –
with its hybrid manroland
Regioman/Uniset pressline
–opened at the end of 2006 at a
cost of 2006.
The six-tower Cityline
replaced a Harris N845
installed by Toowoomba
Newspapers, the business
formed by the 1970 merger of
the Chronicle with 1955 rival
Downs Star.
New Manugraph presses
were also installed in
Bundaberg – the first to open
and also the first to close –
Rockhampton and Ballina.
While achieving savings
in staff costs, the changes
come at a cost. Some of that
will be in the group’s $12.4
million of one-off project costs
(also attributed to costs of
refinancing and NZME). Not
to mention redundancies, asset
write-downs and business
closures of $17.3 million (albeit
a more modest total than last
year’s $23.2 million) and a
whopping almost $50 million
of write-offs on intangibles,
presumably goodwill.
However figures for
Australian Regional Media
show a $10 million reduction in
operations and administrative
costs. Even with reported 11
per cent growth in digital
earnings, a substantial increase
in APN’s radio business means
publishing revenue fell from
56 per cent to 38 per cent of
earnings in 2014 (advertising
revenue fell seven per cent
in 2014 and 15 per cent in
2013)… but that doesn’t mean
the group is giving up on print
yet.
Its report says weekly print
readership – not the same
thing as copy sales – has
grown 3.4 per cent, and claims
circulation performance is
“22 per cent better than the
industry”. And it has also been
shopping, adding small, local
newspaper acquisitions at
“attractive multiples”.
APN’s print story is a
reflection of huge changes
which have taken place in
Australia’s newspaper industry
in not much more than a
decade. That said, upgrade
of the Toowoomba print site
– now the fourth to close in
as many years – has helped
keep the group’s newspapers
relevant, and may yet stave off
the day when print is no longer
viable.
gx
Peter Coleman n
n
Left: At the opening of the
Toowoomba press in June 2008,
APN Print general manager regional
operations Gary Osborne , State
attorney general Kerry Shine and
print manager John Selman (Picture
APN/Bev Lacey)
30 gxpress.net
March 2015
print apprentices will see graduates honoured by family,
friends and employers. Two ceremonies – one in Auckland
and the second in Christchurch – are planned for April,
creating memorable celebrations to publicly acknowledge
their training.
The April ceremonies will celebrate completion of
2014 courses and enable industry to recognise the value
of graduates. It will also provide recognition to businesses
and employers prepared to invest in their employees.
In addition presentations will be made to Diploma in
Print Management finalists and winner; the best training
company and trainer of 2014; and the best 12 apprentices
across all programmes. The top five apprentices will
be named and go forward to the Pride In Print Awards
ceremony on May 1 in Wellington where the apprentice
gx
of the year will be honoured. n
n
SWUG takes a breather
after hot Darwin event
Australia’s SWUG technical conference will take
a break in 2015, reverting to its regular March slot next
year. President Bob Lockley says the decision follows
last year’s later Darwin conference – deferred to May to
accommodate the ‘Top End’ heat and humidity – and “in
light of everything going on”. A conference this March
“would have been too early, and this way we’re looking
after users and suppliers,” he says.
From modest beginnings, the Single Width Users
Group has grown to be the country’s major newspaper
technical event with a full weekend programme including
technical sessions, a gala dinner and a high-profile
motivational speaker.
Lockley – who is also print and logistics chief executive
for Fairfax – says several sites for a 2016 conference are
under consideration including its North Richmond, NSW,
plant named the inaugural PANPA print site of year.
The site uses a variety of technologies including coldset,
UV and conventional heatset printing, plus automated
mailroom and robotics to print a variety of work
including metro daily the Sydney Morning Herald.
“Above all, we’ve got to provide good content to
make it worthwhile,” says Lockley.
• New Zealand’s Single Width Users Group will take its
conference to Rotorua in 2015. President Dan Blackbourn
says the conference from August 19-20 will include a site
gx
visit to the Norske Skog mill in Kawerau, 58 km away. n
n
Above: Boxer Danny Green (left) gets Bob Lockley motivated at
last year’s Darwin conference
QI on a roll with
China, India orders
A
fter scoring a sought-after
order at Times of India
publisher Bennett, Coleman
& Co, QI Press Controls has
scored the double happiness of orders
from two Chinese newspapers in less
than a week. Both GanSu Daily and
LiaoCheng Daily have opted for mRC3D with the maker’s automatic ink mist
shield for their Goss presses.
And QI’s China managing director
Paul Yu says both organisations say
they are giving serious consideration
to follow-up investments once these
are up to speed. GanSu Daily was
already using the mRC+ system on
an existing Goss press, and has placed
an order with the press maker for the
new variant for its new three-tower
Magnum 45. Satisfied with the earlier
system, it was “a logical next step” to
install mRC-3D on the new press, not
only to safeguard quality, but also to cut
down on materials. LiaoCheng Daily
has plumped for the same system for
its Goss Magnum 45 following a visit
to another satisfied customer in China.
They found print quality was a lot more
stable and savings had been made on
materials, which clinched it for the
four-tower order. Now Gansu Daily
is considering cut-off controls and
LiaoCheng Daily is looking at register
systems for its other presses.
QI managing director Menno
Jansen says the two orders are an
illustration of the way the Chinese
market is heading: “It reminds me of
two orders that were placed by Chinese
companies within a week in 2014,” he
says. “The regularity of these orders
is a good sign for our activities in
China, and we take considerable pride
that the Chinese market is showing
increasing confidence in our products
and services.”
The Times of India order is being
taken as an important endorsement.
The supplier’s Vijay Pandya says the
order for an mRC-3D-based system on
one press is important “to state that we
deliver proven and reliable solutions”.
QI will equip a double-width
manroland Geoman in Ghaziabad with
a system based on 12 motorised mRC-
3D cameras for register control and 12
for cut-off, and provide its waste gate
control for each output of the six-tower
press which has a single twin folder.
“With these features the Times of
India will ensure the continuation
of monitoring and tracking for good
and consistent print quality delivered
to his end user,” says Pandya, who is
managing director of QI Press Controls
India.
Times of India – which hosted the
manroland global users group meeting
in Mumbai earlier this year – has a
reputation for good print quality, and
Pandya says the order for the basic
intelligent quality management (IQM)
module and waste gate control option
“is logical” and ensures a top position
in quality printing in the Indian
market: “This is a very important order
for us to state that we deliver proven
and reliable solutions,” he says. “It also
proves the effects of our continuous
efforts to provide high standard
services offered by a highly skilled
technical team that speaks the language
of the customer.”
The Times Group is the largest
publishing company in India and South
Asia, with a turnover of more than a
billion dollars and 11,000 employees.
Another major order has come from
Austrian newspaper printer – which
produces – for QI control systems
in the first of its four divisions. The
order covers IDS-3D, mRC-3D and
IQM systems for its division in Vienna,
providing combined colour control
and colour registration, a cut-off and
sidelay control, plus the IQM quality
management system on three KBA
Commander towers. After satisfactory
commissioning, QI Press Controls will
install the technology on the remaining
21 towers in Vienna. This will be
followed by nine towers in St Andrä
and six in Salzburg, amounting to total
order volume of 78 IDS-3D cameras
and 117 mRC-3D cameras.
Mediaprint is the country’s largest
coldset printer – producing 900 million
copies a year – and with turnover of
500 million Euros, the second largest
gx
media business. n
n
Print & Automation
Integration.
Automation.
Control.
The upgrade and retrofit specialists
• controls
• drives
• reelstands
Solutions available for all OEM suppliers’ systems
....
+44 1908 276700
sales@harlandsimon.com
harlandsimon.com
gxpress.net
March 2015 31
gxpress.net
news
leaders
pressroom
➤ Printing division of the UK
Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday
and Metro, Harmsworth Quays
Printing is typical of newspaper
companies which have moved
their focus to improving print
quality and the reduction of
waste. Except that they are
doing it with flexo, a process
which does not allow ink
adjustments during production.
Mail flexo project
leads new research
Now a new collaboration has
arisen as a result of a conversation
between group technical director
Martin Hunt and Menno Jansen,
managing director of QI Press
Controls, at WAN-Ifra Expo in
Amsterdam last year.
The two had been doing business
for the last 15 years, Hunt having
left press manufacturer Goss – with
which he had worked for 25 years
– to set up in business managing
press-related projects and then take
a full-time contract with HQP.
QI’s IRS colour register system had
been integrated on HQP’s presses for
years, and continues to operate to
complete satisfaction, but the IDS3D product launched in Amsterdam
would be a new departure. “We got
talking about the possibility of using
the IDS-3D on a flexo press,” Hunt
recalls. “This would help us reduce
waste levels as well as improve the
quality of the product using an
advanced control system.”
Following detailed discussions,
a project to equip four of the 36
full-colour towers and one of the
six folders on the 165-metre long
KBA Flexo Courier in West Thurrock
with IDS-3D cameras with colour
control, colour register, AIMS,
fault detection, waste gate control
and plate change detection, got
the green light in January. The
Intelligent Quality Management
(IQM) information system will also
be installed, with the ultimate
intention to install IDS-3D on all
towers and folders.
Although ink levels can’t be
adjusted during printing, the IDS-3D
will allow HQP to check whether
every flexo plate is fixed in the
right position and help operators
react quickly if anything is amiss.
“Normally, an operator would
only find out whether a plate had
been incorrectly positioned after
he picked a copy from the folder
delivery belt and this might cost us
as much as 50 production copies,”
says Hunt. “In next to no time, the
IDS-3D enables us to check at a
glance whether the image is correct
and respond accordingly. The density
regulation helps us anticipate any
ink splashes, low ink levels and ink
loss.
“We don’t have to wait for the
operator to do the checks anymore.”
Hunt believes IQM is
Passionate about success: Martin Hunt
joined Harmsworth Quays Printing in
2002, since which time he has worked on
a number of projects, most recently the
West Thurrock, Essex. Construction took
two years and since then 4,000 tons of
equipment has been moved there from the
old Docklands site.
“The aim was to create the greenest
possible plant at no extra cost and we
have succeeded in doing this because we
were able to start from scratch. The only
water we use in the production process
is rainwater and the building is heated
during the day by the heat given off
by the presses at night. This means free
heating in the building, without the need
for gas,” he says.
HQP has two printing plants, one in
West Thurrock and the other in Didcot
(Oxfordshire) – both of which are flexo –
and also makes use of web-offset contract
printing across the UK, Ireland and the rest
of Europe.
indispensable for HQP: it reports any
damaged plates that are detected,
shows how many (accurately printed)
copies have rolled off the press and
picks out any density problems. “It
registers everything,” Hunt says.
“The system will provide us with a
detailed and accurate production
quality .”
The new IDS-3D with IQM will
not only save on usage, but on time
too while improving both the quality
of production and the quality of
reporting.
After years of experience with
QI and IRS, the two organisations
are on the same wavelength: “We
both want to continue developing
and will do so until we are satisfied
everything works perfectly,” Hunt
says. For QI, working with a flexo
print partner is an opportunity to
develop the product further and
expand into other markets. The two
have the joint goal of producing
flawless fully automated print copies
on flexo presses whilst minimising
waste. “We also have a desire to
work on innovative solutions with QI.
“We aim to bring about a
situation in which we will have
accurate copies automatically
rolling off the presses. The only
thing an operator needs to do will
be to check the cut-off. The rest
will be done by the control system:
the cameras are the extra eyes that
are able to constantly check quality.
They are able to check whether the
print is in register, that pages are in
the right place and that the ink is
in balance.
“It closes the waste gate
automatically and is significantly
quicker than an operator is assessing
whether the best quality is being
produced. When things should go
wrong the control system will quickly
notify the operator or even stop
the press immediately thus keeping
waste to a minimum.”
About his expectations for future
collaboration between HQP and QI
Press Controls, Hunt is extremely
positive: “I believe the system we’ve
acquired will meet our expectations.
If so, it means we can make big
savings and do the next investment
that pays for itself in the shape of
the installation of IDS-3D cameras
on the remaining 48 towers in West
Thurrock and (at our other flexo
plant) in Didcot.”
gxpress.net
S
Gatefolds and glue
in UK and USA
US packaging solutions
vendor Valco Melton is
installing its inline gluing
systems at Newsprinters’ UK
print sites.
Nine inline applicators on
the triple-wide manroland
presses at Broxbourne,
Knowsley and Eurocentral
will allow production
of superpanorama and
gatefolded products for high
impact promotions in The
Times, the Sunday Times, the
Daily Telegraph and Sunday
Telegraph. The supplier’s UK sales
manager Mat Garner says
the News subsidiary is one
of a growing number of
publishing groups in Europe
and Asia using their systems.
Headquartered in Cincinnati,
Ohio, Valco Melton specialises
in the manufacturing,
packaging and sealing of items
such as corrugated boxes and
cartons across 12 markets.
• And in New York, following
panorama gatefolds retrofits
in India, Asia and worldwide,
Innotech has finally added
hometown hero the New York
Times to its client list.
Goss worked with the
publisher and New York-based
Innotech to install systems on
two of its Colorliner presslines,
completing the work within 20
weeks of order.
The custom installation
allows maximum flexibility in
the placement of the colour
gatefolds, which add impact
and advertising opportunities.
Founder and president of
Innotech Vinod Kapoor says
the solution gave the New
York Times ultimate flexibility
with regard to the positioning
of specialised sections within
the newspaper, without the
need to purchase a new press,
while Goss regional sales
manager Dan Picco says the
project required "the full
and combined expertise of all
parties".
Based on a geometric
air bar plough, the system
produces a four-page wide
centrefold or a separate
eight-page pull-out section,
up to a 1219 mm x 559 mm.
Smaller gatefolds or coupon
folds at one or both edges
are also possible for special
promotions, and these can
be placed in the cover or as a
gx
wrap-around. n
n
enior Indian production chiefs
were sharing experiences in
commissioning new and used
equipment in a new WAN-Ifra
workshop this month.
Titled Building a new printing plant,
the workshop addressed problems specific
to one of the world’s largest newspaper
markets, where circulation continues to
grow.
That growth, combined with need for
innovative products, poses capacity issues
in many newspaper printing plants so
many publishers are increasing capacity by
building new printing plants, and replacing
old presses with new high speed presses.
Since these are huge investments that
must be used for a long period of time,
selection of appropriate equipment and
capacity is crucial, and the installation
projects require careful planning and
execution with adherence to time
schedules crucial.
Aim of the two-day workshop at Hotel
Savera in Chennai earlier this month was
to present a standardised and structured
approach to establishing a new newspaper
printing plant – from equipment selection
and building design until completion of
the installation.
Leading the workshop, K. Krishnan
is a former production vice-president at
Kasturi & Sons – publishers of The Hindu
New
or
used
and BusinessLine – with more than 30
years’ experience in project management,
press installation and production planning.
Of special interest was a case study
from Malayala Manorama on importing
and installing used presses, with works
chief general manager P.K. Philip sharing
their experience in installing used TKS
presses.
The topic of printing site development
and building planning was being covered
by Sekar Subramani, deputy general
manager at Times of India publisher
gx
Bennett, Coleman & Co. n
n
New Windows open
A Press control upgrade at two Lee
Enterprises sites in the USA gives a familiar
Windows ‘look and feel’ to controls and
upper level management information
systems. Features include wizards for job
creation, a more configurable system
with seamless integration of manual and
automatic impositioning tools, and enhanced
gx
n
graphic displays and operations. n
Ink makers invest in India’s growth
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 Michael Mazzini
email: michael.mazzini@ferrostaal.
com.au Ph: +61 3 9553 3344
www.qipc.com
www.eae.com
32 GXP NL 1503
gxpress.net
news
leaders
R
apid growth in demand for
news inks in India is being
addressed by manufacturers,
with two Japanese companies
among those upping local
production.
Recent weeks have seen both
Toyo and Sakata commissioning their
second plants: Toyo’s new site is in
Dahej and Sakata Inx’s in Panoli,
both in western India’s Gujarat
region.
President Kotaro Morita visited
in July for Sakata’s celebrations in
Panoli, where the plant is the second
on an eight hectare site earmarked
for further growth. The company
claims all of India’s major news
publishers as its customers, and
managing director VK Seth says he
hopes it will become their primary
supplier. A key target is the specific
demands made by increasinglypopular high-speed double-width
presses.
Toyo has spent an estimated $17
million on a new facility in Dahej,
several times larger than that in
Greater Noida and plans to meet
export as well as domestic demand.
Established seven years ago, the
local subsidiary has a partner in
Ankleshwar for the production of
organic pigments.
Chief executive and managing
director Bodi Kampani says the
company also plans to increase
production of ink for inkjet and
gravure applications in Greater
gx
Noida. n
n
insert & Heatset
pressroom
gxpress.net
gxpress.net
Decade of growth
for waterless
Prinovis Dresden learns
the benefits of offset
I
nstalling two interlocked
offset presses alongside
gravure at Prinovis in
Dresden were a response
to more diverse projects, the
company’s chief executive
says.
Two interlocking shortgrain 48-page manroland
Lithoman S presses sourced
from insolvent Adam Nord
started up last month.
The setup with two webs,
two reel splicers, ten printing
couples and three folders
make 96-page A4 production
possible and is the only print
configuration of this kind in
the world.
Sourced from Adam Nord
in Laage near Rostock, they
complement existing gravure
equipment, a process on
which the company had
previously focussed.
Chief executive Bertram
Stausberg says many
customers’ projects are
becoming more diverse
in terms of print runs and
formats: “Prinovis now has
the speed and flexibility
to meet these additional
requirements even better,”
he says. Entering the weboffset printing sector means
“a strategically important
complement to our core
business of gravure printing.”
The Lithoman presses
are intended to print
products including top end
supplements and magazines.
manroland supported
the project with technical
expertise including familiarity
with available production
options. Teams from both
companies worked in close
collaboration in regular
project sessions.
Installation was completed
quicker than planned and the
reassembled press has been
running at full speed since
January, with the first job a
multi-language brochure for
mail order company K-Mail
Order (Klingel Group).
To emphasise the flexibility
and new capability, a
brochure produced for the
Prinovis Media Day customer
event in Dresden combined
offset content with a gravure
gx
cover. n
n
A
new Czech manufacturing facility for waterless
plates responds to a fivefold increase in demand,
according to Toray’s Mitsunori Hayashi. “2014 has
been a big year for waterless printing,” he says. “Ecological
printing is no longer seen as an expensive luxury, but as a
profitable business.”
The new plant is a response to increases over the
past decade and makes plates more readily available to
customers in Europe and the Americas.
The sales and marketing general manager of the Czech
factory, Hayashi says strong attendance at an open house
late last year may be an indicator of interest.
German daily Trierischer Volksfreund has recently
installed a new KBA Cortina and is looking to the
increased quality delivered by waterless printing to
expand its printed offerings beyond newspapers.
“Printed products produced on the Cortina using
Toray waterless plates deliver unprecedented quality,” says
Franz-Josef Hirsch, chief executive of DHV, the company
which prints the daily newspaper.”
In the Netherlands, Rodi Media – which was the first
Cortina user – prints waterless 26 of its own daily and
Sunday newspapers as well as work for other publishers.
In addition to improved quality and reduction in water
consumption, waterless printing also reduces waste and
eliminates the need for toxic chemicals in the printing
process.
“Reduction of water consumption can be significant,”
Hayashi says, citing a Swiss waterless printer who has
eliminated the use of approximately 250,000 litres of
gx
water annually. n
n
➤ Few publishers know
how long they’ll be printing
newspapers in their current
form… but there is one
certainty: Quality, economic
production is the key.
As newspaper presses get older,
these demands are increasingly
hard to meet, but technologies
such as spray dampening can make
a valuable contribution to reduced
costs.
Many older presses have never
had the system; others have outdated
units, the replacement of which
can considerably increase system
efficiency. Such is the rationale
behind technotrans’ development of
the deltaspray.line, for which several
unique advantages are claimed.
As a result, the company’s
reference list – especially in its ‘home’
country of Germany – reads like a
who’s who of the industry elite. And
for that matter, of top members of
WAN-Ifra’s International Newspaper
Color Quality Club. Amsterdam’s
De Telegraaf has literally hundreds
on its manroland Colorman lines,
and installations cross brands and
borders, among them Wifag presses
in St Gallen and Münster; KBAs
in Innsbruck and Stuttgart… and
at sites in Italy and Canada, Saudi
Arabia and Hong Kong.
At all of which, there’s a common
theme: Consistent quality with
extremely low maintenance, thanks
to self-cleaning nozzles which use a
Venturi effect to avoid clogging.
At Pressehaus Stuttgart, it’s fair to say
there was some scepticism when the
“virtually maintenance-free” concept
was introduced to printing manager
Amir Alicic at the IfraExpo in 2010.
He’d grown up with the ten KBA
Commander double-width presses –
by then close to ten years old – and
knew them better than anyone.
“It was unimaginable for an
Print costs
take a spray
Impressive: Clogged nozzles were a thing
of the past at Pressehaus Stuttgart
expert,” he recalls. “We’d had a
small bowl next to each tower
where the clogged nozzles were
collected so they could be cleaned
and replaced. We even had someone
employed full-time to do nothing
else but continuously clean nozzles
and dampening systems.”
Pressehaus Stuttgart was ready
for an upgrade which was to include
modernising control technology,
updating workflow and increasing
operational safety… and the
“logical” replacement of current
dampening systems on the six
two-tower (ten-cylinder satellite)
presslines.
Wary of claims, Alicic and chief
executive Johannes Degen knocked
back visits to successful installations,
but eventually accepted an offer for
technotrans to install deltaspray on
four ink units of one of the printing
towers and conduct a test. “I
thought that they would never offer
this if there was any risk involved for
them,” he recalls.
The rest, as they say, is history:
The four systems installed in the
bottom ‘H’ of tower 12 performed
immaculately – no problems and no
negative observations, even after
several weeks. “It was impressive
to realise, under actual conditions,
what technotrans meant by its
‘maintenance-free’ statement,” Alicic
says.
To evaluate a full web – and
compare the reduced waste
– the upper ‘H’ was then also
equipped with deltaspray, making
“maintenance and service at this
location a thing of the past from
that day on”.
The company – which as part of
news
leaders
SWMH is a member of Germany’s
third-largest daily newspaper group
– took almost an entire year to
evaluate the results before ordering
the 48 systems needed for a further
six towers, which were installed in
June 2012. The remaining five were
upgraded the following January
(making 96 deltaspray systems).
By then the original systems had
still not required attention, and
Amir Alicic says, “What’s more, we
haven’t required any additional
compressed air. The engineering
solutions provided by technotrans are
absolutely convincing.”
Spray distribution across plates is
also very even, allowing dampening
solution to be reduced further,
cutting the number of wasted copies,
and improving ink flow. The bottom
line is confidence that production
will be profitable for at least another
ten more years. Alicic also gives the
technology credit for his newspaper’s
acceptance into the INCQC, thanks
to exclusive production of the print
examples provided to WAN-Ifra on
tower 12.
technotrans head of sales Peter
Böcker
says the entire set-up of the system is
aimed at boosting productivity: “The
modular spray dampening units with
individually-controlled nozzles leads
to a highly precise dosing process,
improving quality of the printed
product considerably. The nozzles
are equipped with a bayonet lock, so
they can be exchanged quickly with
just a few simple steps and with no
tools needed.”
Integration into existing
press systems is coordinated in
co-operation with technotrans, which
also offers a complete range of
peripheral equipment for newspaper
printing, from dampening solution
circulation to central ink supply
systems.
Advantages at a glance:
Auto colour for hybrid press
Agile web takes on sheetfed
Quick change Lithoman for SA
Gask & Hawley, which has the UK’s first
Leading Mexican commercial printer
In South Africa, where CTP stands
hybrid offset-and-multicolour inkjet Goss
M-600 is adding QuadTech press controls to
the press. The register, ribbon and colour
control system is managed through an ICON
platform. The 16-page Goss has inline Kodak
gx
Prosper four-colour inkjet heads fitted. n
n
34 gxpress.net
March 2015
Infagon Web is adding a new Goss M-600
press to its wide array of sheetfed and web
equipment. Owner Serafin González (left
with Goss’s Leonardo Clavijo) says the 55,000
iph press will accommodate run-lengths
gx
previously only in the sheetfed domain. n
n
for Cape Town Printers, a new manroland
Lithoman will have its four units equipped with
Dynachange job change. Managing director
Caroline Sturgeon says it is one of a number of
initiatives to afford clients “the most flexible
gx
and cost efficient production”. n
n
• dampening solution is transferred
without contact at a high and
controlled spraying frequency
• individual activation of each spray
nozzle for highest dosing accuracy
• quick, easy and tool-free replacement
of nozzles
• symmetrical design; the spray
dampening units are interchangeable
• service door for quick and easy
maintenance
gxpress.net
news
leaders
technotrans
Australia, NZ and southeast Asia:
Thomas Lengowski
thomas.lengowski@technotrans.
com
India: Matthew Sunil
matthew.sunil@technotrans.com
China: Alan Yau
alan.yau@technotrans.com
Web: www.technotrans.com
GXP NL 1503 35
Region performs
strongly in INMAs
industry
gxpress.net
Publish Asia returns to Bangkok
in April, when more than 400
newspaper executives from Asia and
the Gulf are expected. WAN-Ifra’s
leading Asia Pacific event – now the
15th ‘edition’ – is set for April 28-30.
Organisers promise a programme
that recognises the need to optimise
the production and monetisation
of news contents in print as well as
on new media platforms. “While all
indicators point to a digital future,
news publishers in Asia and around
the world still make over 90 per
cent of their revenues through their
print operations,” says a spokesman.
“To protect and enhance print
revenues remains therefore a key
priority today. But building up solid
foundations to secure growth on
mobile and digital platforms is an
equally pressing necessity.”
Publish Asia 2015 features three
simultaneous conference tracks
covering management, advertising
and editorial aspects of the news
publishing business; several in-depth
masterclasses; a large technology
expo; and a production and printing
seminar. Registration and additional
information is available at www.
publishasia.com
Among opportunities to network
and party are a welcome reception
hosted by the Tourism Authority
of Thailand on the conference eve
(April 28), and the Asian Media
Awards gala dinner (sponsored
by the Thailand Convention and
Exhibition Bureau) on the following
evening.
An ‘e-bay’ for ads: Members of
Australia’s The Newspaper Works
have launched a by-invitation
exchange to sell print advertising
inventory online. The new exchange,
dubbed Bid on Print, kicks off with
more than 140 newspaper titles and
the promise of more to come. It has
been created by TNW and Sydney
media representation company
Publisher’s Internationalé.
Newspaper Works chief executive
Mark Hollands says the aim is to
create commercial efficiencies for
media agencies and publishers.
While The Newspaper Works
had been an integral partner
in establishing Bid on Print, it is
up to each individual publisher
to participate. “We are simply
36 gxpress.net
March 2015
DRUPA’s new three-year
cycle ducks Interpack clash
I
nternational print and cross-media solutions trade show DRUPA is
responding to a changing industry by increasing the frequency of
exhibitions. Traditionally held every four years at the giant Messe in
Düsseldorf, it will switch to a three-year cycle after 2016, with successive
events in May of 2019, 2022 and 2025.
The change – which will also draw it away from a clash with Interpack
in 2020 – was agreed during a committee meeting there yesterday.
Advisory board chairman Claus Bolza-Schünemann, who is also
president of KBA, says the entire print process chain has changed radically
because of the Internet and digital technologies: “New applications and
solutions are developing and opening up new fields of business. At the
same time, there is more focus on innovative technologies, such as 3D
printing, printed electronics and functional printing.”
Messe Düsseldorf president Werner Matthias Dornscheidt
acknowledged that exhibitors who specialise in packaging printing would
have found 2020 “an incredibly stressful year”.
Precise dates have not yet been finalised, but May is targetted for the
gx
event. The 2016 show will be held from May 31 to June 10. n
n
providing another commercial
option for publishers and media
agencies to work together,”
Hollands says.
Publishers are unable to see
competitors’ offerings, while
agencies and publishers can create
their own hierarchy of transparency.
and adventures. He joins a line up
which includes a chief evangelist,
a digital prophet, the former chief
technical officer of NASA and the
founder of the Google Brain Project
at the Asia Pacific event at Sydney
Olympic Park.
Media Super has taken naming
half as many more companies with
an interest in the news media
industry… but PrintEx15 remains
one of the few production events
on the Australian calendar this year.
And it’s usually a great ‘meet
up” for friends and colleagues in
the inky side of the industry.
The 75 separate exhibitors
(excluding the three listed twice
and one four times) include
newspaper and heatset press
makers KBA and manroland,
mailroom systems provider WRH
Global Australia (Ferag), and a
handful of digital printing systems
makers, two of which (Agfa
and Screen) are also involved in
newspaper prepress.
PrintEx15 runs from May 13-15
at Sydney Showground.
rights of Australia’s National Print
Awards and will support two
personal awards.
The partnership sees the
superannuation fund “significantly
increase” financial support for the
awards, in addition to support
it already provides for statebased awards and other industry
initiatives.
It will back the young executive
of the year competition and
reintroduce that for the ‘industry
legend’ reintroduced. Judges
will consult with Media Super
representatives on their choice.
He was once one of the FBI’s
‘most wanted’: Now the man who
made a name hacking into 40 major
corporations, Kevin Mitnick is on
the speaking circuit with a date in
Sydney in May.
These days Mitnik is chief
executive and chief ‘white hat’
hacker at a boutique security firm
and mentors leaders, executives,
and staff on both the theory and
practice of social engineering.
At CeBIT Australia (May 5-7)
delegates will hear his insights
We count half-a-dozen and
Sydney contract printer MPD
Printing has gone into voluntary
liquidation following pricing
pressures in its core ethnic and
expat newspaper markets.
A statement by insolvency and
advisory firm Jamieson Louttit
& Associates says the move will
“enable a structured sale” of
the business. The 32-year-old
coldset newspaper printer, which
turns over $9 million a year, has
an estimated $3 million-worth of
capital equipment which “has tied
the cashflow”.
Managing director Linda
Tenenbaum says pressures on pricing
and increases in key costs had
continued unabated: “The printing
industry as a whole is experiencing
a difficult and increasingly volatile
economic environment,” she says.
Jamieson Louttit & Associates
was inviting expressions of interest
in purchasing the business.
Established in October 1982
as Marrickville Newspapers, the
business started with a four-unit
Goss Community web press and
basic typesetting, photographic and
plate-processing equipment, and
established a reputation for quality
newspaper printing.
It has relocated twice, changing
its name to Marrickville Print &
Design and – with a move to the
current premises in Alexandria in
2005 – to MPD. A first purchaser
of Tensor press equipment in 2002,
it now has six four-high towers in
two presslines. Customers included
financial newspaper the Financial
Times.
RISI has named Li Hongxin
of Sun Paper its 2015 Asian chief
executive of the year.
It is the third time he has been
named for the award – having won
in 2010 and 2013 – making him the
first three-time winner.
The award will be presented at
annual Asian Conference, being
held from June 1-3 at the Le
Meridien Hotel in Shanghai, China.
Respondents to an annual survey
– including investment analysts and
portfolio managers covering the
forest products industry – selected
Li based on leadership, vision and
strategic accomplishments. One
commented that in a lacklustre
year, “Sun Paper’s financial
performance did the best, thanks to
the company’s strategies in cutting
cost, diversifying products, as well as
good management vision.”
Born in 1953, Li is the founder,
chairman and general manager of
Shandong Sun Paper. He also has a
number of titles in the business and
gx
local community. n
n
Newspapers in Asia,
India, metro and regional
Australia are among finalists
in this year’s INMA awards,
announced last night.
Some 89 finalists have
been named for their
media sales and marketing
initiatives from a field
of 578 entries from 190
companies in 38 countries.
Winners will be announced
on May 12 in New York.
In Australia, the Sydney
Daily Telegraph ‘Fair go
for the West’ campaign
is named in the public
relations or community
service category – in which
Dainik Jagran in New Delhi
and the Times of India are
also honoured – and for
the best use of an event
to build a brand. News
Corp Australia tabloids
were recognised for their
‘Sir David Attenborough
collection initiative to
encourage print readership
or engagement. Traveller.
com.au is a finalist in digital
engagement for its ‘Travel
Bug’.
APN scored five finalist
places – the Gympie Times
was honoured for its print
readership initiative, the
Sunshine Coast Daily for
use of social media, while
the regional group’s media
gxpress.net
dinosaur collector cards,
free seeds promotions and
bundles were also named.
Among southeast Asian
finalists were Singapore
Press Holdings (See the
big picture), Landmark
Magazine in Hong Kong
(new print product), and
the South China Morning
Post (occupy Central
coverage).
Dainik Jagran’s role as
catalyst in transforming
democracy is also
recognised among ideas to
encourage print readership
or engagement.
Other Indian winners
included the Times of
India (public relations or
community service, and
best marketing solution
for an advertising client)
and Hindustan Times
“One India’ (best idea or
innovation to create new
profit centres).
INMA executive director
Earl Wilkinson says the
awards represent a snapshot
of the creativity, passion,
and soul of the news media
industry: “Finalists have
demonstrated a world-class
ability to communicate their
value proposition in fastchanging times.”
• Full list of finalists on the
gx
GXpress.net website n
n
Scott out of a job as
RotaDyne pulls out
R
otaDyne-made rollers for Heidelberg
customers will be supplied from the UK
following the closure of the company’s
Australian manufacturing facility.
However the company is withdrawing from
other graphic arts markets and has closed
its factory in Cheltenham, Victoria. Its OEM
contract with Heidelberg will be fulfilled from
RotaDyne’s plant in Kettering, UK.
Confirming the closure, managing director
Angus Scott – who told GXpress he was not
authorised to speak further about it – added
that he was “looking for a job”.
US parent Rotation Dynamics Corp moved
in on the Australian market just over two years
ago, snapping up Scott’s Ace Rollers/Rollmakers
business to use as a basis for its Asia Pacific
regional growth. Then president Tom Gilson
said the US giant was taking up a massive
opportunity to extend its global market share.
But Gilson – a former US navy commander
and Procter & Gamble executive – has moved
on and the Australian operation is now
apparently being viewed in a different light.
Printing is only one of 30 market areas in the
industrial manufacturing sector – including
aerospace, agriculture and housing – featured
in the company’s new website.
Angus Scott established the Ace/Rollmakers
business after leaving Brissett Rollers – with
German-owned Böttcher one of the major
players in the local market – and a new
Cheltenham factory was established soon after
gx
the RotaDyne takeover. n
n
News ink industry loses two
Two Australians with
longstanding connections
to the newspaper and ink
industries have died in recent
weeks. Flint Ink account
manager Daryl Clarke died
suddenly on January 18 aged
57, while former Coates Ink
director Noel Dalton died in
early November.
Clarke started as an
apprentice printer for C.C.
Merritt in the 1970s, later
joining John Sands and
then ink maker F.T. Wimble
He joined Flint Ink in March
2003 as part of its acquisition
of the SICPA news inks
division. His death follows
that of long-serving former
Coates Brothers (now DIC
Australia) director Noel
Dalton on November 4 – a
couple of weeks short of
his 69th birthday – after a
long battle with pulmonary
gx
fibrosis. n
n
200 years since world turned
Pat on the back for recyclers
Quick WSJ read gets ad rap
KBA has been celebrating bicentenary of the
Australia celebrated National Recycling
Rapper and reality judge Will.i.am ‘makes
printing press built for The Times by inventor
Friedrich Koenig put a rotating cylinder into
printing, and Andreas Bauer helped him build
the fully functional press in England. The
double-cylinder press produced 1,100 sph, four
gx
times as fast at Gutenberg’s. n
n
Week by congratulating itself for being the
best newspaper recycler in the world. A
TNW report on 2013 performance puts the
country’s rate of recovery and recycling of
newsprint at 78 per cent, the world’s best for
gx
the eighteenth consecutive year. n
n
time’ to read the Wall Street Journal in a new
TV commercial. One moment he’s overseeing
a recording, next moment the Black Eyed Peas
star is checking the US business journal on his
iPad. ‘People who don’t have time, make time
gx
to read the WSJ,’ the slogan proclaims. n
n
people
industry
gxpress.net
ONA links Singapore’s
digital journos
D
igital journalists’
group Online News
Association is
launched into Singapore
with a gettogether earlier
this month in Duxton Hill.
Coordinating the group
are journalists Alan Soon,
Asha Phillips and Janie
Octia, all of whom have
connections with Yahoo in
Singapore.
A media veteran with
a passionate interest in
the future of the news
industry, Soon leads
Yahoo’s southeast Asia
and India editorial teams
as managing director.
Australian Asha Phillips
runs her own social media
news consulting firm
Verily, and has taught
numerous journalists,
editors and students about
handling social content,
especially validation of
UGC. A pioneering editor at
Storyful, she now works as
an editor at Yahoo.
Third member of the
ONA team is Janie Octia,
who started as a journalist
before moving to be
editorial operations
manager for Yahoo
Southeast Asia and India.
“We’re keen to hear
from prospective members
and learn what they expect
from ONA Singapore,” says
Asha Phillips, “whether
that’s informal meet ups,
seminars, presentations or
an online knowledge base.
“Our Singapore group
is for anyone working
in news and digital –
photographers, journalists,
editors, news managers,
startups, traditional media
etc. Besides networking
events, we hope to bring
seminars, training and
panel discussions and
welcome ideas for such
events.”
Email singapore@
journalists.org to get
gx
involved. n
n
Pictured (from left) Janie Octia,
Asha Phillips and Alan Soon
De Briganti hits the trail again
With two of the ‘hike, bike and row’ events behind
him, Lodovico de Briganti is an old hand at the Smith
Family Challenge fundraiser.
The focus earlier this month turned to the NSW
coastal region of Norah Heads, with 100 km of lakes,
rivers, beaches, cliff tops, bush and ocean in prospect, to
raise funds to help young Australians to better futures
through education.
Too late to go along and cheer, you can still contribute
gx
at www.thesmithfamilychallenge.com.au/?ldebriganti n
n
38 gxpress.net
March 2015
Global changes within
Kodak have seen Australian
staff reporting to UK head of
operations Martin Mayo, and
the departure of managing
director Steve Venn.
The company announced
in November that it would
split its Asia Pacific sales
operations as part of the
merger of four current
regional sales organisations
into two. Australia and New
Zealand go with Europe,
the USA and Canada into a
new ‘EUCAN’ region headed
by managing director Lois
Lebeque, while Asia is merged
with Latin America, the
Middle East and Africa as
‘ALMA’ under John O’Grady.
Kodak Australia managing
director Steve Venn is taking
the opportunity to leave the
industry in April, ending a 40
year career.
Briton Phil Cullimore will
drive Kodak’s inkjet and micro
3D printing divisions under
the changes as president for
enterprise inkjet systems. Brad
Kruchten becomes president
for print systems, including
plates CTP.
Eric-Yves Mahe becomes
president for software and
solutions, and recently
appointed chief marketing
officer Steven Overman
gets the consumer and film
division, which is also charged
with exploring other potential
initiatives in the consumer
space.
Corporate functional
leaders have also been
trimmed to avoid overlaps.
Named are John McMullen
(financial), Mark Green
(human resources), Overman
(marketing), Patrick Sheller
(general counsel, secretary
and administration), Terry
Taber (technical), Kim
VanGelder (information,
reporting to Clarke).
Doug Edwards has
joined UK-based inkjet
technology group Xaar,
succeeding Ian Dinwoodie
who has been chief executive
since 2003. Edwards returns
to the UK from Kodak, where
he was president for digital
printing and enterprise and
a member of the executive
board since 2006.
Visiolink majority
shareholder Jens Funder Berg
has handed over the chief
executive role to 35-yearold Kenneth Boll. Berg stays
close to the Danish digital
publishing solutions company
as chief executive of a new
sister company.
Boll – described by Berg as
Berg as “the right man at the
right time” – will focus on the
increasing demand for digital
media consulting, e-paper
innovation as well as insights
and business intelligence.
Cxense says technology
sales and marketing executive
Petteri Vainikka will head
up strategic business
development after leaving
his role as chief marketing
officer at Enreach. Vainikka
was a co-founder of the
Finnish game company Rovio,
which developed the hit
mobile game Angry Birds.
He has also held global
business development and
management team positions
at Enreach, Sumea, Digital
Chocolate and Leiki.
With close to ten years
of experience in mobile
and internet technologies,
Vainikka has focused his
career on sales, marketing,
and technology, ”driven
by the thrill of using
cutting-edge technology in
unconventional ways“.
Prepress and workflow
specialist PuzzleFlow has
announced the appointment
of Ramsay McAllan to its
international sales team.
McAllan joins PuzzleFlow
Media Technologies from
OneVision Software, where
he spent seven years as
international sales and
business development
manager, responsible for sales
and business opportunities in
northern Europe, India and
the Asia Pacific.
PuzzleFlow, which
develops integrated PDFbased prepress and workflow
solutions for printing and
publishing industries, plans to
further expand its portfolio of
clients in these markets.
Chief executive Richard
Laframboise says his
experience in international
sales is “an excellent match”
for PMT’s expansion plans.
McAllan will be supported
by its German-based
support staff and research
and development offices
in Poland. “His personal
dedication to helping
customers find the ideal
solution for their production
demands will further enhance
PuzzleFlow’s ability to service
our growing global market,”
he says.
Following its acquisition
by Koch Industries and
Goldman Sachs, ink maker
Flint has appointed an
advisory board to “oversee
and support” its management
team.
Koch Development – part
of diversified manufacturer
Koch Industries partnered
Goldman Sachs Group’s
merchant banking division
to buy Flint Group from CVC
Capital Partners last April .
Pierre-Marie De Leener –
currently chairman of Braas
Monier Building Group and
a director of Trinseo – has
joined Flint Group and will
chair the new advisory board
as successor to Charles Knott.
A Belgian national, he has
board experience at private
and public including PPG
Industries and SigmaKalon in
sectors including coatings and
speciality materials.
Board executive director
will be David Scheible,
currently chairman and
chief executive of US-based
folding carton maker
Graphic Packaging. He is a
former vice president and
general manager of Avery
Dennison’s speciality tape
and automotive division, and
previously worked for tyremaker BF Goodrich.
Flint Group chief executive
Antoine Fady and chief
financial officer Steve Dryden,
will also join the board
together with shareholder
representatives.
Flint makes ink and
consumables for the
newspaper industry,
including Day blankets and
Varn washes and fountain
solutions. It operates 137 sites
in 40 countries with 6600
employees. Koch companies
manufacture products
including fuels, fibres,
fertilisers and filtration,
as well as building and
consumer products, electronic
connectors and pollution
gx
control equipment. n
n
newswrapper
mediaXchange’s country diversions, more of the anti-Fairfax vitriol
and we find a missing Cossar, as Peter Coleman wraps it up
T
his wonderful job I have at
GXpress brings enormous
compensations which help make
up for the lack of financial
reward. World travel among them.
And frustrations: This weekend I’m
laying pages out when I’d rather be
in Nashville for the opening of NAA’s
mediaXchange event. On Monday I have
to front up for some minor (I hope)
eye surgery, instead of being at the
conference proper, and I see the need to
get ahead while I can, so to speak!
From the days when it almost
completely ignored print publishing,
mediaXchange – a replacement for
the old Nexpo event – has come to the
realisation that there are still dollars
to be made in print, while driving the
transition into digital.
But hey, that’s not the only
reason why this year’s would be a
good conference to have attended:
Recognising its location in what likes
to call itself ‘Music City’, things kick
off with a reception at the Country
Music Hall of Fame, and organisers have
interleaved the business programme
with performances with some of my
favourite country artists, including
Mary Chapin Carpenter, Justin Adams,
Mickey Guyton and Caroline Kole.
Nice idea... and yes I know, tough
bikkies; I’ll get back to the page layout now.
Not having had the stomach for it earlier
in the year, I took Ben Hills’ book ‘Stop the
presses’ out of the library over the holiday.
forwardplanning
2015
And immersed myself in the sad story of
the fading glory of Australia’s newspaper
industry. Not the one Hills tells – another
yarn obsessed with what he sees as the
errors of Fairfax Media’s management –
but the reality of a market divided and
diminished by competition for advertising
and eyeballs.
There’s another story Hills doesn’t
mention too, after half an hour or so on
the phone with GX; perhaps what we
said – that production primarily out of
North Richmond and Ballarat was as now
proven, perfectly feasible – was not what
he wanted to hear.
That The Age and the Sydney Morning
Herald exist at all should be cause for
celebration given the raging desire in the
Murdoch camp to see them dead. Hard
to compete, too, with a publication with
the backing that the Australian has: As I
write, Thursday’s paper sports a couple
of half-page advertisements and some
public notices, if you discount the many
Mar 30-Apr 1 America East Media Business &
Technology Conference (Pennsylvania
NewsMedia Association with 360
Media Alliance) Hershey, Pennsylvania,
USA
Apr 7-12 Print China 2015, Guangdong, China
www.printchina.org
Apr 13-16 Gulf Print & Pack, Dubai, UAE
Apr 20-22 Digital Media Europe, London (www.
wan-ifra.org)
Apr 28-30 Publish Asia 2015, Bangkok, Thailand
(www.wan-ifra.org)
May 5-7 CeBIT Australia, Olympic Park, Sydney.
May 13-15 PrintEx15, co-located with Visual
Impact, Sydney Olympic Park,
Homebush, NSW, Australia (gamaa.
net.au/trade_shows/printexex15/)
Jun 1-3 WAN-Ifra and NAA 67th World News
Media Congress (with World Editors
Forum and 25th World Advertising
Forum), Washington, DC, USA (www.
wan-ifra.org)
Sep 2-4 WAN Ifra India Conference & Expo,
Mumbai, India (www.wan-ifra.org)
Sep 10-11 The Newspaper Works Future Forum
(including Newspaper of the Year
Awards), Hilton, Sydney, Australia
(www.thenewspaperworks.com.au)
house ads. Yet there’s always space – and
prominence – for the outpouring of vitriol
against Fairfax, the ABC... and it seems,
anyone else who stands in News’ way.
There’s been a glut of books about
Fairfax lately, but no surprise to hear
that Pamela Williams has left Fairfax
after writing hers; she obviously wasn’t
happy. What’s more amazing, perhaps, is
that they gave her a redundancy payout.
Here’s a thought: Wouldn’t it be great if
the country’s greatest publishers – and
its disaffected would-be authors – could
quit bickering and promote news media’s
bigger picture?
Are you tired of hearing about old
printing machines? After our story last
year tracking the last Cossars, Tom
McGowran has sent me a couple of
pictures of a press resting precariously in
the quaint UK village of Williton.
In an understatement that must claim
records for its modesty, he says it “just
needs a bit of spit ’n polish and an oily
rag to be as good as new...” Anyway, it’s
visual proof of the existence of one of
only a handful of the celebrated web-fed
letterpress machines surviving… and
as you can see, it’s in need of some love.
McGowran says it is apparently compete
with all the electrics still in place: “It’s a bit
rusty but nothing serious.”
And yes, it’s looking for a home –
please – available free-of-charge to anyone
who would like to make any use of it. “No
warranty, Tom? What do you mean, no
gx
warranty.” n
n
Sep 13-16 GraphExpo 15, Chicago, USA
Oct 5-7 World Publishing Expo, Hamburg,
Germany (www.wan-ifra.org)
Nov 17-19 Digital Media Asia, Hong Kong (www.
wan-ifra.org)
2016
Mar TBA Single Width Users Group, Australia
DRUPA Print & Crossmedia
May 31-Jun 10
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
gxpress.net
40 gxpress.net
March 2015

March 2015 print edition as PDF

Transcription

Similar documents

News2You online newspaper - T-Room

A golden opportunity to A golden opportunity to

KP Masters - Goss International

Newspaper extinction timeline

HOW TO USE E-NEWSPAPER ONLINE SERVICE

31.Brazil-Zero Hora-Yes, I am Gaucho

MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE CONFERENCE: Greece Forward

PHOTOCERAMICS SYSTEM

MEDIA KIT