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Vol 12/3 August 2012 Asia-Pacific

the little presses that might Think they can: Tackling Fairfax’s print challenge

Garcia’s designs contribute to an historic change

berliner waterless

box that rocks the lounge

How dual-screen technology reshapes the video proposition for mobile news publishers


inside

systems, online & mobile

digital trends: Ideas

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from Hamburg page 5

interesting times: John Juliano looks at the ethics of text generation systems page 6

box that rocks: It’s

time to follow tablets into the livingroom page 7

berliner waterless:

Dubai’s ‘Gulf News’ project in detail page 12

presses that might:

Fairfax Media says it will close its two metro print sites. We look at how they’ll cope page 30

hoisting the flag: Rod Kirkpatrick tells the story of young Leonora Gregory page 38 our thanks to these Advertisers: Agfa Graphics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Alfa Media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Eidos Media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Ferag Australia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Goss International . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NL12 Müller Martini. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Océ. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Wifag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 World Publishing Expo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 ... and also to those in the NewsLeaders technology supplement. You’ll find it between pages 16 and 29


An MPC Media publication Volume 12 Number 3 gxpress.net August 2012 Managing editor Peter Coleman Tel: +61 7-5485 0079 Mob: 0407 580 094 Email [email protected] Advertisement sales Lisa Hendry Tel: +61 7-5485 3868 Mob: 0487 400 374 South East Asia regional manager: Stephan Peters Tel: +66 2 9460 698 Email [email protected] Head office: (editorial, administration, production): PO Box 40, Cooran, Qld 4569, Australia Tel: +61 7-5485 0079 Fax: +61 2-4381 0246 E-mail: [email protected] Administration Maggie Coleman Printed by Galloping Press, NSW, Australia Latest industry news at www.gxpress.net Published by MPC Media (Pileport Pty Ltd) ABN 30 056 610 363 Subscriptions A$30 pa. (inc GST) within Australia. Other rates on application © Pileport Pty Ltd 2012. 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

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August 2012

Ad planning fits in at SPH

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egional publishing giant Singapore Press Holdings has commissioned a new advertising planning and layout system from ppi Media to integrate with existing systems. The group went live with German vendor ppi’s PlanPag in June, almost a year after signing a contract. The software is integrated with existing systems including inhousedeveloped AdNet order entry system, Atex Hermes editorial and the Adobe InDesign-based Chinese editorial systems. With 18 newspapers published in four languages, and growing requirements for ad planning and layout, it was time for some

enhancements: “To ensure that print advertising remains as an attractive option for our customers, we are challenging the status quo to create new and innovative newspaper ads,” says SPH marketing vice president Tan Ooi Boon. “The new system allows us to track and implement such ads for our clients. “This is just the beginning as we strive to reinvent print advertising, by packing more punches to it and making it more visually stunning.” SPH dominates newspaper publishing in the island state, and has been setting standards recently with creative ads and cross-media offerings. ppi has more than 90 PlanPag installations worldwide,

with the system defining main runs, pre-runs, volumes and book structures, as well as placing ROP ads, reserving desk spaces, assigning colours and reserving classified ad spaces. The SPH implementation is ppi’s second in Singapore, strengthening the company’s position in the southeast Asian market. “We see more and more Asian newspaper publishers preparing their operations for the future by favouring standardised high quality solutions,” says chief operating officer Norbert Ohl. “Individual software development does not seem to be a competitive alternative.” gx n n

Goss unloads its RSVP mobile code technology to publisher partner Rockwell

SXSW debut for cloud-based app platform

International has sold RSVP to JV Rockwell Publishing, its longstanding partner in the printto-web barcode technology and messaging platform. Rockwell’s Cumulus Interactive Technology Group – based near Cincinnati, Ohio – had been marketing and supporting the product, along with its AdApproval multimedia advertising management system and an interactive system for real estate signs. Goss had developed and introduced the stylised 2D barcode service in 2007 to provide print newspaper customers with the means to connect with emerging web and mobile markets. The system enables advertisers to see in real time which print ads get the

technology session at SXSW Interactive in Austin, USA, Netbiscuits introduced Tactile, a design and development framework to create mobile web experiences. The cloudbased platform uses web standards including HTML5 and CSS3 to create web apps rapidly. Its Markup feature replaces a large portion of JavaScript, reducing the size and complexity of the code without compromising user experience, the company says, while the HTML5 framework allows developers to extend the JavaScript library at all layers – from kernel to UI components – or using CSS preprocessor capabilities. Information services provide characteristics from the device and from NB Testing Intelligence to all n n touch points of an application. gx

Press maker Goss

most response and audit campaigns. It typically also provides a range of coupon and messaging services for advertisers, delivering an immediate response about who is interested in an advertisement. Rockwell vice president Mark Rockwell says his company will continue to develop the product: “We believe GossRSVP is a tremendous addition to our lineup of multimedia advertising products. We have been using it for more than three years as part of our ADapproval suite and see this as an opportunity to fully integrate it into our systems and expand its user community.” Goss vice president Toby Clarke says that, having worked with Cumulus ITG for some time, he is sure GossRSVP and its customers “will be in good hands”. gx n n

Hybrid app offers multiple options

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hybrid iPad app for News Limited daily the ‘Herald Sun’ delivers a mix of live content, designed magazine-style pages and an e-paper edition. The ‘best-of-both-worlds’ approach provides an intuitive and reader-attractive way to present the very rich content with fixed categories and a scrollable table of sections. Three main sections – news, sport and the ‘Confidential’ gossip column – are updated up to three times per day. Other sections including the cars guide, Hit, Taste, Sunday, and Body+Soul – are weeklies. This structure also enables the team to easily add specials as one-off releases. Each section can be downloaded separately so readers can quickly access the desired content.   The app also offers access to the e-paper replica of the print edition, which

1.3 million Victorians read every weekday. This can be downloaded separately, enabling more traditional readers to start with the digital version and move to the enriched tablet edition at a later stage. The tablet editions are created within a workflow based on WoodWing´s Enterprise multi-channel publishing system and its digital publishing tools, including hotspots, nested interactivity, scrollable areas and video. Features include sharing via social media with email options which allow readers to get in touch with editors. In some articles, the author’s Twitter account is also included.   Dynamic web elements feed off realtime events such as the scoreboard in the sport section. With new information pushed every three minutes, readers see the updates as games are being played. Sudoku, crosswords and horoscopes are also inserted dynamically, freeing gx designers from repetitive tasks.  n n


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Options: Readers can download sections separately or access an e-paper replica

www.alfamedia.com

During an emerging

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Welcome to the World of Multi Platform Publishing Crossmedia | Editorial | Advertising | Mobile | Sales | Production alfamedia Solutions Asia Pacific Pte Ltd | 50 Tagore Lane | #05-05G Entrepreneur Centre | Singapore 787494 Phone: +65 6524 5605 | Mobile: +65 9660 0339 | Email: [email protected] gxpress.net August 2012 3


systems, online & mobile gxpress.net

Fun and Games

Change of heart H prompts shake-up

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hanges at the top of major shareholder Kistefos are believed to be behind a management shake-up at newspaper systems developer Atex. Four newcomers have been appointed to top positions: Gary Stokes, formerly chief executive of UK phone handset repair company Regenersys replaces Jim Rose, who has served just 18 months in the top job after six years as a non-executive director. Jeremy Wilson, who was group financial director of Regenersys until March, joins as Atex chief financial officer, with management consultant Colin Ashworth as chief commercial officer. In his own consultancy business, Ashworth had been helping a succession of international and technology-led businesses including Ladbrokes, Zurich Insurance and Xchanging improve value and efficiency. The third member of Stokes’ team is chief staff officer Lorren Wyatt, who Atex says has a FTSE 100 main board director background, and brings extensive business and HR consultancy experience to the company. He specialises in organisational change, talent management and leadership, as well as mentoring at ‘C’ level,” says a spokesperson. The shake-up was quietly disclosed as the Atex Talking Points user event in Windsor, UK, (see facing page) providing Rose with the opportunity to make his farewells to customers. While Rose was a US national with dual UK citizenship and a CV which includes time as chairman of Dallas, Texas, marketing services company Mosaic, the new appointees are UK-based. Stokes is described as “a strong, hands-on leader” with

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more than 20 years experience in chief executive and chief financial officer positions “in the most challenging situations” and extensive merger and acquisition experience. His LinkedIn profile describes him as a change leader specialising in complex restructuring programmes and turnarounds. He left Regenersys in March last year after a shake-up in which three of the company’s directors resigned. Wilson ceased to be a director in March this year. Norwegian investment company Kistefos – established from a pulp mill business which has been retained as a museum – has been a shareholder in Atex since 1996. It is one of ten direct investments, half in IT, of the shipping and venture capital business owned outright by 56-year-old Christen Sveaas. Atex’s US$95 million revenue (2010) forms a small part of the group’s turnover which – despite falling by more than half in 2010, still amounted to NOK7.9 billion (A$1.3 billion). It made profits of NOK234 million (A$38 million), according to the company’s website. Last October Henning Jensen took over as managing director, succeeding Åge Korsvold. One issue Stokes’ team may have to address is the position in Australia, where a development cell has been retained following its indirect acquisition of Cybergraphic. Atex lost its biggest editorial systems customer in Australia to Eidos Media when News Limited announced an order in mid May. Other major users of the locally-developed Atex Genera editorial product include Fairfax Media, APN and the ‘Otago Daily Times’. gx n n

August 2012

uge demand for live video and mobile coverage of the London Olympics saw the home BBC making use of new and emerging technology from a variety of sources including Adobe and Vizrt. The national broadcaster became one of the first user of key components of Adobe’s new ‘Project Primetime’ technology to deliver live video streams and video-on-demand coverage to internet-connected devices. Primetime Simulcast was used to stream to desktops, smartphones, tablets and internetconnected TVs. One component, ‘Primetime Highlights’ creates VOD coverage of key sporting moments as they happen, allowing them to be published immediately. The software is among the first to deliver TV content via apps and browsers across all major platforms including Android and iOS devices. Digital media business senior vice president David Wadhwani says the BBC continues to push boundaries when it comes to new technologies: “With Primetime’s ability to reach almost every device including PCs, laptops, Android and iOS tablets and smartphones as well as connected TVs, we will help bring the BBC’s coverage of the Olympics to the broadest possible audience,” he says. The Highlights application creates and delivers VOD coverage of live events in real time using a single workflow and enabling a smooth viewing experience “comparable to traditional TV broadcasts”. Adobe says Primetime is currently in trial with major broadcasters and media companies worldwide. Innovative HD graphics in the BBC’s Olympics coverage were produced using Vizrt technology and a mix of custom devices and applications. Two London-based graphics providers – Mammoth Graphics and deltatre – worked with the developer to design and manage the live HD graphics operation, which was based within the BBC studio at the International Broadcast Centre. Vizrt supplied HD engines for its graphics suite equipped with 12 character generator systems, with each of six Trio live graphics systems paired with six Viz Engine HD/SD rendering systems for realtime compositing of HD video and graphics. Systems accessed all live video feeds coming into the IBC from all the venues, and many live graphics will integrate live video. “All graphics and templates have a unique BBC style, as well as a visually riveting 3D ‘medals table’ that illustrates the medals count by nation,” Mammoth Graphics managing director Phil Long says.

Most of the graphics for nearly three dozen sports – roughly 2500 events – were live and come from the Vizrt boxes. The platform was customised to support specific applications. Mammoth Graphics collaborated with another live graphics vendor, Kenziko, to create a bespoke device called KineTrak, which debuted on the Games. KineTrak detects and interprets human movements to allow on-camera presenters to control and manipulate the presentation of live graphics.

News agency AFP put out out 400-500

stories a day and 1000 videos during the Games. The agency says it had a team of180 journalists in an operation for which planning started in 2005. In photos, 70 AFP photographers from 24 countries were flown in to provide up to 2000 pictures a day, with unprecedented technical infrastructure ensuring clients can access photos practically in real time. A dozen remote-controlled cameras were positioned at the bottom of the Olympics swimming pool, and in the rafters, to give a whole new perspective on one of the most-watched events at the Games. In text, between 400 to 500 stories were transmitted a day in six languages (Arabic, English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish). Web and mobile clients monitored events in real time, with daily Live Reports in English and French. ‘Rich media’ articles, comprising weblinks and videos as well as Games-dedicated content, were designed to enhance Online News content. In addition, blogs focusing exclusively on the Games were updated by AFP staff on the ground and offices around the world. To familiarise the public with the Olympic City, its daring architecture, its ethnic diversity, its 1001 green spaces, its sometimes chaotic public transport and its never-ending artistic creativity, a web documentary, ‘London etc.’ has been created by AFP’s London office. AFP also launched an iPhone and iPad application for live coverage of events throughout the Games, including a selection of articles illustrated with videos and photos, the latest results, the schedule of events and n n the medals table. gx


gxpress.net

Digital trends examined in Hamburg newsroom summit

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rom using Twitter to gather information and report it, to raising funds from foundations for serious reporting projects, to hiring researchers and academics to analyse big data, to engaging audiences through social media, to re-organising and integrating newsrooms, every trend was discussed at the Global Newsroom Summit. “Never before have we had access to so much information and never before have the possibilities been so limitless for doing journalism,” said Paul Lewis, special projects editor for the ‘Guardian’, one of the speakers at the World Editors Forum event, which drew editors from around the globe to Hamburg, Germany.   If one theme emerged from the presentations and discussions, it was that new practices and innovation are emerging from an environment of constant change.   “I think the next two to three years will be even more revolutionary for news organisations than the last few,” said Mathias Müller von Blumencron, editor-in-chief of Germany’s newsmagazine ‘Der Spiegel’.   Tomas Brunegard, chief executive of the Stampen Group in Sweden, said the rapid pace of technological change, particular the

WEF’s global Newsroom Summit in Hamburg examined major trends facing editors-in-chief today, writes WAN-Ifra’s Larry Kilman

“tornado” of mobile growth, was a positive development for news media today.    “We are in the right spot and the right time with the right tools, and it is up to us not to screw it up,” he said. “We were taken by surprise by the internet. We were not taken by surprise this time.”   The 11th summit offered a variety of presentations on all issues of concern for editorial operations of news media companies.

Quotes from the conference:  

• Getting the story right, and ethically right, is more important than getting a shortterm scoop. We suffer from a lack of trust, and this has implications for the entire industry – Erik Bjerager, president, World Editors Forum; • I’m interested in long-term survival – if people don’t pay, we don’t get paid. Should content be paid for? We believe this in the nondigital world. Why should it be different in the digital world? – Knut Englemann, editor, ‘Wall Street Journal Germany’;    • Paid content on digital platforms is not a fashion or fluke, it is a core strategic issue for the future – Dietmar Schantin, founder, Institute for Media Strategies, Austria; • As a journalist, I want to get out there and reach as many people as I can. Why are

so many people thinking that only paid-for content is valuable? – Mathias Müller von Blumencron, ‘Der Spiegel’;   • Every new person you bring into the newsroom should be to do a job you’ve never had before – Anette Novak, former editor, Norran, Sweden, board member World Editors Forum; • At home, our journalists were using digital media, but as soon as they came into the newsroom, they were print journalists. We had to convince them that other people were using digital media too – Pierre Mauchamp, deputy editor-in-chief, ‘La Voix du Nord’, France; • “Cultural change isn’t something that happens in months, it happens in years – Henry Bouvier, video co-ordinator, Agence France-Presse, France; • In the 20th century, there were two pillars of revenues for the press – circulation and advertising. In the 21st century, a third pillar is needed – licensing the re-use of newspaper content. – Margaret Boribon, secretary general, Copiepresse, Belgium   • Why is it that, despite all the problems of integrating newsrooms, we are having the narrative that if you are not yet merged now, you will be? – Wolfgang Blau, editor, ‘Zeit Online’, Germany. gx n n

Tweets report world events live, Lewis tells symposium D igital-first is transforming news gathering strategies for the UK’s ‘Guardian’, special projects editor – and ‘reporter of the year’ – Paul Lewis told an Atex symposium in June. Lewis, who gained 35,000 extra Twitter followers during the London riots last year, showed how journalists could harness modern technologies and new funding models for ‘collaborative reporting’. “So many world events are now live reported through Twitter, leaving behind a digital footprint,” he says. “Twitter users provided a live news feed during the London riots – these users

are actually doing journalism”. The two-day Atex event was held on the historic Beaumont Estate outside London, with more than 200 delegates attending from 100 companies worldwide. The ‘digital first’ theme had earlier been explored by global product management chief Peter Marsh, examining the impact of the strategy on media industry business models, the

transformation of news and advertising products, and results to date. There were industry parallels too, from business and motivational speaker and Formula One expert Mark Gallagher: “Being brave and working the pedals is no longer enough”, he says. “Drivers now have to grasp multiplatform, multimedia interfaces. “Just as 25 years ago, newspapers could simply post copy to print, and

now they must handle multimedia content across multiple platforms”. From industry analysts Gartner and Forrester, research director Stephen Powers led a debate on content: “To me, content is still king, but people need to think about how it’s managed,” he says. And Mick MacComascaigh, research vice president at Gartner argued that content was not enough: “The customer is king. It’s important to determine the right content experience for each person. Media companies should take a cross-channel rather than multi-channel approach”. gx n n

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Scan-and-pay scheme rises in the West

comment gxpress.net

Decision support is one thing, but ‘Big Data’ and text generation systems are another, taking us away from the journalistic model of objective analysis from heuristic applications

johnjuliano

‘I

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n five years, a computer programme will win a Pulitzer Prize – and I’ll be damned if it’s not our technology,’’ Kris Hammond of Narrative Science told the ‘New York Times’, a comment referred to in GXpress Magazine in June. Self-serving, yes, but can it be true? Given that 2017 isn’t far away. In the US newspapers continue to look for technology to replace staff. It is what western culture has been doing since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Computers were to be the end of manual record keeping, and they were. Traction control and anti-lock brakes have taken over how we drive in rain and snow. We outsource our brains to our GPS systems. If it is a repetitive task that can be explained, a machine can be developed to do the task. It is less abstract when it’s your job that is going to be automated. When I was straight out of undergraduate school I implemented a membership system at the American Society of Civil Engineers. It took billing and much of the record keeping away from the squadron of women who kept membership records and sent magazine subscription bills. I told myself that rather than reducing jobs, I was allowing the organisation to do more with the staff they had. I never looked closely to see if I was right. It’s easy to understand decision support platforms like Visual Revenue’s. Heuristics-based decision support in which the heuristics can be explained. But systems such as Narrative Science’s Quill product which can write stories based on numerical facts – including financial and sports stats – are less easily understood as they process large amounts of related information while looking for relationships. The real test is whether the reader can tell if an article wasn’t written by a person. It’s early in the game and hard to judge. A review of an early phonograph said the sound was indistinguishable from a live orchestra, but today, we find this unbelievable because of our experience with the technology. Will we soon be able to easily discern the differences between human-written content and computer generated? Will our customers care? I’ve moved away from Arthur C. Clark’s statement that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” to my own: If I can’t understand it then either it’s not being explained properly or it is smoke and mirrors. The hype around text generation companies as they attack our industry isn’t quite either. NS is a Big Data company. Have you been following Big Data? Big Data is the processing of August 2012

the massive amounts of data our culture collects. At lunch last fall the head of innovation for one of the world’s largest newspaper chains advised me that Big Data was the future and that is where I should look to make money. How, I asked. He shrugged. NS says it places its efforts on financial data – where the money is – and has Forbes as a customer. Hammond is also quoted as saying that within 15 years 90 per cent of news will be written by computer. An interesting statistic, but one that can be self-fulfilling. My own company works to provide the increasing amount of content necessary for a modern news organisation’s electronic presence. A media company needs lots of content and it needs to turn over that content quickly to retain users. Software can generate an unending stream of content by continually analysing numerical information and churning new slants, new anomalies, new interesting things to be pointed out. Computers can easily churn out seven times the amount of text generated by the working journalists of today, but will it be worth reading? Is a picture still worth a thousand words? The going rate for a computer generated story is about $10 per story, less than even Patch. com pays for a story, but then unlike the Patch reporter, someone else has gathered the numerical information that is crunched and put into a textual form for consumption. The strength is in numerical analysis, but is this journalism? When I was learning about journalism, I was told that sports writers were the best writers in the industry. Each day they took a game, which was generally not much different than thousands of other games, and made it interesting. A sports writer develops a voice. When you name reporters how many sports reporters can you name versus (please excuse me) hard news writers? About the Pulitizer Prize: Generated from strictly numerical data? It’s been done before. The 1985 Pulitzer Prize won by the ‘Denver Post’ was based on number crunching. It exposed that only 200-300 stranger-to-victim kidnappings a year occur in the US, rather than the tens of thousands we’re lead to believe from milk carton sides. So what makes a good story? Human interest, quotes, investigative reporting that does not show up in gathered statistics. Companies that generate stories from numbers – and there is more than one – do hard data analysis and then rather than display that content in a graph, generate text. Cool, but not reporting. It is Big Data Analysis. Six months before the financial crash I met with a friend at a large bank who did financial modelling. I asked,‘‘does your model work? Does it accurately predict?’’ I was answered with the

condescending scorn born of hubris:‘‘You must not understand financial modeling to ask such a question.’’ I guess I didn’t understand, but then they didn’t seem to have, either. The danger and the opportunity are in the holes that such a product will inevitably have. Most of us prefer a narrative to charts, we want a story, and we want analysis: Tell me what the numbers mean. Should computer-generated stories become more and more dominant, we will rely less and less on our own analysis and more and more like my banking friend who was so very certain of her computer model. Text generation systems can take statistics from any game, gathered along the way by team professionals, attendees in the stands or proud parents and instantly generate a game synopsis. Depending on who the intended reader is the synopsis can play up successes and ignore failures, producing an entirely different synopsis for each team. It can always be a sunny day in the neighborhood or the sky can be falling. A team can be routed by a superior team or robbed of its victory: computer programmed editorial view. Or even a worldview that matches your view based upon your behavioural profile picked out of Big Data. A ‘‘readership of one’’ is a phrase coming into usage. We trust our GPS in faraway places that we don’t know and evaluate the recommendations carefully in our local environs. When it comes to Big Data we’re convinced that we can not assess the data on our own, and as products that do analysis and generate text move us farther and farther away from the raw numbers, we have less and less detailed insight. Returning to the Visual Revenue’s decision support product. The strength of such a system is its objective analysis: No Spin, no emotions, just the application of the heuristics. Big Data and text generation systems move us away from this model. They tell us a narrative, a story and will even place whatever voice or spin the customer wants. This is the strength and weakness of a story: It is a point of view versus cold graphs and stark numbers that are slanted only by excluding or including data. It’s an interesting time. Is a good reporter like Jean Harlow’s gold digger character at the end of the 1933 American film ‘Dinner at Eight’, who asks Marie Dressler,‘‘Do you know that the guy says that machinery is going to take the place of every profession?’’ Dressler arches an eyebrow and replies,‘‘Oh, my dear, that’s something you need never worry about.” The film then fades to black. Newspaper systems industry veteran John Juliano writes regularly for GXpress gx Magazine, Contact him at [email protected] n n

Cloud is rising

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S and UK publishers are moving to cloud-based technology, with major Chicago publisher Sun-Times Media in the latest of a string of Digital Technology orders. The company says the largescale deployment is a major expansion of its cloud-based solutions at the publisher. The Wrapports company serves more than 300 communities across the greater Chicago region with media properties including the flagship ‘Chicago Sun-Times’. Recent weeks have seen Cheyenne Newspapers opt for circulation and advertising products and Robinson Media’s

Texas-based ‘Waco Tribune-Herald’ take circulation, advertising and financial software. Sun-Times Media already uses DTI’s cloud editorial solution. In the UK regional publisher KM Group – the first European user of DTI’s Cloud technology – is adding advertising to its existing editorial implementation across more than 25 print, radio, and online products, and will add DTI Circulation later this year. The Cloud architecture enables production of news and advertising content from a single environment, improving enterprise-wide collaboration and responsiveness. gx n n

A campaign using barcodes to drive

orders from print ads has launched in Perth daily ‘The West Australian’. PayPal Australia and Point and Pay worked with West Australian Newspapers to develop what they say is “a new shopping experience” using printed QR codes read by smartphones. In late July, the ‘Weekend West’ included a four-page advertising liftout aimed at encouraging readers to purchase products directly with their mobiles. Scanning the paper takes them to a simple purchase process through PayPal and the Point and Pay service. PayPal says it expects to handle $10 billion in transacted mobile payment volume globally this year, more than double that processed last year. And with increasing mobile use – Australia already has the second-highest smartphone and tablet penetration in the world – new applications including ‘second screen’ use are set to continue the digital revolution. The WAN trial is a further move to help advertisers increase the value of their print media space. The solution developed by

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Point and Pay provides retailers with another channel to sell to the mobile consumer. Managing director of Point and Pay Damian Cook says the system offers the ability to make advertising transactional so that consumers can buy directly from print, TV and outdoor ads with their mobiles. “It provides retailers with all the tools necessary to transact via smartphone, from QR Code technology to the mobile shopping cart, right through to fulfilment and courier integration,” he says. WAN sales director David Bignold sees this as the next step in the evolution of print media: “We’re excited to be the first daily newspaper to launch a fully transactional space to help local retailers reach consumers more effectively.” gx n n

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cover story gxpress.net

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ith high tablet use in the livingroom, and sets internetconnected through streaming boxes and smart TVs, the stage is set for a consummation of the relationship between browser and viewer. But will it take the form everyone has been expecting? While news publishers have been looking for a while for the means to exploit the audience potential, new applications based on Apple’s dual screen technologies have the potential to take the market in a new direction. In the streaming market, the Apple TV box continues to evolve but is not without competition… a good thing since despite its elegant remote, its clunky user experience is far from being the most satisfying the iPhone, iPad and Macintosh computer maker has created. And it is still hamstrung by a shortage of content provider partnerships. Recent weeks have seen a number of interesting commercial developments, based both on Apple technology and that of its competitors. American subscription service Hulu – which streams films and TV programme content on subscription in the US and Japan, where it launched

last September – moved onto the Apple TV platform at the end of last month, and is apparently pleased with the “warm welcome” of its first international move. Founded in 2007 with support from News Corporation, NBC Universal, Walt Disney and others, it now claims there are now more than 29 million Hulu-enabled devices in the market including Sony TVs and games devices. Now News appears to be having a dollar each way, with an investment in Roku, said to be the Apple TV’s only real competitor. Its streaming box system operates in the US, UK Ireland

and Canada at present, and the $45 million it raised last month from News, BSkyB and others will help it develop a simpler USB stick-based device. But with News’ chief digital officer Jon Miller joining the board, it’s likely the global giant – one of the world’s biggest film and TV producers, as well a major news publisher in the UK and US and the dominant player in Australia – also has content synergies in mind. This month News gained approval for a takeover of Packer’s Consolidated Media Holdings in Australia, which would bring its share of pay-TV company Foxtel to 50 per cent.

In addition to these boxes, internetconnected ‘smart TVs’ also offer content, with LG having attracted Australia’s Fairfax Media, which has smh.tv and theage.tv offerings, to its app store. There’s a school of thought however, which believes that this connectivity – internal or external – may just be a sideshow, as phones and tablets get more powerful. Cloud-based content services provider Brightcove, which launched a dual screen solution for Apple TV in June, certainly thinks so. The challenge, especially now, is to get inside Steve Jobs’ head… and that of his successor, Apple chief executive Tim

screen box that rocks Platform moves and dual-screen streaming technology suggest it’s time to follow tablets into the livingroom, writes Peter Coleman

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August 2012

Cook. Brightcove chairman and founder Jeremy Allaire picked up on the Jobs remark in Walter Issacson’s biography that Apple had “cracked the code” on TV, and Cook still describes it as an area of intense interest. Cook’s comment a few weeks back was that Apple would “keep pulling the string and see where it takes us”. Allaire’s bet, reflected in his company’s announcement, is that the iPad maker isn’t going into the pay TV business, and will rest the power in the iPhone or tablet itself and its associated, very profitable app business. Instead, he says Apple will seek partnerships with top cable companies in which they open up their APIs for their electronic programme guide, VOD libraries and network DVR infrastructure so that Apple can offer a superior user experience on top of those services, “in a carrier/operator independent manner, much as they did with the mobile services of the leading telephony carriers in the world,” he says. The Apple TV device would be

Little streamer: Apple TV box (top and above) and its US offering; Right: Internet TV on the ‘New York Times’ site; Facing page: (clockwise from top) The Roku box; video sharing with Brightcove; and a Hulu screen on the AppleTV platform

used in concert with an existing subscription from a TV operator, with the TV functionality accessed as an app. In what is basically a ‘TV as monitor’ scenario, the iPhone or iPad becomes a next-generation TV set-top box, but one which is both highly personal and highly social. Technology Apple has already released prepares for this: An upgraded AirPlay released in iOS 5 last year – and set to be part of the Mac OSX this year – allows users to beam any content or application to an Apple TV box. A mirroring feature which will duplicate the content of the phone or tablet screen on TV, while using it to browse and navigate, can enable ‘dual screen apps’ and it is this area Brightcove aims to develop for publishers. Allaire says after putting an Apple TV box on each of the sets around his house, he’s using it instead of the ‘smart TV’ or cable device interface. “Even now, it is a highly compelling product,” he says. “I’m playing games on my TV with

my kids, watching movies, streaming live broadcast TV using authenticated TV apps from companies like CNN and ESPN, and with dual-screen MLB it is hands down the best way to watch baseball with an iPad app in hand.” So if Allaire is right, Apple’s next step will be development of the Apple mobile platform as part of the “core focus” of extending the iOS and iTunes ecosystem onto TV. A commodity add-on peripheral – “the fastest way to accomplish this” – could be a smaller box including a camera, motion sensor and speech processing as well as power and HDMI connections, he speculates. Oh, and a TV monitor with those capabilities plus a design and form factor in keeping with the Apple brand, “because they can, and it will be gorgeous and include the latest innovations in display technology, and will sell at a premium price that ensures a reasonable gross margin for Apple”. With updates to its iOS mobile operating system and APIs, there will

a demand for apps which exploit the AirPlay capabilities and add to the 500,000 TV apps, with cable content just another app. “What matters is that soon potentially tens of millions of HD-capable monitors will become a screen for the hundreds of thousands of apps running on devices that are already in people’s hands,” he says. Apple, which was this month granted a 2006 patent application on an iPod-like video control interface, looks positioned to take yet another leading role, begging the question of where that leaves smart TVs and competitor boxes. With or without Apple, the opportunity is to capitalise on the up to 80 per cent (according to a US study) of smartphone users who are already using these devices while watching TV, and provide them with a whole new contextual experience. gx n n




Generic

digital newspaper printing

High volume print giant RR Donnelley & Sons has

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introduced a series of applications for its new ProteusJet Multiweb platform, aimed at helping transactional customers to manage personalised communications to maximise revenues. Co-developer with KBA of the imaging technology on the new RotaJet 76 press, the company says its integrated piezoelectric four-colour inkjet technology and fully automated mail assembly lines can create mailings with “precision, speed and familiarity”. Chief technology officer Mary Lee Schneider says the platform harnesses complex business rules developed by clients to dictate text and colour graphics instantaneously.

A new Océ inkjet press launched this February

swung Australia Post to a multimillion investment in the digital print technology. The two ColorStream 3700 Twin presses, to be installed in Australia Post’s Melbourne and Sydney print facilities, offer major productivity savings, quality improvements and waste reduction. New software systems and Pitney Bowes inserting complement the presses. The 3700 – the high-speed model in the ColorStream Twin series – prints a web of 540 mm at up to 100 metres per minute. One benefit is that the press can stop and start without ‘losing its place’ or affecting data integrity. This eliminates paper waste of as 20-200 metres and saves time. The German-built press can also switch between n n colour and mono in minutes. gx

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DRUPA inkjet goes to Chicago

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KS inkjet from DRUPA goes to Chicago contract printer in time for GraphExpo Chicago contract newspaper printer Newsweb Corporation is to install the TKS inkjet web press the Japanese company showed printing the ‘Wall Street Journal’ at DRUPA. A letter of intent covers the JetLeader 1500 digital colour press, which uses piezoelectric ‘drop-on demand’ technology to print at up to 150 metres/minute. The online newspaper folding system will handle products up to 72 pages in five sections. Based in Lincoln Park, the company currently prints ethnic and alternative newspapers coldset web, and is also the owner

of radio stations in the area. Printing division president Rodd Winscott says the company had been looking at digital ink jet technology for years, “but did not feel it was where we wanted it to be.” DRUPA changed that: “After the show, we knew this was the machine to take our printing to a new level and create new business opportunities. TKS has a superb reputation for offset presses and we know this will carry over to its JetLeader product line”. President and chief executive of TKS Ltd Yoshikazu Shiba says the company is excited to be working with Newsweb. “It has a great reputation in its market

and wants to enjoy the benefits of offset and inkjet printing,” he says. “Having a North American show place is very important to prove the technology and business model as well as to further work with paper and ink suppliers in a more central location.” The press should be in operation in Chicago by October, making it possible for visitors to the GraphExpo convention (October 7-10) to see it. TKS USA president Nobuyuki Nakajima says the press will be used for smaller runs currently printed offset, as well as new business including books, catalogues and variable data. gx n n

The leading exhibition for technology to publish news on tablets, mobile, in print and online.

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August 2012

www.wan-ifra.org/ worldpublishingexpo2012



Format meets need for compact, economical and sectionalised newspaper

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he ‘Gulf News’ switch to Berliner format has been accompanied by a redesign, which its architect, Dr Mario Garcia says is “more a rethinking than a redesign”. He says the move is a logical evolution for broadsheet format newspaper, “if they wish to become more economical, cater to the readers’ preferences for more compact printed products, and still

maintain the sectionalising that is so popular with users.” It’s a format he says, which “allows many of the fine features of the broadsheet, especially indexing and taking apart of sections, but also allows the reader to hold two pages together in their hands, reading without having to fold the pages”. Garcia says the paper has already created the bases for a convergent newsroom, with “the media quartet

in place”, and its own curated tablet edition. “The conversion to Berliner gave us an opportunity to conceptualise the design of a modern printed newspaper,” he says. Elements included a palette of colours for the masthead, and a front page which was less “text oriented” and more visual… a “fantastically functional” navigator to the inside. “Page One must

surprise at all times, and have the flexibility to accommodate the editors’ approach to the day’s news,” he says. Two elegant type faces, Glosa and Salvo Sans are used for the editorial design, with Retina for classified text. Sections have their own character, with sport and the feature-driven ‘The View’ based on a ‘newspaper within

Berliner, waterless

August 2012

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and avoiding the monotony that has prevailed for so long where ‘news inspired’ design carries over and dominates sections which may not necessarily have a newsy angle. gx n n Pictured (far left) Design director Miguel Gomez (left) with editor in chief Abdul Hamid Ahmad and managing editor Mohammad Al Mezel; Centre: Pages from the first Friday (June 1) launch and Saturday issues and supplements

Al Nisr Publishing’s ‘Gulf News’ has become the region’s first Berliner format newspaper, and the first printed waterless outside Europe

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Construction work starts on the new plant in the Investment Park in Dubai’s Green Community

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the newspaper’ concept. “Typographically they are first cousins of the rest of the newspaper, but stylistically, they have their own personality,” says Garcia. “The Berliner format is especially good for that, to offer visual variety while providing each section with its own personality.” He says more print newspapers are likely to follow this direction, “surprising with each section”,


t sounds the ultimate logic: Print waterless in the desert. Yet the reasoning behind the choice of technology had more to with flexibility and product needs than the elimination of dampening in a city which is in fact, rich in desalination plants. Like other newspapers in the region, the ‘Gulf News’ is a hybrid mix of colourful heatset on glossy stock, and bright coldset pages on newsprint. And one of the advantages of the KBA Cortina press which went on edition in Dubai, UAE, at the beginning of June is the ability to print both heatset and coldset with the same inks. Webs from four of the 12 4x1 towers can be directed through a dryer… or not, according to production demands… without the need to change inks. Typically, the ‘Gulf News’ will be a mix of lightweight coated stock and newsprint, but irrespective of whether the press print is printing the flagship title, or one of its glossy or newsprint sections, the benefits in terms of productivity gains over conventional ‘wet offset’ with thermal dryers is considerable. The press which is the centrepiece of a plant constructed in the middle of the desert – on a industrial estate approximately 60 kilometres outside the city – is notable in at least two other respects: It takes the 34-year-old daily from broadsheet to the Berliner format, and is the manufacturer’s first waterless installation outside Europe, where seven waterless press users were recently among those accepted for membership of WAN-Ifra’s International Newspaper Color Quality Club. In fact, the ‘News’ first appeared as a tabloid in 1978, but switched to broadsheet in the 1980s. Now it will be interesting to see whether others in the region follow the lead. Massive regional growth has helped the paper from the 3000-copy circulation of its launch to a figure comfortably into six figures as the flagship of a major regional publishing group. The English-language title is published seven days a week and distributed in the UAE, Bahrain, Oman, SaudiArabia, Qatar and Pakistan, and has a daily circulation of more than 120,000 copies. An online edition, www.gulfnews.com was launched in 1996. The company also publishes magazines – including ‘Friday’, ‘InsideOut’, ‘Aquarius’, ‘Alpha’, ‘Wheels’, ‘Scene’ and the weekly tabloid ‘Xpress’ – runs two English-language radio stations, and is also heavily engaged in cultural and sporting activities.

When then production manager Dean du Toit was in Australia in 2006, a guest speaker at the Single Width Users Group, he told of a bustling city in which two-thirds of the world’s construction cranes were in use, and of population growth from 3.75 million to five million in three years. With production at the plant then up to 5.5 million copies across 66 products with an average of 32 broadsheet pages, investigations were underway then for a successor to the six lines of manroland Cromoman then in use. Things may have settled a shade since then, but Dubai remains at the centre of a massive UAE boom. The order for the 12-tower KBA Cortina was placed in September 2008, to be accompanied by a comprehensive Ferag mailroom. The highly-automated 80,000 cph double-wide, one-around hybrid press has a total capacity of either 96 full-colour Berliner format pages or 192 of the A4-plus half-fold format. Of these, up to 32 Berliner pages can be printed heatset. The Ferag mailroom system includes CTI winding and unwinding, two MSD inserting drums, SNT50 inline stitching and trimming, two Sitech label applicators and ten stackers. There are also six polybag lines capable of six onserts, with two gadget feeders. The paper’s owner, Al Nisr Publishing is a tireless innovator in the Gulf region’s newspaper segment: “For years we have driven advances in newspaper production on the Arabian peninsular with groundbreaking innovations,” managing director Obaid Humaid Al Tayer said at the time of the order. “We were the first newspaper in the region to include weekly tabloid magazine inserts for leisure activities, families and younger readers, and to adopt a modern layout with in-depth business and sports sections. “The ‘Gulf News’ was also the first to print small ads separately in special tabloid supplements, to produce certain sections in heatset on coated stock, to automate page production and to use recycled newsprint.” Delighted with quality and performance of the new press, Obaid Humaid Al Tayer sees the potential for further expansion of the paper’s “acknowledged pole position” in the region. And he says after a few weeks of production, he is confident that reductions in makeready times, waste, maintenance and labour input will be achieved as a result of the Cortina’s automation and technology. gx n n Peter Coleman with Klaus Schmidt/KBA • More pictures and reports next page



‘Leap of faith’ for a pioneering Gulf publisher

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ustralian production head Mike Condon says the challenges of changing print site, print process and format overnight were immense. Installation had been delayed – “though not through any fault of KBA or Ferag” – but went well, although tests were exhausting. “We still had to run and produce at the old site, with production and maintenance teams split between the two sites,” he says. “The June 1 ‘go live’ was the culmination of a huge team effort over four years of sometimes very stressful days. Many hours were spent organising and preparing as everything had to fall into place with no going back.” Editorial systems had also been had updated, with a commitment to the new Berliner size that meant they could not easily revert to the old broadsheet format. Printing and dispatch from the old site finished at 3.30 am on May 31, and production of various preprint sections in the new size had to start at the new site at 9 am the same day. “Not much of a respite for anyone,” Condon says. “Anyone who has put in a new press knows what it is like on the first night: Everyone is there to see the beginning of a new era, and the last thing you want is for anything to go wrong.” As it was, only minor things did go wrong, and were quickly overcome. “We were late but it was a huge relief to get our first Berliner-sized publication out the door,” he says. “Now we just have to do it every day, 365 days of the year.” Condon describes the waterless Cortina – a choice which had already been made when he joined the company as production manager – as “a huge leap of faith” for the region. “Ink has to be specially made for the waterless presses

Colour power: Four thermal dryers serve the press (above) configured with 12 towers and reelstands, and three folders; Right: The Al Nisr Publishing plant in the middle of the Dubai desert; Below right: Obaid Humaid Al Tayer (second left) with executive director of operations Irshad Nooruddin (second right) and colleagues; Below: Three folders with copy transport systems are located in the centre of the Cortina press line

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August 2012

on a separate production line from conventional inks. Choice is limited – ‘Gulf News’ is running Flint and Seigwerk, with a third supplier in trials – and even more so for plates, with Toray the only manufacturer of waterless plates in the world. “Most consumables take eight weeks to reach Dubai, so logistically it’s a nightmare ordering stock to arrive regularly and on time,” Condon says. “Luckily a lot of the ordering process has been learnt from years of trial and error at the old site.” The waterless technology is “a whole new way of thinking” with a print window greatly reduced compared to conventional presses, but resulting quality “well worth it”. Condon says he is lucky to have a great team of production staff, including prepress, who have taken to the waterless concept “like, excuse the pun, ducks to water”. He says there has been a huge learning curve, with staff learning something new every day with the Cortina… something which will go on for a long time. Apart from the new press, the mailroom – fully-automated from press to delivery dock – included unfamiliar equipment: “The CTI winding system was new to us, as was onserting and polybagging our products,” he says. Onserts had previously been handled manually, and a new Linemaster system produced barcoded labels for bulk bundles. Maintenance department staff have also undergone immense amount of training, with a huge learning curve on new equipment and technology. All the staff are “very dedicated and hard working”, he says. “I am personally very proud of what the all the teams have achieved to date. We have set a benchmark in the UAE, printing waterless in the desert.” gx n n

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Vegemite and Aussie beer... but family the biggest sacriifice Australian Mike Condon (pictured

with wife Tracie) took over as head of production at the ‘Gulf News’ from Dean du Toit in 2009. The former print site manager at Rural Press Ballarat and previously shift supervisor at the ‘Canberra Times’, says he has had no difficulty settling into the expat life. “The lifestyle is great, and everything you could want is here – even Vegemite and Aussie beer – and it’s great for travel as Europe and Asia are close. “However, we miss our children, grandchildren and families terribly – this is the biggest sacrifice.” gx n n

Delighted: Obaid Humaid Al Tayer (above) with a first copy of ‘Gulf News’; Above right: A lightweight coated web leaving one of the four heatset dryers Right: An impression of the press with its four heatset dryers

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Ferag Australia Pty Ltd Unit 6b / 190–196 Bourke Road Alexandria, NSW 2015, Australia Phone +61 2 8337 9777 Fax +61 2 8337 9788 [email protected] www.ferag-australia.com

09.08.10 gxpress.net August 2012 15

16:19



trends gxpress.net

India, Malaysia, Philippines catch the mood of young readers

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ndia’s ‘I-Next’ and other winners in the 2012 World Young Reader Newspaper of the Year competition received their awards in Bangkok in July. The ceremony at the Young Reader AsiaPacific Summit drew newspaper publishers and other news media executives from 25 countries. The WAN-Ifra-organised awards recognised 19 newspapers and a printing plant for innovative strategies and projects that attract young people to the news. ‘The Star’ (Malaysia) and the ‘Philippine Daily Inquirer’ (Philippines) also shared honours with newspapers from Sweden, Puerto Rico

and Poland in the competition won last year by Indonesia’s ‘Jawa Pos’. “Youth matters more today than ever. This is not only as future readers and opinion makers, but because, right now, they are spearheading important changes in all facets of life, technology and civil society,” says WAN-Ifra president Jacob Mathew. “According to the United Nations, 62 per cent of the world’s 15-24-year olds live in Asia. That means almost two out of every three people in that age group are in this region. Thus it makes sense for WAN-Ifra’s new focus on young readership development within regions of the world

APN warms NZ to tabloid ahead of Herald switch

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fter canvassing the subject with readers earlier this year, APN News & Media has committed to a switch to tabloid for its weekday ‘New Zealand Herald’ editions, later this year.The move signals a possible end to the country’s love-affair with the broadsheet format, which has been the norm with a few regional exceptions. While most editions go tabloid later this year, the Saturday version of the 150 yearold Auckland daily will remain broadsheet. Canvassing the topic earlier this year, the paper pointed out that Whangarei’s ‘Northern Advocate’,

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the ‘Wanganui Chronicle’, ‘Oamaru Mail’ and Wairarapa ‘TimesAge’ were all tabloid. Women preferred the easier-to-handle smaller size and it helped give the impression of a thicker newspaper as publishers tackled falling advertising volumes. Some of the markets that had been changed to compact had been experiencing sharp declines in readership and all had halted, if not reversed, that trend. In the South Island, the ‘Christchurch Star’ switched to tabloid – which can be produced on a wider range of presses – after the earthquake, and stayed with the format. gx n n

August 2012

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should start in Asia. We must start early and connect often.” In addition to the Young Reader award, ‘I-Next’ also won the top award in the public service category for a project that encouraged 18 to 25-year olds to vote. Part of the work was a survey that found youth interested in change, especially getting rid of corruption. The elections saw the highest turnout in 30 years and the election of the youngest-ever state chief minister.   “‘I-Next’ did an excellent job,” the prize jury noted. “We found it especially interesting that youth considered corruption the number one topic of concern.” gx n n

Winners: Some 19 newspapers and one printing plant (main picture) received awards; Above: I-Next editor and chief operating officer Alok Sanwal and brand head Chetan Sehgal (centre) are congratulated by WANIfra Young Readership Development executive director Aralynn McMane and president Jacob Mathew

Online Aussies ready to shop, note social media advice

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nline shopping has more than doubled in two years, according to Australian research by Roy Morgan Single Source. Figures for the year to last March show use of the internet for any kind of online activity – from communication, to searching for information, to shopping or entertainment – has increased by 21 per cent. While most use the internet for communications,‘marketplace’ activities of ‘buying, selling, and shopping’ is up by 167 per cent since 2008, to more than 40 per cent or 7.8 million. More than 14.2 million Australians aged 14+ now do some kind of online activity in an average four week period, according to the data. The most popular related activities (in order) were making an online purchase (5.5 million), researching a product or service to buy (nearly 5.1 million), and other pre-purchase research (such as reading ratings/

reviews of products/services, reading online catalogues or classified ads, and visiting price comparison websites, 3.4 million). Although still relatively low, the number of people who bought something as a result of advice from a social network has increased by 19 per cent on last year. Morgan research media industry director George Pesutto says as the reach and influence of social media

continues to grow, it can be expected that this will also continue to increase. “The number of people using the internet to research products and services represents a huge opportunity for brands,” he says.“Online is now a key source for consumers seeking information on products or services to buy, and for many it is now the destination for all pre-purchase research.” gx n n

news leaders n e w s pa p e r a n d p u b l i c at i o n s y s t e m s & t e c h n o l o g y a gxpress special promotion august 2012

N Newspaper technology Publication production

news leaders

ewspaper print continues to improve and become more efficient, and the issues associated with digital publishing are still being resolved, if the topics in this supplement are anything to go on. In both print and the unfurling online and mobile markets, vendors continue to find new ways in which newspaper publishers can enhance their businesses. And that is what this NewsLeaders supplement is all about. A platform for industry suppliers to explain and introduce their latest innovations... especially in following the important DRUPA print media trade fair. And newspaper-committed systems developers are finding new ways help their customers navigate a route through the digital jungle. We hope you find their contributions to this special supplement helpful. gxpress.net


Peter Coleman Managing Editor



ONLINE PUBLISHING

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➤ How would you like hundreds or thousands of potential subscribers and marketers for your brand? What if that database built itself from your current subscribers?

A new Facebook app from Realview delivers a solution which helps you build subscribers from social media exposure

That’s exactly what Realview offers, and here’s how it works: A ‘National Geographic’ digital magazine subscriber reading an issue using an iPad app, shares an article with a friend. His friend is using an Android tablet, so reads the article using the web app version of the magazine, and he shares it with his friend. This time the friend gets the message on his smartphone and reads the article as text and images – a better way to read on a mobile. He also loves the article and sends it onto his friend who is at work and reads the same article using the HTML version on his desktop. He loves it so much that he posts the article on Facebook. What happens next is extraordinary. The post on the Facebook wall is actually a link to the same ‘National Geographic’ issue and article, only in a Facebook app with all kinds of sharing options at the readers fingertips. Like, share with friends, post to wall and comment are all a single click away. All of his friends see the link, and because they all have similar interests they click to read the article he is so excited about. His friends share the link with their friends and their friends with their friends and in a short space of time hundreds of people have read the article. The publisher is extremely pleased – all of those Facebook users exposed to their brand and the publisher collected hundreds of email addresses of potential new subscribers – all from one person posting one article on their wall.

how did all Those Facebook users geT access to a secure publication, and how did the publisher get all of those users names and email addresses? Realview provides three key components to enable this.

1. The Realview Digital Viewer: Empowers the reader to

make the choice of device and method of access ensuring the greatest reach via social sharing: • Online as HTML – not Flash absolutely no downloads needed; • iPad and Android tablets as a web app; Newspaper technology Publication production

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news leaders

Published by MPC Media (Pileport Pty Ltd) ABN 30 056 610 363 Subscriptions to GXpress Magazine A$44 pa. (inc GST) within Australia. Other rates on application © Pileport Pty Ltd 2012. 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

How to get more subscribers for your digital publication from Facebook

New

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➤ To charge or not to charge… Not so much the question as the whole evolution of the news publishing business model.

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• smartphones using HTML 5 (as rich pages or as text and image based articles); • native iPad app; • native Android app. Interactivity such as videos, image galleries and pop ups all render perfectly on every device.

2. The Facebook app:

Sharing to Facebook from any viewer (including native apps) posts a link to the Facebook App. Once friends access the Facebook app, all social sharing options are a single click away and the publisher gets access to the friends information; Name, email, gender, DOB. That information is stored in the Realview database.

app

3. Timed subscription:

Friends are automatically subscribed with temporary access to a secured publication to enable them to read the article and share it further. Access is restricted by time, for example ten minutes each week for four weeks; five minutes a day for the next week. Regardless of how the friend receives the share either directly via email, broadcast on twitter or from a Facebook post, the friend is granted temporary access to the publication. And the publisher gets the shared information.

Smart app: Apart from its social media connectiivity, the ‘National Geographic’ Realview iPad app makes use of a range of features including browsing, search, and access to related pages

The publisher can now markeT To The temporary subscribers via email to upgrade them into full subscribers. Next time the publisher sends an email to their current subscribers (about a new issue for example), a notification will also appear on the wall of everyone who has ever read the publication on Facebook for all their (new) friends to see again - regardless of whether they are subscribers or not.

IncreasingAn elegant circulationsolution from ...online EidosMedia Potential subscribers and marketers of your brand; a powerful tool for publishers and content marketers.

Realview

Level 3, 191 Clarence Street, Sydney NSW 2000 Ph: +61 2 9299 1788 Fax: +61 2 9299 0468 www.realview.com.au

will be transformative for News Limited GXP NL 08/12 5

Digital imprinting systems from Kodak are helping newspaper and commercial printers differentiate themselves Mitsubishi takes the DiamondEye closed-system it developed for newspapers to a wider market at DRUPA

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A GXpress special promotion Published by MPC Media Managing editor Peter Coleman Tel: +61 7-5485 0079 , Mob: 0407 580 094 E-mail [email protected] Advertisement sales: Australia Lisa Hendry Tel: +61 07-5485 3868, Mob: 0487 400 374 Email [email protected] South East Asia Stephan Peters Email [email protected] Head office: (editorial, administration, production): PO Box 40 Cooran, QLD 4569, Australia Tel: +61 7-5485 0079 Fax: +61 2-4381 0246 Email: [email protected] Web: www.gxpress.net Administration Maggie Coleman Printed by Galloping Press, Kirrawee, NSW, Australia

online publishing

The search for a paid content solution just got easier: Digital Technology introduces Digital Paymeter

Why a press control retfrofit from ABB may make excellent sense New technology, new service and customer relationship initiatives ensured DRUPA was a landmark event for QI Press Controls

If it’s valued and valuable, users should pay for it and there is growing momentum in the publishing industry for the adoption of a paid content business model. And while views differ about the most effective – and least painful – ways of extracting much-needed dollars and cents from digital readers, time and revenue are seeping away. What if you could establish the concept, while still having the flexibility to experiment with options? That’s exactly the thinking that has led Digital Technology International to the creation of its next-generation paid content solution, Digital Paymeter. The cloud-based system gives publishers complete control over their digital strategy, and can be simply integrated with current circulation systems. Best of all, you don’t share revenue or data with a third party: Digital subscriptions are 100 per cent yours, and so is the relationship between you and your subscriber. Powered by Syncronex, Digital Paymeter is a customisable solution that gives publishers complete control over their digital strategies and revenues, and works with any content management system or circulation software. Digital Technology president Dan Paulus says Digital Paymeter is a direct response to the market demand for a paid content approach that puts publishers in control of their revenue and their subscribers: “Clearly, metered paywalls are succeeding which is why 87 per cent of newspapers have chosen the metered approach,” he says. “We also know that every market is different so Digital Paymeter gives publishers the flexibility to customise their paid content offerings and pricing models.” Digital Technology is the exclusive

news leaders

Digital Paymeter offers new digital services including:

• Metered online access to a defined number of articles • Premium content packages • Day Passes • E-editions and Digital Replicas • iPad, tablet, and mobile subscriptions • Single log-in for a consistent user experience • Cross-media combo subscriptions • ABC reporting with track access history

Finding the flexibility for paid content

provider of Digital Paymeter which was developed by Syncronex and marketed as syncAccess. It is proven technology that has been in live production for almost two years at the Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tennessee. As it works with any CMS or circulation system, it’s also a great way to get to know DTI without already being a customer. Digital Paymeter is the first service offered through DigitalSpectrum, DTI’s new strategic digital revenue platform, designed to grow revenue and market share for publishers. Key features include a simple single sign-on, and flexible product and service offerings. It provides centralised circulation/subscription/e-commerce integration – and a single view – for all your solutions and applications. Many revenue-expanding cloudbased services will be offered in the future under the DigitalSpectrum brand, but with the clock ticking, now’s a great time to learn more… and to stop revenue seeping away!

Get to know us by our first name...

Brands come and go,

and acronyms come in and go out of fashion. So when our brand and logo recently came up for review, we drilled down to what we are for a new image for our 30-year-old company. And there it was all the time: Digital Technology International is what we’re called… and

Customers of press maker KBA have been recognised for the quality of production they achieve Newspaper technology Publication production

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Digital is what we are. Unlike the ugly and unpopular Patagonian Toothfish of our last article, we didn’t need a name change – Chilean Sea Bass, anyone? – at all. The DTI acronym is fine up to a point, but it hides our full name and most important brand attribute: Digital. It what we are and always have been. Our

new branding platform merely validates our digital reputation. Digital Technology International remains focused on publishers’ digital audience engagement, revenue expansion and cost performance, with a complete range of news, advertising, circulation and audience solutions.

Digital Technology International Contact David Page Email: [email protected] Ph: +61 2 9810 6939 Web: www.dtint.com GXP NL 08/12 19


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➤ How would you like hundreds or thousands of potential subscribers and marketers for your brand? What if that database built itself from your current subscribers?

That’s exactly what Realview offers, and here’s how it works: A ‘National Geographic’ digital magazine subscriber reading an issue using an iPad app, shares an article with a friend. His friend is using an Android tablet, so reads the article using the web app version of the magazine, and he shares it with his friend. This time the friend gets the message on his smartphone and reads the article as text and images – a better way to read on a mobile. He also loves the article and sends it onto his friend who is at work and reads the same article using the HTML version on his desktop. He loves it so much that he posts the article on Facebook. What happens next is extraordinary. The post on the Facebook wall is actually a link to the same ‘National Geographic’ issue and article, only in a Facebook app with all kinds of sharing options at the readers fingertips. Like, share with friends, post to wall and comment are all a single click away. All of his friends see the link, and because they all have similar interests they click to read the article he is so excited about. His friends share the link with their friends and their friends with their friends and in a short space of time hundreds of people have read the article. The publisher is extremely pleased – all of those Facebook users exposed to their brand and the publisher collected hundreds of email addresses of potential new subscribers – all from one person posting one article on their wall.

How did all those Facebook users get access to a secure publication, and how did the publisher get all of those users names and email addresses? Realview provides three key components to enable this.

1. The Realview Digital Viewer: Empowers the reader to

make the choice of device and method of access ensuring the greatest reach via social sharing: • Online as HTML – not Flash absolutely no downloads needed; • iPad and Android tablets as a web app; 20 GXP NL 08/12

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How to get more subscribers for your digital publication from Facebook

New

app

• smartphones using HTML 5 (as rich pages or as text and image based articles); • native iPad app; • native Android app. Interactivity such as videos, image galleries and pop ups all render perfectly on every device.

2. The Facebook app:

Sharing to Facebook from any viewer (including native apps) posts a link to the Facebook App. Once friends access the Facebook app, all social sharing options are a single click away and the publisher gets access to the friends information; Name, email, gender, DOB. That information is stored in the Realview database.

3. Timed subscription:

Friends are automatically subscribed with temporary access to a secured publication to enable them to read the article and share it further. Access is restricted by time, for example ten minutes each week for four weeks; five minutes a day for the next week. Regardless of how the friend receives the share either directly via email, broadcast on twitter or from a Facebook post, the friend is granted temporary access to the publication. And the publisher gets the shared information.

Smart app: Apart from its social media connectiivity, the ‘National Geographic’ Realview iPad app makes use of a range of features including browsing, search, and access to related pages

Increasing circulation ...online

The publisher can now market to the temporary subscribers via email to upgrade them into full subscribers. Next time the publisher sends an email to their current subscribers (about a new issue for example), a notification will also appear on the wall of everyone who has ever read the publication on Facebook for all their (new) friends to see again - regardless of whether they are subscribers or not. Potential subscribers and marketers of your brand; a powerful tool for publishers and content marketers.

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➤ We live in a web-based world, yet it has taken a while for the idea to take hold that a system based on web technologies might be best adapted for multimedia and multiplatform publishing.

A relative few innovators around the globe have set the industry abuzz with their achievements online, mobile and of course, in print using an environment which is now well enough known to be recognised by its single name… Méthode. The first native XML-based editing and pagination environment for newspapers and magazines, it has become the technology of choice for publishers in five continents. And in a remarkable few months, developer EidosMedia has not only opened a new Australasian office, but

Inspired: Méthode integrated newsroom workflow and (above) Lodovico de Briganti, general manager of EidosMedia Australia,

Méthode: Elegant solution and transformative choice

has announced what will be one of the biggest integrated editorial systems in the world there. News Limited will use the Méthode multiple-media publishing platform to bring about a radical transformation of its print and digital portfolio covering more than 160 national and regional newspapers and magazines. AsiaPacific users already include India’s ‘Mint’ and Fairfax Media’s Financial Review Group in Australia. Announced in May, the News order comes less than a year after the appointment of Lodovico de Briganti as general manager of EidosMedia Australia, and the opening of an office in Sydney. News chief executive Kim Williams

says the investment in Méthode plays a foundation stone role in engaging customers: “It will allow us to create once and publish many times across every platform our customers use – print, online, tablet, mobile, smart devices, and broadcast.” The implementation is part of a transformation of editorial and publishing operations which also involves the acquisition of new media assets and a major geographical reorganisation. It will also bring all of the group’s titles onto a common editorial platform, replacing the multiple systems and solutions currently in use. With Méthode the number of steps needed to publish a story to print, web, mobile and tablet

media platforms will be cut from about 70 to fewer than 20. The landmark project is “exactly the kind of scalability which was a part of the original vision for Méthode,” according to EidosMedia group chief executive Gabriella Franzini and will be the largest deployment to date. Preparatory work is already underway and the excitement is palpable, with de Briganti “inspired” by News Limited’s vision for the future of news media in Australia: “We are looking forward to using the power and flexibility of the Méthode platform to help make it a reality,” he says. There’s an elegance to the solution chosen: Méthode harnesses the power of web technologies such

as CSS and SVG to create features rivalling those of dedicated graphic design applications. Print functions are completely integrated with online publishing, with a single XML story file generating output through all published channels. A new release of EidosMedia’s tablet publishing solution maximises cost-effectiveness, allowing print and tablet editions to share the same planning space, and stories and graphics to be dragged from print edition into tablet layouts where they reformat automatically. As with photo galleries and web media, the inclusion of other interactive elements is automated and seamless but under full manual control.

Boston experience for PANPA delegates The ‘Boston Globe’

Realview

Level 3, 191 Clarence Street, Sydney NSW 2000 Ph: +61 2 9299 1788 Fax: +61 2 9299 0468 www.realview.com.au Newspaper technology Publication production

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is one of the best-known exponents of the Méthode platform. Delegates at PANPA’s Future Forum in September have an opportunity to learn more of its implementation when managing editor Newspaper technology Publication production

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Caleb Solomon presents a case study on the paper’s transition from print-only to multiplatform newsroom. The ‘Globe’ exploited Méthode’s potential with a new platform-sensitive second site which was named ‘world’s best

designed’ in 2011, SND judges commenting that its responsive design “deserves to be noted as one of the key moments in media design history”. Solomon says the ability to have one reporter “post a story on the web, maybe do

a video with it as well, write a more lengthy analytical story for the next day’s paper” is a huge advantage. News Limited chief executive Kim Williams is also a keynote speaker at the Forum in Sydney, September 6-7.

EidosMedia Pty Ltd

Centennial Plaza, Tower B 280 Elizabeth Street Sydney, NSW 2000 Phone: +61 (02) 9112 3000 [email protected] www.eidosmedia.com

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➤ Since the release of the Kodak Prosper S-Series Imprinting Systems three years ago, more than 400 units have been installed on offset presses enabling print companies in the commercial offset print space to take advantage of variable data printing technology that was previously the domain of digital print engines.

➤

CONF E RE NCE

26 - 27 September 2012, Pune

And now with the faster speeds of the S20 and the DRUPA-released S30 Imprinting Systems print providers in the publication market – newspapers, magazines and inserts – can capitalise on the higher response rates and returns that variable data promotions and advertising campaigns attract. The Kodak S-Series Imprinting Systems use Kodak’s Stream Inkjet technology and Kodak CS410 System Controller on existing equipment, enabling print providers to optimise press capacity and drive new imprinting business opportunities. The S-Series comes in a five different speed models – the S5, S10, S10 CMYK, S20 CMYK and S30 – and is suitable for various production methods. In the newspaper space, the S20 and S30 Imprinting Systems feature pigment-based inks that deliver excellent permanence, rich, dark blacks and outstanding scratch, fade and water-resistance on a wide variety of commercial substrates. And as with the other models in the S-Series portfolio, the S20 and S30 Imprinting Systems can be easily integrated into high-speed, heatset offset presses. Darren Yeates, Business Manager, Digital Print Solutions, Kodak Australasia says the Kodak Prosper S-Series Imprinting System demonstrates the value in hybrid printing where the blending of offset and high-value variable colour data can be used to great effect in creating new revenue streams for print providers. “The Kodak S-Series Imprinting Systems have definitely bridged the gap between offset and digital printing,” says Yeates. “Speed and quality are the key issues in the publication space. “With the S20 and S30 we are running at inkjet printing speeds with offset quality and that’s typically never been done before. This combination gives our customers the ability to incorporate personalised, variable data components in mass market communication materials creating a host of opportunities that can benefit

WAN-IFRA India 2012 THE meeting point of news publishers in

house ad or Ifra South Asia

Co-sponsored by The Indian Newspaper Society

Printing Summit

Newsroom Summit

Cross-media Advertising Summit

Learning Workshops Green Publishing Online Video Production

Plant Tour

Vendor Info-tables

Contact: Tel: +91.44.4211 0640 [email protected]

www.wan-ifra.org/india2012 Newspaper technology Publication production


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CN Newsprint Print Team Leader Tony Wheatcroft agrees, saying the Kodak technology is “designed to work reliably in this environment, which is not the cleanest”. Forester says the company is using the Kodak Prosper S20 to produce unique competitions and micro advertising campaigns that haven’t been seen in the newspaper segment before. “I really believe this technology will take off,” he says excited about the prospect for future growth.

Axel Springer, Germany – First to beta test the Kodak Prosper S30 Imprinting System

Axel Springer is Germany’s biggest newspaper publishing house and that country’s third largest magazine publisher. The company publishes 170 newspapers and magazines including

Driving differentiation in newspaper print advertisers, increase circulation and raise profitability.” He continues, “For example, advertisers can undertake micropromotions for specific geographies by geo-coding their advertisements to highlight individual stores covered by the circulation of the publication. This concept can be extrapolated to encompass a range of promotions including gaming, competitions, puzzles and special offers that involve unique barcodes and messages”. The benefits of using variable data in direct marketing and personalised campaigns are proven in the commercial print space and are easily translated to the newspaper and publication environment says Yeates. “And we will work with our customers to help them develop marketing strategies to promote these new opportunities to their customers,” he concludes.

CN Newsprint, UK – First in world with Kodak Prosper S20 Imprinting System

Established in 1885, CN Group in Cumbria, in the north of England, is one of the oldest news printing firms in the UK. And it was the first company in the world to install the new Kodak Prosper S20 Imprinting System for

newspaper applications. The group’s production arm, CN Newsprint, operates a KBA Comet full colour press with eight fourcolour towers, onto which the S20 Imprinting System has been mounted. The company’s General Manager Guy Forester says the addition of the Kodak solution has delivered a new revenue stream for the group, which publishes two daily and five weekly newspapers with an annual circulation of more than 25 million. Acknowledging that there is little growth potential for conventional newspapers, Forester says the company is diversifying and variable data is part of that push. “Digital printing is becoming more and more common, but the speed restrictions still make it unviable for companies of our size and our circulation. But taking part of that (digital) concept with one head and one colour (the Kodak solution) gives us the best of both worlds and enables us to print at normal press speed with variable data”. From a production standpoint the Kodak technology is “very robust,” says Forester, and any concerns the company held about dust in the air and ink particles impacting the quality of the final print have been unfounded.

one of Germany’s largest newspapers, ‘Bild’, with a daily circulation of three million. The company has recently beta tested the Kodak Prosper S30 Imprinting System, which is mounted on a manroland offset press. The S30 System is being used to imprint variable components such as consecutive lottery numbers, variable QR codes, and changing artwork, across a width of up to 10.56 cm at full production speed. The S30 features the highest speed in the industry at 3000 fpm. The S30 Imprinting System delivers 600 x 200 dpi output and delivers a higherperformance choice for hybrid printing applications.

Kodak Australasia

For more information on how the Kodak S-Series Imprinting System can add value to your business freecall 1800 895 747 or email [email protected] GXP NL 08/12 23


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➤ The success achieved in participating at any trade show is normally measured by the accomplishments realised in attaining preset goals. These goals typically differ by exhibitor, by country, and by the show itself.

For Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Printing & Packaging Machinery (MHIPPM), when the doors closed on this year’s DRUPA, the goals it had set had been clearly realised. But what a difference four years can make. Two years after the previous DRUPA, in July 2010, MHI-PPM was reorganised as a group company of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, providing a fresh start as a manufacturer and distributor of Mitsubishi’s lines of printing machinery and paper converting machinery. A year later, the company reached an impressive 50-year milestone, marking half a century of involvement in the design and manufacture of printing machinery dating back to 1961. Visitors to the MHI-PPM stand at DRUPA 2012 saw a completely new look from four years earlier – a look that included a new hall location, a new corporate colour, and a significantly different stand size. The move from Hall 15 to the newer Hall 6 was a logistical coup that allowed the company to take advantage of a key booth location on the main hall floor coupled with a portion of the balcony running the perimeter of the hall, which served as a hospitality area for its many customers. The new corporate colour – MHI blue – was launched earlier this year to signify the company’s ‘global’ facets and to complement the widely-recognised red and black colour schemes the company uses in denoting respectively its ‘passionate’ and ‘steady’ attributes. In light of the ongoing changes within the offset printing industry and the economic havoc that continues to prevail throughout many of today’s European markets, MHI-PPM felt confident in going with a booth size that was just over a quarter of the size of that at DRUPA 2008. Despite the smaller space, the MHI-PPM stand was big on new technologies. Under ‘Brand Diamond’, a symbolic concept embodying the confidence and conviction found in all Mitsubishi products and services, MHIPPM exhibited a five-colour Diamond V3000LS equipped with the world’s first in-line quality control system for

presshall

The in-line quality control system for sheetfed offset presses that MHIPPM debuted at DRUPA traces its development history back to the Diamond Eye in-line closed-loop quality control system originally developed for newspaper offset presses. More than 600 unique line sensors have been installed on over 60 presses in Japan and internationally since the system was first launched in 2005, with publishers reaping the benefits of energy-efficient operations, higher productivity, minimised paper waste, and Mitsubishi’s exceptional printing quality. MHI-PPM also promoted its other popular sheetfed presses – the wide stock-handling Diamond V3000LX model and the one-pass Tandem Perfector (TP) model, along with its

A press control desk (above) with Diamond Eye-S touch screens and (below) the Mitsubishi Diamond V3000LS-5 sheetfed offset press. The system for sheetfed presses traces its development history to the Diamond Eye closed-system originally developed for newspaper presses such as the DiamondSpirit-SA (pictured right) Bottom: Standing room only at daily press demos

Mitsubishi’s look back at DRUPA

sheetfed offset presses. The Diamond Eye-S features an in-house developed high-precision line sensor that provides 100 per cent real-time density measurements at printing speeds of up to 16,200 sheets per hour, as well as fully automatic ink density adjustments and automatic sheet defect inspection functions. The Diamond V3000LS is the essential press for high-quality commercial printing and handles a maximum sheet size of 750mm x 1050mm. The DRUPA press exhibit was also equipped with Mitsubishi’s energysaving ecoUV system, renowned for trimming capital and operating costs for commercial printers who want to shift to ultraviolet printing. Employing high-sensitivity inks and only one ozone-less UV lamp, ecoUV delivers drying performance equivalent to

conventional systems utilising multiple lamps. Specially formulated energysaving inks and overprint varnishes dry instantly and exhibit the high gloss and surface protection that users expect from UV printing. Existing presses can be easily fitted with the ecoUV system. Each of the well-attended daily press demonstrations focussed on the high-quality printing delivered by the press, the instantaneous drying capacity of the ecoUV verified by tape testing, and on the ability of the Diamond Eye-S to recognise sheet defects. A small dot was made with a 0.5mm pen on a sheet in the feeder pile, and when this particular sheet was run through the press, the system detected the defect, tabbed the sheet, and indicated the location of the defect on the Diamond Eye-S monitor – all in real time.

line of commercial web, newspaper offset presses and corrugating machinery through graphic panels displays. Introduced for the first time at DRUPA was the 80,000 iph press dubbed the DiamondSpirit-SA. Modelled after its widely popular DiamondSpirit, the new 4x1 press is equipped with single-around plate cylinders and single-around blanket cylinders, resulting in a more compact press that offers higher return on investment without compromising print quality. Mitsubishi will continue to weigh the importance of its presence at international graphic art shows in the future while remaining committed to helping printers improve the quality and profitability of their operations and reducing the impact of printing on the environment today.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Printing & Packaging Machinery, Ltd. 1-1, Itosaki Minami 1-chome, Mihara, Hiroshima, 729-0393, Japan Ph: +81 848-67-2489 Fax: +81 848-67-2018 www.mhi-ppm.com/e Newspaper technology Publication production


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➤ Who needs a press retrofit? Well, maybe your company does. Try asking yourself these questions (writes Steve Kirk, marketing head of ABB’s printing business unit).

Are spare parts still available for your existing press controls and drives? Does your automation supplier still support your systems? If you answered no to either question, then you are in big trouble and had better read on. Let’s try another angle. Would your business benefit from better press management including production planning, press presetting and extensive management information? Or maybe from state-of-the-art press consoles that make operating the press so much easier and eliminate so many sources of error? If you answered yes to either of these questions, then the following will interest you too. In a time when people are unsure about how the industry is going to look in ten years’ time and money is tight, press retrofits provide an ideal means of prolonging the life of an existing press at only a fraction of the cost of a new press. ABB is a leading supplier of retrofit solutions for newspaper presses and has retrofitted well over 100 presses worldwide. Their references include complete controls and drive replacements, conversion of conventional presses to shaftless operation, and press reconfiguration, but they also provide smaller, modular retrofit solutions that are ideal low cost or step-by-step options. What is a modular retrofit? One example would be replacing the controls on one printing tower – cheaper than replacing the complete press control system, but the units removed from the retrofitted tower can act as spare parts for the rest of the press. Other modular solution would be adding modern ABB press control consoles to an existing press, or adding ABB’s press management system, MPS Production, to an existing press. Why look to ABB for such things? First of all, ABB uses standard industrial components, which means you are not tied to any one OEM. Secondly, ABB can assure its customers of the long-term availability of spare parts. With business units serving countless industries worldwide it has such a large installed base of systems that it can maintain the availability of spare parts far longer than other suppliers active in the newspaper business. Newspaper technology Publication production

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The recently announced retrofit cooperation between ABB and manroland web systems has greatly extended the range of modular solutions available. A further advantage of an ABB press retrofit solution is that it can provide a gateway to ABB’s range of integrated planning and management systems covering the entire newspaper production process from the page make-up to the distribution. At a time

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MPS Cockpit Planning & Management

MPS PageManager Editorial

MPS PlateWorkflow

MPS Production

MPS DeliveryPlanner

Advertising

Temporary storage Press Insertion

Layout

Page assembly

Plate making

Plates

Bundling

Roll handling

Press control

Third party inserts

MPS Roll Handling

MPS Press Control

MPS InsertManager

Distribution

MPS Insight Tracking

An overview of the print production process and the ABB management systems; Below: the MPS Control Console, as used on retrofit projects

Back in control Why a press retrofit may make excellent sense

when efficiency and the ability to offer customers new business models like the fine-zoning of inserts are often viewed as keys to success, access to such production management systems is often a major consideration when choosing a retrofit solution. As mentioned above, ABB has retrofitted over 100 presses. Here are a few examples. If you are looking for examples of large plants, then one would be the project at Singapore Press Holdings, where their four Goss Colorliner presses with ten printing units per press were retrofitted with new ABB controls An excellent example of a press retrofit involving a conversion to shaftless operation and a complete reconfiguration of the press is the Südostschweiz plant in Haag, Switzerland, where second-hand Wifag OF7 satellite units were stacked on top of each other in a configuration that Wifag never foresaw. Another example of an innovative retrofit project would be the Goss HT-70 presses at the El Mundo print site near Madrid in Spain. This involved converting the press to footprint shaftless while retaining the existing DC motors. Finally, as an example of a retrofit project where the commissioning took place in parallel with the daily production, there is SolPrint in Subingen, Switzerland, where a complex series of commissioning phases ensured that the production capacity was always available from their MAN Colorman presses. ABB has the solutions to give your presses an extra ten or 15 years of life. That might be worth considering before your spare parts run out.

ABB Switzerland Ltd.

Production planning on MPS Production and (below) ABB's Advant Controller AC500 PLC

Printing Steve Kirk, Head of Marketing CH-5405 Baden 5 Daettwil, Switzerland Tel: +41 58 586 86 33 Fax: +41 58 586 90 54 [email protected] www.abb.com/printing GXP NL 08/12 25

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QI’s world: (clockwise from below) Mohamed Hassan Bin Mohamed Ali; Menno Jansen (centre) with MDS’ Manfred Poischen and Henry Winkler; water under control with the new software; international sales and marketing director Jaco Bleijenberg; and the mRC-3D camera with double sensors and AIMS;

➤ New groundbreaking technology, new service and customer relationship initiatives ensured that DRUPA 2012 was a significant landmark for Q.I. Press Controls.

Not to mention a bookful of orders worth almost three million Euros, making the Düsseldorf show the best in the company’s history. Central to this is automation and innovation: Q.I. Press Controls' total automation solutions are reliable and proven, expanding a focus which parallels publishers’ concerns on product quality and cost. Star of the show is Q.I. Press Controls' “new marvel”, an mRC-3D camera system with depth detection and self-cleaning features. At the core of upcoming developments, it has already helped secure a number of major orders. Quality and customer satisfaction comes down to nanoseconds in high speed heatset and newspaper production, with misregister and colour deviation no longer acceptable. These are the demands which have prompted Q.I. Press Controls engineers to develop a new generation of automated detection. Double sensors on the mRC-3D not only increase potential but enable the system to cope better with movement of the web or surface. Additionally, a new Automatic Ink Mist Shield (AIMS) system rolls fresh antistatic protection film in front of sensors, allowing precision measurements to resume after automatic calibration. A further innovation is automated fountain solution control, now available as a feature of Q.I. Press Controls' Intelligent Density System or as a retrofit for existing IDS/IQM users. The technology lifts waste control to yet higher levels, while making the job of printers easier… claims which Q.I. Press Controls has already been able to prove on a number of production presses. IDS scans and analyses the width of the printed web, comparing this to the

New technology, new initiatives target digital image and guiding inking accordingly. Now expanded algorithms also deliver dampening supply-control in the printing towers. The result is less fluctuation of the two key variables in the printing process: What an experienced printer can detect visually or with a magnifier, IDS controls automatically.

International sales and marketing director Jaco Bleijenberg says web plants are actively managing for maximum efficiency: “Our Intelligent Quality Management system doesn’t just plug inefficiency leaks and help a plant manager cope with reduced staffing; it provides solid arguments to reject claims about quality,” he says. Newspaper and web printers in Germany, Finland, Latin America, Malaysia and the Netherlands are among those who have placed orders for both first deliveries and retrofit projects. “Our innovative strength enables us to continuously improve effectiveness, efficiency and quality of the web-offset presses,” Bleijenberg says.

One of the first publishers to commit to new technology has been Dumont Schauberg (MDS), which has extended a long-standing partnership with Q.I. Press Controls. A decade ago, installation of the revolutionary IRS register system with micro marks on their 11-tower KBA Commander press was a source of the “fullest satisfaction” for production manager Manfred Poischen, and while the 12-year-old press has since been joined by a waterless Cortina line, he is convinced of the benefits the retrofit will bring. “The mRC-3D has much to offer on our Commander… even more so if we add the hidden potential it has in store,” he says. One of the first of manroland web systems’ new Colorman e:line presses will also benefit from the latest IDS technology, with the new mRC system installed on Algäuer Zeitungsverlag’s new four-tower press. The Kempten, Germany, publisher is another established user, with longstanding positive experiences of Q.I. Press Controls' IRS closed loop colour register on an existing press. On the new

e:line Colorman, eight cameras for the IDS system will be supported by a further 36 controlling colour and cut-off register of the four printing webs and 16 ribbons. Director Markus Brehm says he likes Q.I. Press Controls' approach and solutions: “They’re highly reliable, and one notices the value of partnership being able to support each other in realising the return on such investments.” In Malaysia, Star Publications will upgrade three Goss Colorliner presses in Shah Alam and Penang with state-of-theart mRC+ and ABD air bustle technology in collaboration with Goss International. Q.I. Press Controls is equipping the presses – each of four towers and a twohigh – with a total of 96 mRC+ cameras, 36 air bustle devices and the IQM management system. Previously, colour and cut-off register on the ten-year-old presses has been controlled manually. “Keeping in view the substantial period that our presses will need to print in the future, this would no longer have been competitive”, says general manager Mohamed Hassan Bin Mohamed Ali.

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➤ Amid the right-sizing and rationalisation of the industry, it’s been a year in which press maker KBA has had every reason to rejoice reliability… and quality. The company bringing German engineering to inkjet printing – and modular innovation to its compact offset platform – is the only one to have posted pre-tax profits in four consecutive years, 2009-2012. The warm feeling KBA users get is underlined by results of latest WANIfra’s International Newspaper Color Quality Club competition, where 43 per cent of newly-elevated members use its equipment. Publishers of 192 titles in 43 countries had to submit print samples to prove compliance with rigorous ISO standards. Thirty-five of the successful plants are equipped with KBA presses, including seven with waterless Cortina presslines. In the Asia-Pacific, KHL Printing and Singapore Press Holdings in Singapore, and West Australian Newspapers in Perth, Australia, are among this year’s winners, as are The Printers (Mysore) in Bangalore, India, Al-Yaum Media House in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, and United Printing & Publishing in Shahama, Abu Dhabi.

The WAN print site in Perth is one of four KBA newspaper press installations in Australia. Alongside their productive double-width Colora lines, the single-width KBA Comet is the flexible press of choice, as it is for News Limited sites in the Gold Coast, Hobart and now Darwin, where a very successful installation has just been completed. As they did in remote Tasmania, News turned to KBA for reliable

are key elements in the Q.I. Press Controls offering, with the potential to tailor graduated service packages to meet individual needs. “We frequently hear from customers how useful the service updates are, and how they more than pay for themselves,” says Asia Pacific area sales director Job van Hasselt.

The growing number of Q.I. Press Controls users in Asia led to the appointment of van Hasselt, who was previously manroland regional chief executive. “Our markets in China, India, southeast Asia and Australasia are developing so well that experienced regional management was needed,” says Jaco Bleijenberg.

While he joined manroland in Singapore in 1972, van Hasselt spent several years with packaging machinery specialist Bobst Group, where projects included the start up of a factory in Shanghai. Bleijenberg is delighted with the appointment: “Right man, in the right place at the right time,” he says.

Nod of approval: Al Nisr managing director Obaid Humaid Al Tayer with KBA project managers Peter Benz and Benito Vigo; and (above) one of the three press sections

The quality quotient

What KBA users already knew is confirmed by WAN-Ifra’s INCQC and Westfalen-Blatt in Bielefeld, production in the capital city of the Germany, have also ordered Northern Territory, an area the size four-tower CL presses of the new Spain, France and Italy combined, but Commander CL as well. with a population of only 250,000. A choice of automation levels The four-tower Comet – which has is available to suit high-quality a double jaw folder and equipment newspapers and semicommercials. including a diagnostics PC for remote The compact H-type units are just maintenance – prints the ‘NT News’, 2.75 metres high and can have ‘Sunday Territorian’ and a range of manual, semiautomatic or automatic other publications, regional editions plate changing with upgrades at and preprints in full colour and in any time. Equipped with newabout half the time taken by its generation printing, console and predecessor. control technology, the CL is offered The Comet is the ‘baby’ of a KBA in standard 4/2 or optional 4/1 press range to which the modular configurations. Commander CL was added last And in Dubai, UAE, a huge, highlyOctober for newspaper publishing automated KBA Cortina press line in houses which do not require the a brand-new building in the middle high degree of automation of the of the desert came online at the Commander CT and Commander beginning of June. The waterless 6/2. Sales of this innovative ‘classic’ press, which has with 12 compact 4/1 press with its H-type printing units printing four heatset kicked offExpanding last yearthe with two Bavarian frontiers of print technology hastowers, been our driving forcedryers and three folders, started hybrid newspaper publishers ordering three for the past 190 years. Inspired by our founder, Friedrich Koenig, creator hybrid printinginof the and five-tower versions. of the world’s first mechanical printingcoldset/heatset press in 1811. And culminating dailymaintain ‘Gulf News’ in a new Berliner Since then, two morepress newspaper the cutting-edge lines of today that our unbroken tradition format. houses, ‘Times Union’ With in Albany, USA, yet of innovation. groundbreaking cost-effective technology to give

New ideas for print pros

news leaders

KBA Australasia Pty Ltd, Tel: +61 2 9424 4400, [email protected] KBA Koenig & Bauer AG (Asia Pacific) Sdn. Bhd., Tel: +60 3 2145 9776, [email protected] www.kba-print.com

publishing opportunities of digital printing, KBA has brought German engineering and unique technologies from its cooperation with US print giant RR Donnelley. Launched at DRUPA in May, the Würzburgbuilt RotaJET 76 inkjet web prints on a 780 mm wide web at up to 150

Contact Job van Hasselt, Asia Pacific Area Sales Director Email: [email protected] www.qipc.com

gxpress.net

KBA’s strength, however, comes not only from the quality of its newspaper and commercial web offering, but from its ability to bring similar strengths to almost every other sector of the printing industry. Leader of the high-end packaging market, KBA has continued its success with four very sophisticated sheetfed presses going to Australian print sites post-DRUPA. “We are doing very well in southeast Asia as well, especially in the packaging sector,” says KBA Asia Pacific managing director Stefan Segger. “Several presses have been sold to customers in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore.” One of these is a ten-unit Rapida 106 with perfecting and coating, to a book printer in Malaysia who was previously a very strong supporter of a competitive product. “Importantly, KBA Asia Pacific and Australasia are profitable and continuing to grow in the difficult market environment,” Segger says.

Amid a mass of inkjet, KBA makes a unique contribution

Q.I. Press Controls


Seite 1

From the inventor of the printing press

To the

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you that vital edge in the print media arena. Backed by the ingenuity and dedication of 8,300 employees and the unique know-how of the world’s first press manufacturer.

Local team strengthened with key appointment Local service and support

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news leaders

People & Print

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news leaders

metres per minute. And opens new vistas for publishers and printers of micro-zoned and remote editions and the creation of new variabledata products down to an ‘audience of one’. Above all, the RotaJET 76 delivers levels of quality and reliability unusual in digital printing. Quality comes

from a number of factors including precision engineering and precise web tension. KBA’s RotaJET 76 presents the tactile future of printed newspapers, while providing reliable tools for the economic production of a wide variety of material when not producing timed editions.

KBA Australasia

Campbelltown, NSW 2560 Ph: +61 2 4626 4400

Koenig & Bauer Asia Pacific Selangor, Malaysia Ph: +603-788 588 60 Contact Stefan Segger, Managing Director Email [email protected] www.kba.com

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news leaders

generic

prepress workflow adds upload and plate sorting features as well as support for Windows 2008 64 bit and Windows 7. The new 2012 version includes the capability to highlight version changes to the same page, the optimisation of plate sorting, and a tool to enable customers to upload files directly into their print edition. Users can define and control the plate sorting device, managing plate production priorities, and can be interfaced with press control systems to automate these functions. An upload portal provides a tool customers can use to upload files directly into the planned edition. The new version also provides image analysis, with changes between versions of the same page highlighted, potential overprint problems identified, and last-minute changes quickly verified prior to plate making.

➤

New Eizo ColorEdge monitors (below) include

the top-level CG and mid-range CX Series with a built-in self-correction sensor that maintains the calibration results after the monitors have been calibrated by an external sensor. The maker says it covers most of the Adobe RGB colour space.

The

gxpress.net

Kodak sells on workflow automation resources

K

odak is drawing on its workflow and software resources to offer a specialist service to newspaper publishers and printers aimed at helping them save time and resources. The ‘sales with a payoff ’ theme is being marketed worldwide under the Marketmover brand and focusses strongly on automation.

Kodak is making its expertise available in these areas, with software developers and specialists in rules based automation, workflow and system architecture on call. Trained teams analyse all aspects of the business, applying industry best practices to tailor an approach for each customer’s unique situation and needs. In Australia, business services

and solutions group manager Michael Smedley leads the initiative: “Our goal is to show the options that are available, develop plans and help customers implement them,” he says. “Kodak has huge resources in this area, and the MarketMover campaign aims to help printers become more efficient manufacturers.” gx n n

QuadTech partnership with Alwan automates plate curve adjustment

Ink savings of up to 25 per cent are claimed

for the Honolulu ‘Star-Advertiser’ after installation of ProImage’s OnColor ECO ink optimisation system. Production director Marty Black says annual savings will run into six figures. The daily ‘Star-Advertiser’ publishes approximately 40 full colour pages with a print run of about 125,000 copies, plus ‘Midweek’, a 64 page tabloid, and commercial work. gx n n

Colorliner CPS

QuadTech’s Color Control System with SpectralCam with Alwan’s Print Standardizer software to compensate for dot gain deviations and also confirm compliance with ISO 12647 and G7. Measurement data from the QuadTech system is converted

to L*a*b* and densitometric values, including dot gain or tonal value increase. This information is then analysed by the Alwan software to determine dot gain variations and generate dot gain compensation curves, per job or over a specified

time period. The Alwan system also monitors and stores data from multiple presses or different paper stocks used on a press. The companies say the combined solution can easily be integrated into an existing workflow. gx n n

Prepare for Take-Off with Agfa Graphics, the standard in newspaper prepress production

• Compact Double Width Printing System • Up to 90,000 cph heatset, coldset and combined

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LOCAL CONTACT: Goss International, Unit 16, 35 Dunlop Road, Mulgrave, Victoria 3170, Australia +03.9560.1666

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partnership with French colour management specialist Alwan is delivering automated plate curve adjustment for QuadTech control systems users. The deal with Lyon-based Alwan Color Expertise teams

AgfA grAphics

The Goss® Colorliner® CPS press is a compact printing system that combines tried-and-tested technologies with innovative engineering design to deliver new efficiencies for newspaper and semicommercial production.

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print workflow & ctp

A new version of ProImage’s NewsWay


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couple of dates for your diary: • The ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ and ‘The Age’ go tabloid on March 4 next year. That’s the easy one… The same plants already print the tabloid ‘Australian Financial Review’ and the switch is about as simple as adding another folder slitter. The redesign should be no problem. The publisher says the metro dailies will have all the‘key content’ of current issues – news, comment, business, sport, crosswords, letters, weather, the Domain property section (brought forward to Fridays), Drive car classifieds and MyCareer recruitment advertising – in a new tabloid format resembling that of the ‘AFR’. • The Chullora (Sydney) and Tullamarine (Melbourne) plants are to close“by June 2014” with production switched to regional plants within the group. There’s a good deal of debate about whether this can be done without significant circulation falls.We think it can, given smaller print circulations and the compromises that are likely to be acceptable on editorial and production deadlines.And perhaps, some new thinking about what is printed and how. Others don’t agree: One industry source told us Fairfax management “would have to have rocks in their heads” to contemplate the investment in further equipment which might be needed. But let’s start with the big question: Why do it? Chief executive and managing director Greg Hywood says there is no doubt the company is operating in very challenging times:“Readers’ behaviours have changed and will not change back.As a result, we are taking decisive actions to fundamentally change the way we do business.” Fairfax says it will cost $44 million a year less to print the papers elsewhere in the group, with a 62 per cent reduction in operating costs. We’d guess the value of the plant employed is not a factor; most of what hasn’t already been written off will need to be.Valuing the real estate on which the Chullora and Tullamarine sites stand is a far more significant factor. Both cities have grown to surround the large print sites and – as in the case of IPMG’s Hannanprint relocation – valuable real estate (an estimated $65 millionworth) is freed up by moving out of town. After all, many readers have moved out themselves. Costly and restrictive manning agreements are also likely to have been an issue, continuing to plague the publisher from years of management change and a culture once likened to ‘the inmates running the asylum’. Fairfax predicts that total savings from its package of measures – of which closing Chullora and Tullamarine are just part – will be $235 million a year by June 2015. Of this, $215 million would be achieved by June 2014, while associated one-off costs – including $63 million for print site redundancies – are a relatively modest $248

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August 2012

the little engines That might

They think they can, they think they can: Peter Coleman looks at Fairfax Media’s plan to print its flagship metro titles at its much smaller regional print sites

Compact metros: Going tabloid is easier than the narrower broadsheet former chief executive David Kirk announced; Fairfax says its ‘indicative designs’ are not to scale

million, net of proceeds from land sales. The ‘Fairfax of the Future’ costings estimate production at existing regional sites – presumably excluding newsprint and other materials – to be 62 per cent less expensive than in the current city sites. Fairfax says “indicatively, each $100 of operating costs at the two plants to be closed will be reduced to $38 of costs to be incurred at those remaining”. It isn’t entirely the fault of the ‘legacy’ equipment – the double-width presses are better suited to the runs involved – but their inflexibility means that options such as narrower broadsheets (and shorter tabloids) have been relegated to the ‘too hard’ basket. More modern double-width presses in the group (at Wodonga and Ormiston) can turn these tricks with less difficulty. Here’s the run-down:

1 Fewer copies to print

If the yearly fall is as little as six or seven per cent a year – and Fairfax lost and cut about twice that in the year to March 2012 – there will be about 160,000 of each of the ‘SMH’ and ‘Age’ to print during the week, and 330,000 and 210,000 respectively of the two titles on Saturdays. There’s every expectation that the damage will be worse as readers accelerate the switch to digital editions – a trend in which readers of the upmarket

Fairfax metros have been in the vanguard. Doubling the rate of loss would mean there were only about 135,000 weekday papers to print, plus 285,000 and 185,000 of Saturday editions. The 65,000-70,000 copies of the‘Australian Financial Review’ are already also shared with plants in Murray Bridge (SA), Brisbane, Hobart and Mandurah (WA). Here time for the job change is a bigger factor than the run itself.

2 A wider print window

Fairfax already sees an audience pattern in which readers rely on digital editions for breaking news, and turn to print for backgrounding and features. If they’re correct, that means editorial and production deadlines can be earlier without upsetting readers. The same is true of the regional dailies the group has to accommodate on the same plant.And as the ‘Fairfax of the Future’ model envisages the possibility of print editions being so unprofitable – current talk is of $65 million of metro losses – that they are cut altogether, it may all be academic.

3 Help is not close, but at hand Rural Press had almost completed a programme of plant modernisation when it merged with Fairfax Media in 2007.All the relevant print sites produce back-to-back four colour Since then, there have been continuing


gxpress.net

Yes… and no: Let’s not pretend everyone agrees about this

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o yes, we believe the Fairfax plan to move printing from Chullora and Tullamarine to existing regional sites is possible... with compromise, but not beyond what is likely to be realistic and acceptable in two or three years’ time. As we mentioned, GXpress has not received any help from Fairfax Media in reaching that conclusion. Others however, disagree. One industry source with ample experience to support his arguments told us current circulations would have to at least halve in order to have ‘The Age’ and ‘SMH’ printed elsewhere within Fairfax’s regional printing facilities. “I believe that would be an impossible task given the volumes currently produced in those plants,” he says. “If circulations continue to fall at a similar rate as they have over the past two or three years, Fairfax will

need other capacity to produce the circulation, and this would mean new smaller sites elsewhere.” He told us it was “a nonsense” to believe there was enough capacity at regional sites such as Ballarat, Newcastle and Wodonga. “And given the under-utilised assets they have – and Ormiston is an example – why would any newspaper board or executive be embarking on a strategy that includes more investment in print metal?”

upgrades, including installation of a new – and by some accounts severely under-utilised – Goss Uniliner press at Ormiston, Brisbane. Currently Fairfax has the following printing capacity near the metropolitan centres: Sydney (with distances from centre) North Richmond (67 km) – single-width manroland Uniset 70 pressline, with two-web heatset section, two UV towers and four coldset 2x2 towers; Beresfield, Newcastle (156 km) – singlewidth manroland Uniset 70 pressline, six 2x2 towers; Fyshwick, ACT (290 km) – double-width manroland Geoman pressline, including newlycommissioned UV. Other plants in NSW include Tamworth and Dubbo, both slower/smaller single-width presses. The Chullora plant has five Colorman 4x2 presslines (192 cylinders).

Melbourne (with distances from centre) Ballarat (115 km) – single-width manroland Uniset 75 pressline, six 2x2 towers; Wodonga (320 km) – double-width Goss Uniliner S pressline, five 4x1towers. The Tullamarine plant has three manroland Geoman 4x2 presslines.

Teaming the Beresfield/North Richmond and Ballarat/Wodonga plants could deliver 65,00075,000 64-page (or in most cases, 80-page) tabloids an hour. Enough to complete the weekday metro ‘main jacket’ sections in a couple of hours, although current inserting system capacity at those sites would probably not be able to keep up.Weekdays, somewhat less than 20 tonnes of printed papers would have to be trucked in from each site. Capacity at Canberra hasn’t been taken into consideration in these calculations, but this site – and that in Brisbane – could contribute to the

Logistics: East coast print site locations, from the ‘Fairfax of the Future’ presentation Below: Plan B – Costs become ‘more flexible’ and provide for a digital-only model

He says Fairfax would be unable to continue with current printed editions without either partially retaining those sites or building smaller new sites, or printing with News Limited, and claims the inability of Fairfax and News to strike a printing agreement is “a poor reflection of the current management structures at both organisations”. Logistics rule out printing supplements and preprint sections elsewhere, says the source. “The volume, travel/logistics of transferring product on pallets would be way more expensive and slower,” he says. “Transferring preprints on discs would need special equipment and trucks, so is out of the question.” One option put to us was that Fairfax might relocate the doublewidth Goss Uniliner press (pictured) it

production of supplements and displaced work. The ‘Fairfax of the Future’ proposals provide chief executive for printing and logistics Bob Lockley with a $42 million budget for “plant transfer and capital expenditure”. While he has not responded to a GXpress Magazine request for comment, it’s clear Lockley could employ the allocation in a variety – or a combination – of ways: • add limited additional facilities to the existing plants, such as faster/bigger/extra folders, platesetters, and more mailroom capacity at Ballarat and North Richmond; • move one or more of the displaced presses – those at Tullamarine are more modern and flexible – or the one from Fairfax’s Ormiston site, to extend the nearer regional sites; real estate values rule out centring all Victorian production on Tullamarine; • invest in one or more inkjet digital press lines to print strategic or microzoned elements – the ‘Financial Review’, perhaps – nearer to its readership with later deadlines. Fairfax is also understood to have studied plans to print parts of its daily print requirement on inkjet digital presses at‘satellite’ plants, with the combination of Océ print technology with newly-announced manroland finishing systems among options. While the figures presented to analysts account for the proceeds of land sales from closing Chullora and Tullamarine, nothing is provided for plant sales. Moving the presses and mailroom would be expensive, but the equipment is probably worth more to Fairfax than to an (inevitably overseas) buyer. Earlier discussion of plans to shut the Chullora plant included the possibility of relocating the‘legacy’ presses elsewhere – probably to New Zealand – as well as provision of a new smaller plant to print the metro titles.

installed in Ormiston in 2008. “They are currently producing about 60 tonnes a week on a machine that is capable of producing more than 400 tonnes a week, and the current tonnage could easily be handled by APN and Horton Media,” we were told. GXpress understands that one strategy considered was to use funds from the sale of the Tullamarine and Chullora real estate to fund new sites, but a source told us, “it’s unlikely –you’d have to have rocks in your head to spend money on printing machinery in these times. “I’m sure analysts would not have a clue if closure is possible or not and would assume Fairfax have a plan.” While Fairfax had canvassed closure of Chullora, senior management within the group were apparently taken by surprise by the announcement that Tullamarine would also shut. gx n n

4 Knocking out the stuffing

Casual weekend readers of ‘The Age’ and the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ are accustomed to picking a section off each of two piles – and newsagents hate the logistic nightmare of wrapping and throwing home-delivered copies – but change is in the air. News Limited this month began centralising newspaper distribution and delivery, with a pilot scheme in Brisbane’s southside which cuts the number of delivery rounds from 56 to three, and takes over customer payments. Delivery territories will average 10,000 points across all titles. The initiative is likely to result in the emergence of third party delivery contractors, and it would be surprising if Fairfax were not to take advantage of the economies of scale they will be able to offer. A step further could see inserting or collation of issues and their supplements – perhaps with polybagging and even digital printing – at these sites.As News International has in the UK, the task of inserting is moved downstream. These factors lead us to the view that closing Chullora and Tullamarine – and printing the metro dailies at regional sites – is possible if challenging. The $42 million allocation would not deliver any new sites, but would go a long way towards tweaking production capacity and efficiency. Moving one or two of the closed presses to a regional site would cause industrial outcry, but is not out of the question, nor is the possibility of moving the Ormiston press suggested by one industry source. The two-year timescale is adequate if not generous.And sets a deadline which may concentrate the minds of other stakeholders. A lot could happen in that time… including of course, a change of heart/ownership – or a change of guard – in the Fairfax boardroom. gx n n




presshall

Goss International is one

gxpress.net

UV takes pioneering Double, triple-wide press UK newspaper to with UV ticks all the boxes a ‘new dimension’ Y A flexible KBA Colora press for a Canadian publisher will provide a variety of single, double and triplewide production options including UV print, and replace a 20-unit press. Great West Newspapers – a group of 21 community newspapers as well as a commercial printer and partner of Glacier Ventures International – ordered the press for a new facility currently being constructed in St Albert, Alberta. The move follows work with Florida-based Web Offset Services on options to meet quality and growth demands including production of the ‘Edmonton Journal’. The existing 20-unit single-width press is currently at 97 per cent capacity. The broad mix of newspaper and commercial work and extremely tight production windows has led to an unusual multiformat press concept. The Colora press will be configured with three towers, three reelstands and a unique KF5 folder to handle all three newspaper press production formats. This is accomplished with a fully adjustable and presettable triple former assembly mounted on a single level. Coupled with this is an EAE semicommercial control system with embedded auxiliaries plus extensive presetting capabilities including a builtin, pre-programmed ‘catalogue’ of 950 different products. Web Offset Service first worked with KBA and EAE to develop this system in 2003 for another KBA press destined for Independent Newspapers in Dover, Delaware, and the system was further refined in 2008 on a triple-width Commander 6/2 installation for Dansk AvisTryk in Copenhagen, Denmark. The system eliminates most of the inefficiencies of a typical double or triple-width press, as well as the pre-planning or job creation associated with adjustment and changeover. This shortens turnaround times while reducing waste – all with minimal operator intervention. Among special attributes for the press are a larger KF5 folder with quarterfold, allowing

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August 2012

• Three KBA Colora towers produce 96pp tabloid (collect) or144pp triple-wide; • Prime UV curing system for up to 48 pages of glossy stock; • Custom KF5 KF5 folder with quarterfold and stitching; • Triple-width slitting and turner-bar section; • QI Press Controls register and cut-off controls; • Technotrans inking and dampening systems; • Baldwin blanket-washing devices; • SMC reel-handling equipment.

higher production speeds and pagination capabilities and a Prime UV unit for up to 48 pages of glossy paper. GWN president Duff Jamison says flexibility and efficiency are critical in today’s printing and publishing environment: “Run lengths can be short as well, so the ability to turn jobs around quickly is very important,” he says.“It may seem counterintuitive to do all this with a large press, but the truth is that software and technology make this press a great deal more effective than the single-wide we are leaving.” While high automation and the latest advances in production capability were necessary components of the project, it needed to be done in a safe and effective manner and that is where the KBA Colora “fitted very nicely”, according to Web Offset Services president Sam Wagner. His approach to doing this kind of project is to be on the “leading edge but not the bleeding edge” of technology and in so doing prefers to use tried and true technologies that combine the best of what different parts of the printing industry has to offer in order to achieve the most efficient and productive system for a given application. GWN and Web Offset Services are also working on putting together a state-of-theart facility to match the press in terms of streamlining workflow and maximising efficiency. gx n n

orkshire Web, the printing division of the UK ‘Barnsley Chronicle’, is pioneering UV with what may be the country’s first newspaper installation. US specialist Prime UV Systems commissioned the installation of its inline curing technology on the printer’s Goss Community press at the end of last month, “adding a new dimension” to the newspaper,” according to production supervisor Adrian Sanger. “One of the main benefits of the new equipment is being able to print on glossy papers – full glossy publications or adding glossy covers to newsprint publications,” he says. The system above one of the press’s four-high towers allows curing of UV inks on both sides of the web up to 35,000 cph. Barnsley Chronicle chairman Sir Nicholas Hewitt says the whole company is excited about the new addition: “We’re very excited about opportunities, quality of work we can publish with the Prime UV equipment, and the markets we can now pursue.” Sanger says the company also hopes to expand its commercial web printing business and Pioneers: The ‘Barnsley Chronicle’ which may be the UK’s first newspaper UV installation Right: Curing units have been fitted into the limited space above towers

product lines. “This will allow Yorkshire Web to gain new customers and eliminate the need for customers to send work to heatset print houses,” he says. “The UV process rounds out Yorkshire Web’s ability to meet the needs of its customers. We can now print large volume UV glossy web, and/or coldset web. We consistently find that customers want to deal with one printer that knows their business from computer to plate, start to glossy finish.” Beyond adding new customers, this UV installation reaffirms the company’s commitment to the environment. “UV printing cuts down on wasted paper, eliminates harmful air pollutants, and reduces Yorkshire Web’s carbon footprint with a 21st Century technological solution,” he says. Another benefit of the system is that it eliminates any offsetting problems, a major concern for traditional coldset web newspaper printers. “Traditional newspaper inks, especially when heavily applied, offset onto opposite pages of the printed work, and cause blurring and smudging,” says Elinor Midlik, president of Prime UV. gx n n

of five companies worldwide honoured by Siemens for its use of the German company’s automation technology. The 2012 customer excellence award recognises its application of Siemens drive technology to deliver advanced automation and product performance in Goss web presses. Goss research and development senior vice president Jeff Upchurch says the company is especially delighted as automation is part of a long-term mission: “We are streamlining press and finishing system performance, including job changeover processes, with a comprehensive approach aimed at automating, simplifying or even eliminating steps,” he says. The awards were presented in Washington, DC as part of the International Automation Summit. Judges said Goss used motion control and automation to realise repeatable and scalable solutions for web presses and finishing equipment. Goss implemented Siemens’ Simatic S7, Simotion and Sinamics control platforms.

An order from Gannett Publishing Services for its Asbury Park Press site in New Jersey sees Harland Simon replacing ink and dampening controls on three Goss Metro presses. Digital ink and spray bar dampening upgrades were completed in the late 1990s, but the need to support communications and controls hardware drives the order. Harland Simon will deliver three new Prima 6000 consoles, its Prima RIPSet system for presetting and Prima MS for upper level management. The existing system will remain operational until the new system is fully tested and commissioned. South African printer

and publisher Rising Sun, based near Durban, has ordered a new five-tower Goss Community following experience with the 25-yearold Community it installed ten years ago and has since

extended substantially.

Press maker manroland

web is to extend a Uniset 75 single-width press at Jiefangjun Bao Printing Factory in Beijing in its eighth order from the company. The company has a number of the German maker’s presses, including Polyman and Cromoman presses and several Uniset presses installed since 1986. A signing ceremony in Beijing only a month after DRUPA confirms the deal to add a extra printing tower will increase production capacity of the Uniset by at least 30 per cent, while printing parameters will also be significantly improved. Jiefangjun Bao Printing Factory was founded in 1956 and is now one of the biggest and most important printing companies in China. Director Li Kang says the cooperation is the eighth with manroland. “Outstanding printing quality, high level of automation, and flexibility of the manroland printing presses let us benefit tremendously,” he says. “These are the reasons why we choose manroland again.”

Not only manning but noise and 20 per cent of energy consumed will be reduced by two new KBA Commander CL presses to be installed at Westfalen-Blatt in Bielefeld, Germany. The double-width 32pp presses – configured as a line of four towers with two folders – are central to a $35 million investment in plant and equipment at a new site in suburban Sennestadt. The old-established newspaper group has a daily circulation of 120,000 copies and 27 local editions. Managing partner Michael Best says new production capabilities including full colour throughout, will enhance the appeal of the newspapers and enable the publisher to offer advertisers new design options, while its higher output will allow the inclusion of latebreaking news. Print production

managing director Thilo Grickschatsays the environment will also benefit: “The new Commander CL will run up to saleable colour faster, generate less waste and thus reduce paper consumption. “Heat insulation and recovery will cut energy consumption at the new plant by 20 per cent compared to the existing plant, and noise insulation will be much better.”

Product stitching

has become big business for UK newspaper giant News International, which has more than 70 stitchers on 19 manroland Colorman XXL presses following a recent order. Two recent installations have made the company the world’s biggest user of Tolerans stitchers. Five Speedliner 2.0 stitchers were installed on the presses at Broxbourne in north London in January. Three more stitchers have now been added to similar presses at Knowsley, near Liverpool in England’s north west. Tolerans chief executive Jan Melin says the requirement for lead-time was extraordinary. “We had to do our outmost to meet their requirements and the tough timelines for getting our stitchers into operation”, he says. The new stitchers include a new user interface and easier maintenance features.

ABB will work with the press maker to upgrade drives and controls on an eight-tower, two-folder KBA Commander at ‘Al Ahram’, one of Egypt’s leading newspapers. The Swiss control specialist will supply a completely new MPS Production press management system, six new control consoles and new drives for the 12 reelstands. Commissioning planned for early 2013 will be carried out “on the fly” with both presses always available for the night production of the newspaper. gx n n

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Fairfax switches North Richmond to QI colour register

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ustralia’s Fairfax Media is to switch its flagship hybrid print site in North Richmond to QI Press Controls’ mRC control technology following a pilot scheme at the end of last year. Presstech equipment installed with the 12-year-old press will be replaced by systems which are “faster, less obtrusive and less costly to maintain,” according to print site general manager Michael Gee. Fairfax brought QI in last year to provide print-to-cutoff control on two manroland Uniset 70 towers recently converted to UV printing, to deliver the closer tolerances needed for commercial work. Now the Dutch press controls specialist will install mRC-based systems for colour registration across the whole press. The 22-camera order also extends closed loop cutoff control to four webs, and includes QI’s closed loop fan-out control with integrated ABD air bustle device on the UV towers. Three operator control stations will allow control over the equipment from each individual folder. The busy site north of Sydney, New South Wales, prints a wide variety of suburban, regional and agricultural newspapers and magazines. Among these is the heatset/UV ‘Good Weekend’ supplement for the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ and a range of group real estate and lifestyle products. The unusual Uniset press combines horizontal weblead units for heatset production with UV and coldset towers to deliver 32 tabloid pages of heatset, 32 pages of UV and 64 pages of coldset through three folders.

Gee says the pressing need was to replace the 20-year-old technology installed with the press with modern systems with smaller marks – of special importance on work including bleeds – and for which spare parts were cheaper and more readily accessible. “The old marks take a lot of space, which create issues with commercial work,” Gee says. Fairfax already had experience of QI technology from installations in nearby Newcastle, at double-width print sites in Ormiston (Queensland) and Christchurch (New Zealand), and from the pilot scheme at North Richmond. “We’ve always liked their innovation and ideas,” says Gee, “and had received good reports from the other sites about performance, parts and reliability. “Additionally, our own first stage installation has been fantastic… it just works. The whole deal is a complete system that’s right for us.” QI managing director Menno Jansen is delighted with the order, which follows a seven-yearrelationship with the Australian publisher. “Although this press had another company’s system on it, we’ve always kept in touch,” he says. “The success of the cutoff controls needed when the UV equipment went in has meant we have been able to convince them of the benefits of a complete QI system. “It was an argument reinforced by the strong performance of our technology at some of their other sites and the strength and presence of our agent Ferrostaal who have assisted us in securing this fantastic deal.” gx n n



SCMP orders new press, plans narrower page

presshall gxpress.net

Indian regional groups T add towers, registration P ress extensions and upgrades are keeping control systems developer QI Press Controls busy in India. Orient presses at Amar Ujala

in Noida and Kanpur are being extended and the Dutch company is also to install its colour registration technology at Chitralekha Printers and Publishers in Navi Mumbai. Growth in colour demand sees four-tower TPH Orient 45000 X-Cel presses in Noida and Kanpur being extended, each with a fifth tower. Both presses had been equipped with QI’s IRS register control, and the company will now install additional mRC+ cameras on both presses. A leading regional newspaper in Chandigarh, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh Uttarakhand as well as New Delhi, ‘Amar Ujala’ was founded 1948 in the early days of Indian independence. Its readership of 30 million people is served by editorial systems connecting chief and subordinate editors and a network of printing plants, also demanded by road network limitations. At Chitralekha Printers and Publishers, a Manuline S16 heatset press is being upgraded with QI’s mRC+ cameras following the failure of an existing system. gx n n Picured: The TPH Orient 45000 X-Cel in Noida

he award-winning ‘South China Morning Post’ is responding to the vibrant Hong Kong market with an order for a new press and plans to upgrade existing plant. The publisher and its wholly-owned subsidiary Brilliant Star Printing Services – regular winners in PANPA and Asia Media Awards competitions – have announced an order for a new manroland Geoman newspaper press. Its existing 1999 Geoman and 2005 Regioman presses will also be reconfigured for a reduction in web width from 1524 to 1370 mm. Systems will also be upgraded to allow remote maintenance and

provide production planning with a modernised PPM station. Electronics and control systems on the older Geoman will also be upgraded with manroland’s PECOM components. The work will continue until late this year, with impact on daily production minimised. The ‘South China Morning Post’ is the largest English-language newspaper in Hong Kong and one of the leading economic newspapers in the region with a print run of about 150,000 copies. The biweekly ‘Jiu Jak Magazine’ and the weekly ‘Post Magazine’, as well as ‘Business Post’ and supplements, are also printed in Hong Kong. gx n n

manroland web appoints German agency to southeast Asia region

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ew sales and service arrangements for manroland web systems in southeast Asia have been confirmed, with the German press maker appointing Melchers Techexport to the territory. Bremen, Germany, based Melchers take responsibility for Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand. Originally it had

been thought that the Langley-owned sheetfed systems business would cover the area, with only Australasia, India and more recently the UK, directly owned by Possehl, owner of manroland web systems. Sales, service and marketing executive vice president Peter Kuisle says Melchers has been very familiar with the region for many decades and is intensively committed to it: “Customer proximity and local presence are

important principles of our corporate philosophy,” he says. “To realise this strategy successfully, we are very happy to win Melchers Group as our sales and service partner for southeast Asia. We are convinced that this cooperation makes sure we can provide our customers with the high support quality they are used to from manroland web systems and are expecting for n n the future.” gx

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internationally renowned news and business publication: “The last 20 years have passed by so fast that it’s easy to forget how much progress has been made since then,” he says. The study of ‘The Economist’ – which has almost exclusively been produced on UPM paper since 1992 – answers the question of just how much has been achieved in that time. Compared to 1992, paper used in today’s publication creates 90 per cent less carbon emissions, requires 35 per cent less water in manufacture, and

results in 90 per cent less production waste. The proportion of PEFC-certified wood fibre has risen from nil to 100 per cent, with the EU Ecolabel achieved in 2007. The figures show only the change in manufacture of the paper used for ‘The Economist’ – based on UPM Ultra from Caledonian for text and UPM Star from Kaukas for covers – and not improvements in production at the publication’s printers. Calculations assume the same weight and grade of

If only... Control technology on judge’s InterTech wish-list

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mong winners in this year’s Printing Industries of America InterTech technology awards is QuadTech’s colour control and web inspection system and a data management system, Enterworks Enable for managing content and digital assets and publishing them to multiple channels and media. PIA technology and research vice president Mark Bohan says InterTech judges were impressed with the QuadTech system’s ability to control colour and provide automatic water control to minimise scumming in newspapers. One judge said he wished he had had this in the past: “It would have made my life so much easier”. Twelve technologies were selected for the awards – which carry the right to use the famous lucite star – based on their innovation and likelihood of advancing the performance of the graphic communications industry. The other winners are: • Kodak’s red fluorescing solution for its NexPress digital presses, which images a clear ink on top of other images and graphics that fluoresces red when illuminated with UV light; • EskoArtwork’s i-cut sign cutting software; • Fujifilm’s J Press 720 inkjet sheetfed press; • Heidelberg for its web-

based Prinect Performance Benchmarking system which sheetfed printers can use to compare the productivity of their presses with those of peers; • Keen Systems’ MIS and web-to-print solutions; • Sun Chemicals’ SunPak LMQ (for low migration quality) ink and related products for food and tobacco packaging; • Technique Business Systems’ iTechnique mobile interface to the company’s management information systems via a universal app on iPod, iPhone and iPad; • Utopia Digital Technologies for its Avatrex transportable imaging system, which allows users to created inkjet images which can be transferred to a variety of products and surfaces – one licensed user is Kodak, which markets it as Shoe Art Film which consumers can image on an inkjet printer and use to decorate their shoes. • Xeikon’s X-800 VariLane software for label imposition, Xeikon; • X-Rite’s redesigned i1Pro2 spectrophotometry system for photographic, prepress, publishing and digital printing markets; Awards will be presented at PIA’s Premier Print Awards and InterTech Technology Awards Gala in Chicago, Illinois, on October 7. gx n n

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Double satisfaction with Tianjin’s folder flexibility

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erformance figures for the new two-tower Goss Newsliner 4x1 since installation have led to an expression of “unreserved satisfaction” by customer Tianjin Evening News Group, with the new capability to produce two separate publications through one folder key to this. Rated at up to 80,000 cph, the high-specification single circumference double-width press has a web width of up to 1562mm. A 2:3:3 jaw folder has double independent folding couples and an upper former providing the crucial ability to simultaneously handle two individual titles with different circulations. This provides cost benefits by maximising savings on consumables while boosting press utilisation. The press is also equipped with colour registration and ink levelling systems. Tianjin Evening News Group has been a long-term Goss newspaper press user, and the latest installation complements production off four 2x2 (single wide, double

China’s Tianjin Evening News Group is producing two separate newspapers – with different circulations – simultaneously on one folder of a recently-commissioned Goss Newsliner 4x1 press circumference) Goss Universal, and three 2x1 Universal presses. Vice president of Tianjin Evening News Group Li Shengli says the strong working relationship with Goss was a vital ingredient to the success of this project: “Naturally, the advanced features and overall capabilities of the equipment is first and foremost when making an investment of this magnitude and significance, but it certainly helps in the decision when you can trust your technology partner. “Our experience with eight Goss presses over the years has been very positive,” he says. Using the Newsliner doublewidth platform often favoured in Asian markets, Goss developed the 4x1 model to exploit all the available benefits of straight-run printing for

publishers requiring multiedition products. As well as the modifications to the upper folder, this encompassed a raft of developments aimed at enhancing quality and operational stability of the 4x1 cylinder format. The 4x1 Newsliner model has plate cylinders redesigned to reduce deflection and improve registration. Cantilevered support for plate cylinders provides greater stability and repeatability at the highest speeds, and a specially modified ‘triple raceway’ bearing system gives greater precision and easier operation, the company says. Other advanced features include optional digital inking and an enhanced fully-automated splicing system. At Tianjin, the new Newsliner produces the flagship broadsheet ‘Tianjin Evening News’, which averages 32-40 pages per edition and has a circulation of 350,000 copies, as well as the tabloid ‘Baohai Morning Post’, which has a pagination of between 56-72 pages and a circulation of 250,000 copies. gx n n

QuadTech gets Knowsley colour system order after trial

‘Economist’ study shows years of eco-progress

apermaker UPM has used British weekly ‘The Economist’ to show how printed newspapers have set benchmarks in sustainability since the first Rio Earth Summit 20 years ago. Business group president Jyrki Ovaska says the 1992 event challenged business to follow a more sustainable path, and create more value using less raw materials and with less environmental impact. He says UPM “even surprised themselves” with the results of a case study into production of the


Q paper was used in 1992 and 2012. “The results of the case study show how much can be achieved when a company embeds sustainable development at the very heart of its business,” says Ovaska. “In our paper business, this is confirmed by UPM achieving the EU Ecolabel for almost its entire product range.” gx n n

uadTech’s image-based colour control system is to be installed on 25 towers of five presses at Newsprinters’ giant Knowsley print site in the UK. The order by the printing division of News International puts QuadTech’s AccuCam technology on the manroland Colorman XXL presses at the site near Liverpool, and follows trials and comparative tests. The stateof-the-art 34-acre site, equipped to print up 430,000 120-page tabloid newspapers an hour, is the smaller of

the Newsprinters’ sites. Newsprinters group managing director Brian McGee says the company is delighted with the results of a two-year project: “This investment will provide us with cost savings and improve already award-winning print quality,” he says. “It reinforces our commitment to stay ahead of the game with regard to printing technology, as we do with all aspects of manufacturing excellence.” The trial delivered “significant improvements” in quality consistency

and productivity. Besides advanced image-based colour control, the system warns on print faults such as catch up (scumming), creasing, transposed plates, and tramlines. Research and development at Knowsley also led to a new water control capability, in which the system monitors and controls press damping levels. Newsprinters group technical services director Mark Ellington says he is confident the investment will deliver further benefits as the technology develops. QuadTech president Karl Fritchen

says it was “truly an honour” to be selected by Newsprinters to continue the relationship and supply closed-loop colour control across the remaining presses at Knowsley. “Working together with the team at Newsprinters has provided us the necessary insight to extend our development of a revolutionary product for the newspaper market,” he says. The Newsprinters installation will begin in October, with the systems fully operational by next January. gx n n




insert & heatset

KBA has followed up its

gxpress.net

Australian commercial web printing pioneer Clark retires

P Automation projects: Peter Clark will consult to AIW on technology and automation

eter Clark has retired. A founding director and partner in AIW Printing – established in 2000 – he led the Melbourne heatset printer to a number of innovations, including installation of what was then the country’s (and one of the world’s) largest heatset presses, an 80-page Goss Sunday 4000 with a 2060 mm web width. His retirement also marks 50 years in printing. His career started as an apprentice litho platemaker and printer at the Hobart, Tasmania, firm of Cox Kay. After progressing to manager of the city’s Fleetprint, he set up his first printing business supplying customers including the Wrest Point Casino, ABC concert department, Purity Supermarkets and RACT.

He moved to Melbourne in 1979 after selling the business, and worked for a number of printing and packaging companies. At Visyboard, he set up a new printing operation called Visyflex Preprint, and in the early 1990s he joined News Limited’s commercial division which later became PMP. He headed the group’s NZ operations, ran its Moorebank, NSW, facility and returned to Melbourne to head Progress Printing and its letterbox distribution business, before leaving to set up AIW. Clark says he plans to remain on the board of AIW Printing, working for it as a consultant on printing technology and automation projects. gx n n

Heatset, straight or collect, to take Beijing Daily into commercial market

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new heatset press installation will take Beijing Daily Group beyond newspaper production to new commercial printing opportunities. The publisher has ordered a four-unit Goss M-800 press with a four-pagesaround by four-pages across (4x4) cylinder configuration, for commissioning late this year. More than 300 employees at the facility print more than two million newspapers daily. “Demand for commercial products and heatset retail inserts is increasing in our region,” printing vice director Jia Fudong says. He expects commercial print volumes

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will continue to increase over the next five years and says the new press, the first M-800 in China, will produce a wide range of products and formats. Print-quality expectations for those products are increasing along with page counts in the Beijing area, while run lengths are stable, Jia reports. A PCC-2 pinless folder will allow production of heatset products at up to 80,000 cph in straight production or 40,000 cph in collect mode. The press will have a Contiweb FD paster, Ecocool dryer and its Omnicon press control and digital workflow technology. Goss sales vice president Tim Mercy says the ability to print magazine,

August 2012

tabloid and other formats straight or collect makes the press a good fit for the varied requirements of Beijing Daily. “This is also an excellent option for commercial printers looking to diversify with a four-around press that complements existing twoaround presses,” he says. Beijing Daily is part of the Beijing Daily Group, a media company that manages nine newspapers and three magazines as well as web sites, a publishing house and a television broadcasting station. The group publishes the leading circulation newspapers in the area, including ‘Beijing Daily’, ‘Beijing Evening News’, ‘Beijing Morning Post’ and ‘Beijing Suburbs Daily’. gx n n

DRUPA focus on the new C16 heatset press with a further sale, this time to German printer ADV Schoder. The 150-year-old Gersthofen business is about to install a B1-sized Rapida 106 sheetfed press, with the C16 set to follow four months later. ADV Schoder prints catalogues, direct mail, magazines and supplements on one sheetfed press and seven webs at plants in Gersthofen – where the new presses will replace older KBA plant – and Augsburg The investments are part of a decision to go for quality rather than growth, with the attendant risk of over-capacity, because it did not want to have to trim prices to maintain plant utilisation levels. The five-colours-plus-coater R106 is scheduled to come on stream in August, with the C16 – with sheeter, broadsheet delivery and capacity to print stock up to 250 gsm – follows in December. While it will primarily be used for bulk mail, mailing components and inserts, it will also print covers and additional products for catalogues and magazines on heavier stock. It will have an aqueous coater, perforator and die-stamping unit. Inline colour measurement and control software from System Brunner and Quad-Tech have been specified.

New-generation Goss presses are set to lift the print market in Iraq. The maker has announced the sale of two 16-page heatset webs to Iraqi printer Al-Wafaq Printing Company. The deal covering two M-600 presses to be installed early next year, was confirmed at DRUPA last month, and is part of an investment to deliver the country’s best commercial print quality. Owner and managing director Muthanna Abdul Samad Al-Samarraie says the installation will make a huge contribution to the development of the region’s printing industry and Iraq in particular. “Iraq is going through an intensive investment programme, but technical capabilities are only one side of the equation,” he says. “We aim

to invest in the latest, state-ofthe-art technologies that will allow us to reflect the unique spirit and artistic endeavours of our nation. “We are investing for the ability to produce publications with the highest quality and aesthetic appeal so that we can give clients the means to express their creative ideas in beautiful, highly impressive print.” The M-600 presses, which will initially produce books and magazines, will incorporate some of the new automation the maker showed in Düsseldorf. Features including enhanced automatic plate changing will ensure maximum efficiency and low makeready waste. Al Wifaq was established in 1988 by the late Abdul Samad Al Samera’I, and has been further developed by sons Muthana, Abdul Samad, Ahmad and Muhammad. The company specialises in book, magazine and poster printing. Muthanna Al-Samarraie says the company is inspired by his father’s passion for the printing business and a dedication to the future development and prosperity of his country, “to leave no stone unturned in meeting current and potential needs” of customers.

mailroom

IPMG’s soon-to-move Sydney heatset print operation

Hannanprint has installed a Kolbus KM412e perfect binder. It will be teamed with a 21-station gatherer and three-knife trimmer, and is rated at 18,000 cph. Hannanprint is preparing for a relocation to new premises at Warwick Farm, southwest of the city.

Avis Trykk Hamar in Norway is extending an existing Schur mailroom, replacing two existing inserting systems with one highcapacity A955 inserter and an A830 storage system for winding and unwinding supplements. Stackers and bundle addresser units will also be integrated, and a HQF-20 quarterfolder will handle some inserted and direct production, all under the control of a Nova information system. A new 28 million Euros production site for Norrköpings Tidningars Media at Linköping includes a new six-tower, twofolder manroland Regioman and a mailroom with Ferag’s MSD and Streamfold technology. More than 360,000 newspapers are printed nightly. Separate systems are linked via an open line postpress layout. Two 45,000 cph MSD inserting lines (pictured) are used with press and mailroom interfaced with two DiscPools. A trimming drum n n and StreamFold quarterfold line are also integrated. gx

gxpress.net

Small formats easy to digest

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ith the focus increasingly on supplements and inserts, newspapers are gaining experience of producing compact digest-sized products inline, mailroom systems developer Ferag says. One German customer, Evers-Druck in Meldorf, to the north of Hamburg, has extended its offering with the installation of a UniDrum 480, the company’s third drum gatherer-stitcher. The module adds to the range of formats which can be produced inline, boosting productivity on catalogues, brochures and magazines. Competitive production of compact formats smaller that A4 has been a focus. Processing over a number of years on Ferag’s SHT-350 and UniDrum 420 gatherer-stitcher drums has been complemented this year by the new 480 system, which delivers compact formats between DIN A5 and A4 with gathering-stitching two-up. At Evers-Druck, it has been teamed with a format-compatible SNT-50 trimming drum and SplitTrim separating module. The installation

is augmented by EasySert inserting so that supplements can be added to the commercial products inline. Technology manager Matthias Langenohl says especially high levels of output are being achieved with the two UniDrums operating in combination with card gluers, an A5 stacker and palletiser. gx n n Pictured: The UniDrum 480 at Evers-Druck

KBA has sold a new-

generation C48 commercial web to the company which bought its first C16 press. The new 48-page system continues a relationship with German multimedia service provider Schaffrath Medien in Geldern. The company installed the first C16 two years ago, following it with a KBA sheetfed press. The company prints magazines, catalogues, inserts and posters, with the web department alone handling more than 200 periodicals with small, medium and highvolume circulations. The new 48pp KBA C48 will sport an array of automation modules including RollerTronic roller locks – to minimise maintenance input while enhancing energy efficiency – and ErgoTronic control technology. Presetting software will be embedded in the existing LogoTronic Professional data-capture and MIS networking system connected n n to the KBA C16. gx

Fit for profitability. Surprise your clients and increase your earning power. State-of-the-art technology from Muller Martini creates competitive advantages: your clients will appreciate the high-quality products and the creative added value. Connex ensures your profitability by providing the highest level of availability, unbeatable changeover times and intelligent production flows. Our modular product program, hybrid systems and extensive MMServices ensure you are equipped for the markets of today and tomorrow. Muller Martini – your strong partner.

Muller Martini Australia Pty Limited Sydney +61 (0)2 8707 7300, Melbourne +61 412 749 761, Auckland +64 (0)21 790 600 Fax +61 (0)2 9773 1245, www.mullermartini.com/au, [email protected]




industry

newspaper history gxpress.net

gxpress.net

leonora hoists the flag

rodkirkpatrick

Rod Kirkpatrick tells the story of the remarkable young woman who resurrected a local newspaper in Queensland’s far north

New award recognises financial journalism

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hen the first sheet of the ‘Gulf News’ came off the press at the decaying Queensland goldfields town of Croydon in May 1930, the 21-year-old owner-editor Leonora Gregory could not have been more excited if she had been the first to conquer Everest or reach the South Pole. “Nothing,” she wrote six years later in London, “will ever quite surpass the sensation with which I lifted the first sheet off the cylinder and stood gazing at what I had created.” Gregory, a Victorian who had visited Croydon in 1929, launched the ‘Gulf News’ ten months after the ‘Croydon Mining News’ had closed. She paid a peppercorn rental for the derelict ‘News’ premises and its press and plant, some of it dating back to the three Croydon newspapers established in 1887 when the goldfield was booming. The ‘Gulf News’ became her stepping stone to Fleet Street, the BBC, the Soviet news agency Tass, and ghost-writing for such celebrities as the black American singer and civil-rights activist Paul Robeson. Leonora Jane Gregory (1908-90) described herself as the eldest child of a gifted but unstable father, civil engineer John Stephen Gregory, and a courageous, unconventional mother, Eloise, née Weatherly, who broke up her marriage after 13 unhappy years and set out, with no experience, to farm a property she had bought in Murtoa, in Victoria’s northwest. Leonora grew up in Derby, Tasmania, and Swan Hill, St Kilda and Murtoa. Her schooling, from the age of 10 to 16, was as a boarder at Firbank Grammar, a Church of England school at Brighton. She topped the school in her final year (1924). Unlike many women of her era, she knew from childhood that she was going to have to earn her own living, and decided to be a writer. After leaving school she had several articles published in Melbourne weeklies on such topics as housekeeping and marriage. She also wrote short stories and advertising copy and prepared some correspondence courses for Melbourne business colleges. In 1929, Gregory left on a three-month holiday to the Gulf country of Queensland where her uncle, the Rev Oscar Esperson, was the roving parson for a parish bigger than England. She travelled with her uncle, aunt and cousin to the remote towns and properties of the Gulf. Some of the Croydon people, still smarting at losing their newspaper, half-jokingly invited her to stay and resurrect the paper. She said she had to return to her job at a Melbourne business college, but after travelling by train for a week to resume work, she discovered that her job had just ceased to exist. She telegrammed the Croydon solicitor:“Is it

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new award for excellence in financial journalism includes a $10,000 cash prize. President of the National Press Club of Australia Laurie Wilson says the objective is to encourage broader media coverage and documentaries on finance issues, recognise and reward excellence in journalism in Australia and increase the national focus on the contribution that business journalists can make. This year’s submissions will be drawn from a 12 month period covering

treated with arsenic after a beam collapsed under the weight of her helper. Half the printing gadgets were a mystery to her. She realised that if there was one tiny gap in her information or ingenuity, the whole project could be wrecked. She had seen a newspaper go to press only once and she had never set up a display advertisement before. It took her an entire afternoon to set up her first display ad. She spent the evening typing out circulars to canvass the country for subscribers. Her nearest competition was three days away at Cairns. She would work in the office from 7am until dark, sitting on a high stool, picking letter after letter from its box, till word by word and line by line, a solid block of type took shape in her composing ‘stick’. Every evening when she showered, her skin was chocolate-brown from the dust. When her news telegram arrived the day before publication, it read to her like a jumble of nonsense because only the key verbs and nouns were included. She pinned it up, took up her stick and began setting.“I don’t know to this day whether my interpretation of the news was strictly accurate, but it made sense and no one corrected me,” she wrote in 1936.When pages were composed, she began locking the formes, but try as she might, she could not get the type to hold firmly enough in the formes for them to be lifted on to the bed of the press. She worked on for hours by the light of a rusty kerosene lamp, locking and unlocking the formes at least 25 times as she tried to get things right. Around midnight, head in hands, she admitted defeat. But a visitor walked in, heard her tale of woe, and wanted to know,“Have you asked old Bill Webb? He used to help when the plant was working before.” They knocked on Webb’s door but he was already in bed. He agreed to come in the morning.

the news cycle, audience engagement and relevance to consumer, ability to translate and clearly communicate the complexities of financial issues to the wider audience. Submissions may be in any media form and topics may include Australian business, Australian economy, finance policy, superannuation and or personal/consumer finance, global and Australian financial markets, taxation and banking. For further information go to www.npc.org.au gx n n

Future Forum, PANPA awards highlights

Publisher and typesetter: Leonora Gregory in the ‘Gulf News’ composing room; Above: The outback editor who made news; Facing page: Leonora Gregory and the first issue

still possible to rent the ‘Croydon Mining News’?” The reply said she could rent the plant for £1 a year. Suddenly she was scared.What made her think she could put out a newspaper single-handed? And if she returned to Croydon, she knew she would be on her own because her uncle and family were heading for Victoria. It was clear she had to master the rudiments of printing before she went.And she had to make some money so she wrote articles based on her recent trip to the Gulf, sold them and saved the payments. To learn typesetting and some aspects of printing, she worked two days a week at the ‘Dunmunkle Standard’ in Murtoa, for four months. At the end of February 1930, Gregory headed north again, spending most of March in Brisbane to canvass for advertisements. She sailed for the Gulf via Thursday Island at the end of March on an 11-day voyage by cargo ship. At Croydon, she found that the printing office would need days of work to prepare it for use. The only windows were nailed up, and the skylights were choked with dust and cobwebs. The roof had leaked on to the cases of type and the bottom of several trays had rotted so that piles of type were spilling through in confusion. Curtains of cobwebs hung from the roof. Hornets’ mud nests adorned type cases and posts. Fowls had been roosting among the rusty machinery which included an obsolete engine-drive Wharfedale, two hand-presses, two platen presses, a proof press and a guillotine. Gregory panicked, but that night as she lay in bed, her mantra was:“I won’t fail; I won’t fail.” She should have allowed herself more than three weeks to put out the first edition. She had to use a shovel, not a broom, to clean out the office and employed a man to get rid of the debris in a wheelbarrow. The white-ant-eaten rafters were

July 2011 to June this year, and have to be made by September 7. Entrants’ journalism will have broadened community understanding of finance issues and/or events, and explained or examined related policies, technologies, trends and/or personnel in their chosen medium. “Judges will be looking for investigative enterprise, strong business theme, elegant writing style, clarity and impact,” Wilson says. Judges will also consider impact on

Gregory explained that she could not get anything fine enough to pack the type. Everything she used threw something else out.Webb looked at the formes.“Aw, you’re trying to pack it with metal. Billy Murphy [the previous owner-editor] used to use pine shavings. They give.” Webb showed Gregory how to pare fine needles of wood from a splinter and with these they packed the loose places.“Then he raised the forme. Slapped it! Pounded it! Everything held. I could have shouted,” Gregory said. “I almost rocked with relief as the formes – my formes – now lifting like solid plates, were carried by Webb (they were too heavy for me) and laid in the bed of the machine.” They had to be removed twice before they were laid correctly, but the ‘Gulf News’ was about to be born. Gregory could not tackle the old engine to operate the press and employed a man to turn the machine by hand.A boy was there to‘fly’ the papers as they came around on the cylinder. Gregory fed the machine herself. “To feed that first sheet! To see it go in virgin white and come out stamped and clear! It was like the hoisting of a flag,” she said.“The ‘Gulf News’. My paper. My words – transferred from an abstract idea into concrete fact by my own hands!” This was the moment she would remember. • The story of how Leonora Gregory handed over the young paper and went from the Gulf to Fleet Street is on our website at www.gxpress. net (snap the barcode) • Rod Kirkpatrick has been editor of the Australian Newspaper History Group newsletter for 11 years. Email him at rkhistory3@ bigpond.com gx n n

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ith only days until the 2012 PANPA Future Forum, organisers have published a full programme for what promises to be an impressive line up of speakers for the plenary session and master classes. The plenary session takes place at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, Darling Harbour, on September 6, with the gala Newspaper of the Year awards dinner that night. Event and sponsorship manager Vanessa SeymourLee says she believes enthusiasm for this year’s conference is a reflection of the calibre of speakers and the industry’s desire to

create better professionals. “We have now confirmed all the speakers for both days of the conference,” she says. Highlights from Day 1 (Plenary) include Jim Chisholm, the ‘global trends’ guru for this year. In the past three years, Mark Hollands, Timothy Balding and Earl Wilkinson have fulfilled this role at the conference. Chisholm will provide a global context to see how we are faring compared with colleagues around the world. Other speakers are also going to touch on trends include Ken Doctor, the US-based author of Newsonomics, the chief

executive of News Limited, Kim Williams, who is providing the keynote, and Megan Brownlow from PwC who will be discussing the local media context.     On Day 2, Master Class highlights include a Print and Production Master Class to provide executives with a view of what is going on in other parts of the world in relation to print investment and rationalisation. Strategies of various leading international companies will be examined, creating a highly beneficial session, presented by Jim Chisholm. This session will be far more interactive than on

Day 1, so attendees can be better informed about the strategic direction of the global industry. Garry Linnell, of Fairfax Media, will be drilling down for local context and providing an editors perspective, Andy McCourt will be offering a DRUPA overview and Tony Hale will provide a marketing and advertising perspective.   There will also be Master Classes for Journalists, Sales and Marketing Executives and Photojournalists.    For more details go to www.panpa.org.au or www.panpafutureform. com.au gx n n

PrintCity puts its DRUPA views in print

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printed version of the PrintCity Alliance ‘Print: Seen! Lean & Green’ content produced for DRUPA, has now been published in a single volume. The book presents a view of the future based on input from alliance members and associates, the Stuttgart Media University, FIPP, University of Swansea and Print Power. It argues that while a future for print will be an evolving mix of scenarios for different market segments, economies and cultures, all will need a two-part

strategy to optimise their success. Firstly, print must be seen – it needs to stand in its own right and be valued as a functional media. This needs to be underpinned with a combined lean and green manufacturing strategy to ensure its profitability and sustainability. Newspapers rate a mention early on, ‘Newspapers delivering daily’ a focus of the first chapter, covering publications and promotional print. PDF versions of the book are available from the PrintCity website: http://www.printcity.de gx n n



industry gxpress.net

Almost half the stand space at

Australia’s PacPrint13 trade show – to be held in Melbourne from May 21-25 – is already sold, organisers say. Exhibition director Paul Baker of Reed Exhibitions says committed exhibitors include Agfa, Ferrostaal and Müller Martini, as well as digital and general commercial print systems vendors. “This is a great result so far out from the show and indicates just how important PacPrint is to suppliers right across the print and graphic communications industry,” he says. The dynamic of the industry is reflected in several key exhibitors with digital printing connections planning significant increases in space over the 2009 show. Digital technologies, workflow innovation and sustainability format are expected to be among key trends. PaPrint13 chairman Ian Martin says the change in many sectors is ‘evolutionary’ rather than ‘revolutionary’: “Even at this early stage PacPrint13 is shaping up as an ‘ideas-rich’ show which will help decision-makers translate all the talk about trends, innovation and improvements into practical strategies and investment plans they can implement for their own business success.” The show will repeat the Forum Series, and will again co-locate with the Visual Impact Image Exhibition.

APN News & Media has bought a

controlling stake in online shopping club brandsExclusive for A$36 million. The deal gives it an 82 percent stake, and provides for payment of an additional A$30 million if 2013 earnings targets are met.

Mitsubishi web and sheetfed

presses are to be sold in India by New Delhi-based Provin Technos following the newly-formed company’s appointment as sole pan-India partner for sales and after-sales. It follows a successful 14-year partnership with Proteck Machinery, and sees two former Proteck employees, Vinay Kaushal and N Pradeep, take over the baton supported by a service network of more than ten engineers.

MHI-PPM sales director Koji Okubo (left) is pictured with Provin director Vinay Kaushal

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August 2012

App is something of which to speak

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ustralian environmental strategist Phillip Lawrence has something new to talk about apart from eco-sensitive forestry… talking. Or more precisely, an iPhone app about talking. And not surprisingly, it’s getting talked about. Lawrence’s SpeakLikeaPro app has been the buzz of social media this week, and the app itself reached the number nine business app slot on iTunes. After 20 years involved with the pulp and paper industry, Lawrence

Canon and Océ are working more closely in Australia with Simon Wheeler – who is managing director of Océ Australia – named to head a new division combining the companies’ production print teams. The new Canon Professional Printing division opens for business next year. and is an important step in the ongoing integration of the two businesses. Australia’s Printing Industries Association has launched a scheme to support print apprentices, backed by $1.4 million of government money. The 12 months scheme establishes a national apprenticeship advisory service and mentoring programme, aimed at increasing the retention rates of young and mature-age apprentices and encouraging new entrants. The $1.4 million funding comes from the Australian government’s department of industry, innovation, science, research and tertiary education as part of its commitment to increasing skill levels and opportunities. Printing Industries chief executive Bill Healey says the project has been under development. Printing Industries will work with the government and industry stakeholders to ensure the industry had a suitable trained workforce to help it to reposition itself to take advantage of innovative technologies and opportunities. “This is part of the association’s strategy to ensure that the evolving digital industry and lithographic industry is provided with an adequate supply of new, well-trained employees for its future needs,” he says. Two national advisors based in Sydney will provide information to school leavers and other potential

– a frequent speaker at graphic arts industry events – left fulltime work in 2007 to concentrate on study. But the interest in public speaking has led to helping others be better public and business speakers: SpeaklikeAPro is the result of a cooperation with voice coaches Gabrielle Rogers – who trained at the National Academy of Arts in Sydney – and Gerry Sont, “It got to number nine in business apps list two days after it was released,” he says. “Very exciting.” gx n n apprentice applicants, employers, registered training organisations and employment brokers. They will support six state mentors with a website, social media and telephone support services, as well as development of new information packs for employers and guidance counsellors, events such as careers expos and seminars, and chat rooms linking industry experts with potential apprentices. The six mentors will help identify and select apprentices, ensuring a ‘good fit’ between the apprentice, their employer and industry. They will also provide ‘pastoral care’ style support to overcome a broad range of barriers faced by apprentices.

A Brisbane company’s performance

analytics platform which enables marketers and publishers to measure audience engagement on mobile is among 11 projects sharing $7.5 million in funding from government agency Commercialisation Australia. The company, OtherLevels, has developed a platform to analyse and optimise mobile messaging campaigns sent by SMS, mobile email or App push. The software automatically discovers message content and derives audience segmentation. Real time analytics measure the campaign from message to detailed event based outcomes, helping marketers to dynamically create new campaigns and optimise message content, leading to audience engagement growth, increased outcomes and higher revenues. OtherLevels will use the grant funding to demonstrate the commercial value of the solution with major channel partners and their international clients.

Global paper maker UPM says it

will expand in growth businesses in Asia as part of reshaping its business portfolio. The company plans a new woodfree speciality paper machine at its Changshu mill in China. President and chief executive Jussi Pesonen says the move fits a strategic target of having more than half of its sales from well performing growth businesses in the latter part of the decade. Apart from strengthening partnerships with customers producing label stocks, it will be a platform to expand into new end uses in Asia. “It also supports the good profitability of our growth businesses,” says Pesonen. A new uncoated woodfree speciality machine capable of producing up to 360,000 tonnes of uncoated woodfree grades will start up by the end of 2014. UPM says the investment will also include “future-oriented infrastructure investments” in the Changshu site. The total investment cost is CNY 3,000 million (EUR 390 million). “China and emerging Asia are our natural growth markets where we already have a unique market position, good customer base and excellent distribution networks,” paper business group president Jyrki Ovaska says.

Inkjet Guardian awarded in New Zealand’s Print in Print contest

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digitally-printed copy of UK daily ‘The Guardian’ took an industry development award for Printstop in the 2012 New Zealand Pride In Print competition earlt this month. The Wellington company has New Zealand’s first Screen Truepress Jet520 inkjet web. Printstop’s concept is to reproduce overseas titles including the ‘Financial Times’ and ‘Washington Post’ as newspapers for the local market, delivering copies at the same time as the originals are being printed overseas. The publications are being printed within minutes of PDFs being received in Wellington. Market potential of the idea was proven during

gxpress.net

ICQC hots up

the Rugby World Cup when there were many overseas visitors in NZ, and an agreement with a marketing company allowed local distribution. Judges felt it was an excellent concept as well as a good print job, agreeing it “breathed life into tactile newspapers”. Design judge Kerenza Smith said production of ‘The Guardian’ in

Singapore’s ‘Straits Times’

is pushing for online classified with the launch of a new jobs website and plans for other new sites. Publisher Singapore Press Holdings has relaunched ST701Jobs with a new domain name www. STJobs.sg, and a bigger emphasis on the ‘Straits Times’ brand. The recruitment site has scored ten million page views, 1.5 million monthly browsers, and 35,000 Facebook fans since its soft launch in March. Property, general, and vehicles classified sites are to follow. Head of SPH online classifieds Johnson Goh says site usage and traffic has tripled since the soft launch: “This heartening result tells us that we are meeting our users’ expectations of a truly effective and useful job site. I believe users also know that ST is a brand name they can trust. I am confident our job site will grow from strength to strength.” gx n n


Printstop’s Symon Yendoll of Printstop with John Greenacre of Spicers Above: APN Hastings’ weboffset winner

New Zealand met a commercial need in the marketplace: “This could reinvigorate newspaper production in an age where all newspaper runs are reduced and people are getting lots of their news online. The success in the Rugby World Cup proved the concept and it has shown there is a commercial niche for this kind of innovation,” she says. The entry was printed by Printstop for The Magazine Marketing Company on Octane stock from BJ Ball. This year’s web-offset category was won by APN Print Hastings for ‘Hawke’s Bay Today’. The entry December 17, 2011 edition was printed for Hawke’s Bay Today, on Norske Skog Nornews 42gsm stock, using Agfa N91V plates and DIC inks. gx n n

E

xpect keen competition in WANIfra’s International Color Quality Club with 18 Asia-Pacific and Gulf publishers among the 81 taking part worldwide. India’s five biggest publishers, nine from Asia, three from the Gulf and one Australian company will take part in the 2012-2014 contest. All have already met specific ISO standards and demonstrated to judges that they can reliably reproduce colour images and advertisements consistently, worldwide, and with the intended colour effect. “This not only provides confirmation of the successful efforts aimed at achieving international standardisation, but also the motivation of personnel working in every printing plant, the correct choice of materials, impressive knowledge of printing techniques, and the skilful use of measuring and control,” says interim chief executive Manfred Werfel. The winners were chosen from a field of 192 titles which applied for membership. Details of each will be included in a book to be published in time for the World Publishing Expo (IfraExpo) in Frankfurt in October.

The successful publishers are:

Australia/NZ West Australian Newspapers, Perth (The West Australian, Seven Days) India ABP, Kolkata, India (Ananabazar Patrika, The Telegraph) Bennett, Coleman & Co, Kandivali, Mumbai, Airoli, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, and Sahibabad, India (The Times of India, Sunday Times, Mahasashtra Times) HT Media, New Delhi and Mumbai, India (Hindustan Times, Hindi Hindustan, Mint) Kasturi & Sons, Coimbatore, India (The Hindu) The Printers (Mysore), Bangalore, India (Deccan Herald, Prajavani) Southeast Asia Apple Daily, Hong Kong (Apple Daily, HK) Apple Daily Publication Development, Taipei, Taiwan (Apple Daily Taiwan, Sharp Daily) Asahi Printech, Sakai-City, and Osaka, Japan (The Asahi Shimbun) KHL Printing Co, Singapore (Asia Wall Street Journal) Mediacorp Press, Singapore (Today) Nanyang Press Holdings, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (Nanyang Siang Pau, China Press) Sin Chew Media Corporation, Pateling Jaya, and Selangor, Malaysia (Guang Ming Daily, Sin Chew Daily) Singapore Press Holdings, Singapore (The Straits Times, Berita Harian, Lianhe Zaobao) Utusan Melayu (Malaysia), Bandar Baru Bangi, Malaysia (Utusan Malaysia) Gulf Al-Yaum Media House, Dammam, Saudi Arabia (Al-Yaum Newspaper) Masar Printing & Publishing, Dubai, UAE (Al Bayan, Emarat Al Youm) United Printing & Publishing, Shahama, Abu Dhabi (7 Days, The National, Al Ittihad, Financial Times)

KBA puts a figure on its DRUPA sales, but says web orders down

P

ress maker KBA has put a figure on its DRUPA sales, and says business after the show continues to be brisk. But with a good response to its digital and packaging presses, the company says most of the 100 million Euros order book was in batch-produced sheetfed presses. It had previously declined to reveal its sales at the Düsseldorf show until finance was arranged. At the annual meeting in Würzburg, president and chief executive Claus Bolza-Schünemann reported contracts worth “well over one hundred million Euros” and said post-Drupa business was also brisk.

He says that while the show’s positive impact on order intake and sales will not work through to the bottom line “for some weeks or even months”, preliminary figures for KBA’s sheetfed division show that the volume of new orders booked to the end of May approached 300 million Euros, roughly 12 per cent up on 2011. However, orders for web and special presses totalled approximately 190 million Euros, a big drop on the prioryear figure of more than 335 million Euros, which had been boosted by some major contracts. The group order intake of just over 486 million Euros for the first five months was thus lower than 12

months earlier but higher than group sales for the same period, which stood at around 458 million Euros or around eight per cent up on the prior-year figure. The order backlog at 31 May exceeded 854 million Euros and was a good 236 million Euros above the prioryear figure. This will contribute to the higher sales targeted in the second six months. Bolza-Schünemann would not disclose earnings figures before the halfyear report on August 14, but said they would be higher than 2011. Despite the state of the global economy, sales of more than 1.2 billion Euros are targetted for 2012, with higher

pre-tax group profits. The projection is based on an anticipated high level of plant utilisation in the second half-year and a positive impact on earnings from ongoing cost-cutting activities. Bolza-Schünemann says changes in the media environment, technological advances and structural transitions in the print media industry offer opportunities for KBA: “We are aiming to close the gap to the number one player in sheetfed offset and move up to the number two slot in commercial web offset. “As the market leader for newspaper presses we are adjusting our product palette to a smaller market volume while boosting profitability.” gx n n


people

A management

gxpress.net

TNW publishing director to take on former PANPA roles

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aving absorbed PANPA/Newspaper Publishers Association at the start of this year, Australian industry group The Newspaper Works has appointed an executive director of publishing with roles which partly replicate those of departed PANPA chief executive Mark Hollands. Mitchell Murphy will join the Sydneyheadquartered group on September 3, three days before the PANPA Future Forum and Newspaper of the Year awards dinner, which become part of his responsibility. Most recently publisher of Fairfax New Zealand’s Auckland broadsheet ‘Sunday Star-Times’ and Auckland Now website,

Murphy has spent more than 25 years in the newspaper industry. TNW chief executive Tony Hale says the newlycreated role reflects the merging of The Newspaper Works with PANPA: “He will undertake roles previously overseen by PANPA.” Murphy’s previous roles have included editor-in-chief and circulation director at Fairfax’s ‘Illawarra Mercury’, group editor-inchief of Fairfax Community Newspapers in NSW and Victoria, and founding managing editor of www. brisbanetimes.com.au. He has also worked at APN News & Media and News Limited, holds an MBA and is a member of the Harvard Business Review Advisory Council. gx n n

Not all the news about Fairfax Media is about

redundancies, with the publisher recruiting former News Limited digital product chief Sigrid Kirk to a similar position with its metro media division. She returns to Fairfax from News and time with UK and News Zealand newspapers and a role in the early days of ninemsn, with Optus and Telstra.Fairfax metro media chief executive Jack Matthews says Kirk will lead product developments in “all aspects” of the publisher’s transition to digital and recently announced move to a tabloid format for the ‘Age’ and ‘Sydney Morning Herald’. gx n n

Rejig specialist for APN

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PN News & Media is the latest industry company to appoint a company reorganisation specialist as its chairman. Peter Hunt has been appointed a director and will take over as its chairman on September 3. The non-executive chairman and cofounder of corporate advisory firm Greenhill Caliburn –now part of the global Greenhill

42 gxpress.net

group – he has nearly 30 years’ experience of advising local and multinational companies and governments in Australia. Deputy chairman Ted Harris described him as “the ideal chairman for APN’s next phase of growth”, adding that expertise in “successfully guiding companies through complex change” was outstanding. gx n n

August 2012

restructure at Goss International sees chief executive Jochen Meissner replaced by Richard Nichols. A statement by the company says the board expects that the Goss management team, headed by Nichols, will undertake “active and effective measures to stabilise and expand the Goss leadership position in the industry. “Relying on Shanghai Electric’s support and Goss’s own distinctive capabilities, Goss will optimise the allocation of resources to enhance innovation and responsiveness to customers and market demands, within a culture that fosters an inspiring and challenging working environment. “This will propel the company to a new level of performance, to meet and exceed the strategic goals of the board.” The statement says Chinese parent Shanghai Electric believes that the impact of financial crisis will subside and the development of the world economy will bring new opportunities. “Shanghai Electric has confidence in Goss and the printing industry and expects Goss to be an even stronger industry leader in the future,” it ends. Nichols is a former president of Westport, Connecticut-based Terex Cranes – which he left in February 2011 – with a record of building, growing and turning around global businesses. Meissner, who joined Goss with its acquisition of the former Heidelberg web and newspaper business, succeeded Bob Brown as chief executive late in 2008.

WoodWing

has promoted two senior staff members to vice president status to strengthen its product management and software engineering organisation. Dennis van Nooij (left) becomes vice president of product management and Joost Huizinga vice president of engineering. The company

says they will continue to leverage their talents to keep driving product innovation while maintaining high levels of product quality and customer satisfaction. van Nooij joined WoodWing in 2007 as a senior software engineer and switched to product management in 2009, following more than 12 years in multi-channel publishing. Huizinga was one of the co-founders of WoodWing in 2000, and has more than 15 years experience in publishing solution development, most recently as software architect.

High speed inkjet printing technology developer Memjet has appointed two patent counsel, one to work from its Sydney office. The company settled its differences with Australian cofounders and their Silverbrook Research business in May and was a highly-visible presence at DRUPA that month. Memjet holds more than 5000 patents worldwide, with 700 more pending. In the newly created role of chief patent counsel, Ben Miller will oversee Memjet’s foreign and domestic intellectual property portfolio and manage all legal matters related to the portfolio, based in San Diego, while former Silverbook patent attorney David Osborn has become Memjet’s patent counsel, based in Sydney. Hostmann Steinberg

Australia has appointed Roger Gee into the newly-created role of manager of its web inks division. Gee brings more than 30 years of experience through most sectors of the Australian and New Zealand printing industry. Gee says it is “a tremendous honour” to be joining the company during trying times: He is based at the Hostmann Steinberg head office in Noble Park, Melbourne.

Terry Wellman, an American technologist who designed an advanced PC-based page layout system and envisioned today’s smartphones, has died aged 72. Indigo Women founder Kathleen Kaiser says for many, “he was the ‘gestalt technologist’, using his broad knowledge in all areas of

technology and his own creativity to predict and design leading edge products. In the mid 1980s he created a conceptual model for a ‘personal infocom’ much like the smartphones of today. He designed and brought to market MPath, a graphical front end for the CTOS operating system. In 1986 he designed specifications and managed development of a page layout and integrated paint-and-draw product for the PC called InPrint, reportedly well in advance of products on the market at the time. His wife of 47 years, Lisa Wellman is also keenly involved in graphic arts technology. A former Apple vice president for publishing, entertainment and new media markets and was chief executive of HP spin-off DeepCanyon.com, she is now chief executive of SustainCommWorld, of which her husband had been marketing vice president.

Newspaper systems

developer Atex is pushing harder into the Gulf region with the appointment of Mark Pacey as sales director in the Middle East. He joins Atex from NTT Data where he was head of media and entertainment for the EMEA region. Based in Reading, he brings more than 20 years’ experience in IT services, from hands-on technical through to strategic consulting, project management, business development and practice management. He also worked in public sector, finance, manufacturing, not-for-profit and retail verticals and with partners including Microsoft and Oracle. “With existing clients in Israel, Turkey and the UAE, we have the perfect base from which to increase our presence in the region, provide even better solutions and services, and continue to help newspapers, magazines, broadcasters, pure-play digital and online gaming businesses realise their objectives,” he says.

Optical and vision measurement and control specialist eltromat has appointed Oliver Finkeldey to run its Bangkok office, responsible for all sales activities in Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, n n Singapore, and Japan. gx

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The upside of ‘churn’ – as long as it’s not your letterpress formes being churned – and the love of (and often in) newspapers, as Peter Coleman wraps it up

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ith all the focus on redundancies in newspaper companies, it’s good to look at the upside. Former publisher of the ‘Balmain & Rozelle Village Voice’ – and wife of former PANPA chief executive Mark Hollands, Kylie Davis does. In her blog on the INMA website, she rejoices the richness of churn. “All my staff had a use-by date,” she says, meaning that they joined, learned, and went on to greater things. The pocket-sized community paper trained more than 40 cub reporters, designers, and sales reps over the ten years Davis “owned and loved it”. As the boss who was left behind,“I was so proud I could burst,” she says. In my own days as a newspaper publisher and editor, decades ago in the UK, we saw the same thing and felt the same way about it. It was always better to take on bright up-and-comers than the sad down-and-outers we sometimes had to accept. I remember one of the latter whose raincoat tended to ‘clink’ when he came to work. And of course the Aussie sub who I recruited, wed and who is my partner in the struggling – yes, we’d love more advertisers to make use of our regional/global readership! – business which is GXpress. No more moaning I couldn’t get good subs “for love or money”. Encouragingly, I see the Fairfax NZ is full of the process of recruiting a new intern intake. Long may it continue.

In that context, I have to say I love a good newspaper romance… and we have had a couple just lately. The ABC ran a documentary about farmer’s son James Clark, who fell in love twice. Once in Paris with wife-to-be Josephine Birch – who

forwardplanning 2012

Sep 2-5

WAN-Ifra 64th World Newspaper Congress, Kiev, Ukraine Sep 6-7 PANPA/Newspaper Publishers Association Future Forum (and Newspaper of the Year dinner, Sep 6), Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre (www.panpa.org.au) Sep 10-12 ASEAN Newspaper Printers conference, Sunway Lagoon Resort, Kuala Lumpur Sep 23-28 WAN-Ifra Multimedia Newsroom Study Tour, USA September 2012 Washington DC and New York, USA Sep 26-27 WAN-Ifra India 2012, Pune, India.

Someone you know: The LinkedIn update (below), and (right) Warrego watchpeople James Clark and Jo Birch

he wooed in eloquent prose – and later with the western Queensland paper which became the ‘Warrego Watchman’ under their care. Less affectionately remembered in the ‘Australian Story’ doco is the 1960s Polygraph web press on which the Cunnamulla local had been printed. It “threw a tantrum” just before his partner did, leading to a contract with APN Toowoomba… and the saving of the marriage. That’s on our website, as is our resident historian, Rod Kirkpatrick’s delightful tale of Leonora Gregory (see page 26) who took on the editing and production of the ‘Gulf News’ in Croydon, north Queensland. Not bad for a slight

Oct 7-10

GraphExpo, McCormick Place South, Chicago, USA Oct 29-31 World Publishing Expo/IfraExpo, Frankfurt, Germany (www.ifraexpo.com) Nov 8-9 SND/An-Nahar News Design Conference, Beirut, Lebanon Nov 24-29 WAN-Ifra Printing in Japan 2012 Study Tour, Tokyo and Sendai, Japan Nov 27-29 WAN-Ifra Digital Media Asia with Asia Digital Media Awards, Kuala Lumpur

2013

20-something who had never seen a composing stick or a steam-driven Wharfedale in her life. Rod told me how he ran across a brief reference in a book (‘Journalism: Print, Politics and Popular Culture’ edited by Ann Curthoys and Juliannne Schultz) and went hunting on the National Library’s Trove website.“And it went from there,” he says. Perversely, the lovely Leonora (and the picture suggests she was a ‘looker’) ended up in Faversham, UK, where (and at the time) I was running a local newspaper prior to escaping to Oz… and I never knew!

Apr 14-17 NAA mediaXchange 2013, Hilton Bonnet Creek , Orlando. May 14-18 China Print, New China International Exhibition Centre, Beijing (www.chinaprint.com.cn)

Rod, meanwhile, continues to dig, coming up with amazing nuggets of newspaper history. A recent discovery was a new contender for the title of ‘first NSW provincial daily’… the ‘Braidwood Daily News’, established on February 10, 1859. By 1862, it had become a biweekly. A lesser fate however than that of the ‘Inverell Dispatch’, which had its offices burgled, pages ripped into ‘pie’ and type thrown into the street. The already sick proprietor died ten days later and the paper did not reappear. All of that, incidentally, from the newsletter of the ‘Australian Newspaper History Group’ of which Rod is editor. It’s regularly a good read. And finally, back to staff turnover: I’ve been getting further into social media, in anticipation of the launch of our new GXdigital website at the end of this month. So far that’s meant Twitter (follow us at @peteratgxpress) and LinkedIn... Facebook can wait. The euphemistically-named ‘status change’ reports show just the tip of the movements in the industry.gx n n

Mar 19-20 WAN-Ifra Printing Summit, Hamburg, Germany May 21-25 PacPrint13, Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre, Melbourne June TBA 65th World Newspaper Congress and 20th World Editors Forum, Bangkok Sep 8-12 Print, McCormick Place South, Chicago, USA World Publishing Expo/IfraExpo, Berlin, Oct 7-9 Germany (www.ifraexpo.com)

2014 Mar 26-Apr 2 Ipex 2014, ExCel Centre, Docklands, London, UK Contact the organisers for fuller information about any gx of the above events and to confirm dates. n n



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