Digital press advancements pace International Newspaper Group

N&T Staff Report

TAMPA, Fla. — The evolution of digital presses and their potential role in the newspaper industry took center stage during the digital panel at September’s International Newspaper Group conference.

“The fewer people you reach, the more valuable they are,” said Peter Vandevanter, vice president of targeted products at MediaNews Group, explaining the difference between finely targeted publishing — what MediaNews Group terms the individuated newspaper — and traditional mass-market distribution.

MediaNews is one of a number of newspaper publishers examining how digital presses might make niche distribution more profitable (see Newspapers & Technology, September 2008).

“A personalized newspaper will always be more interesting than the postcard you might get in the mail,” he said.

Five vendors — Agfa, Hewlett Packard Co., Kodak, Océ North America and Screen USA — took turns rolling out their digital press road maps.

Océ’s manager of business intelligence, Andrew Gordon, pointed to digital printing as a remedy for an industry under fire in terms of circulation, readership and advertising revenues. The solution, he said, will come in the form of revenue from online advertising, direct mail and the growth of free weeklies and niche products.

“Do you focus all your energy on getting the water out of the boat or do you focus some energy on building a new boat?” Gordon said. “Surviving this period of transition requires developing strategies that move away from the broad-reach circulations dictated by underutilized fixed assets.”

Gordon said newspapers need to deliver significantly higher performance to advertisers and niche products offer them the opportunity to make that move.

“Obviously this won’t happen overnight and most publishers won’t concede their broad-reach positions,” he said. “However, at some time in the future, there will be an inflection point where broad-reach, highly rich and relevant content meets high-performance advertising. This is already occurring with electronic communications and will evolve in print as well.”

Quality, not quantity

Gordon said publishers need to focus less on print quantity and more on print quality — fewer pages, smaller circs — and that digital printing offers newspapers an avenue to do just that. Gordon pointed to Gannett Co. Inc., Cox Newspapers and Morris Publishing Group as examples of newspaper publishers driving new print products.

Gordon also touted the value of international distribution through local channels, citing Océ’s Digital Newspaper Network.

One DNN participant, Carlstadt, N.J.-based Global Document Solutions, has for the past five years printed 300 black-and-white copies of The Guardian for distribution on an Océ 9210 wide-format machine (see Newspapers & Technology, July 2008).

Six other DNN sites produce 15 additional newspapers, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and (Toronto) Globe and Mail, printing more than 5,000 copies a day, Gordon said.

Digital printing offers simplified workflows — no plates, no waste — plus the ability to accept late ads and news right up to press time, Gordon said.

Océ’s entry-level products include the Océ 2110, 3165 and 8465 models, the CS series and the VarioPrint 6000 series. Océ’s products for mid-volume printing include the VarioStream series 7000/8000 and 9000 series and the ColorStream 10000. Océ last year rolled out a high-volume digital press, the JetStream, with output speeds of between 328 and 656 feet per minute.

Portugal printer producing digital

Agfa, which introduced its Dotrix DGNews digital press at this year’s drupa, focused on the technology behind the machine.

Kristof Dekeukelaere, sales manager of Dotrix North America, said the DGNews uses 48 print heads, which deliver up to 1 billion drops per second. The machine prints on 48-gram newsprint, he said, giving the look and feel of a newspaper, and has a maximum printing width of 24.8 inches, allowing for broadsheet printing.

In July, Agfa placed its first DGNews machine at VASP, a Lisbon, Portugal, newspaper printer. VASP is using the press to produce almost 2,000 newspapers each day for distribution. VASP takes care of all the costs associated with producing the papers and sends a royalty fee to participating publishers.

Dekeukelaere said DGNews, which can output as much as 85 feet per minute, will have its capacity almost doubled, to 165 feet per minute, by 2010.

Screen, which has offered a digital press for more than two years, is banking on its Truepress Jet 520 digital system to lure newspapers, said Bill Brunone, vice president of targeted inkjet systems.

It’s snared one publisher, U.K.-based Associated Newspapers, which in cooperation with Newsworld, this year will produce New York editions of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday (see Newspapers & Technology, September 2008). Half of the 96-page editions will be in full color.

Screen’s machine has output speeds up to 420 FPM, or approximately 200 broadsheet pages per minute.



Targeting communities

Kodak’s Don Allred, director of business development for inkjet printing solutions, said newspapers can benefit from combining digital printing with software, such as Kodak’s Microzone Publishing app, to generate finely targeted publications.

“As microzoning gives rise to more community newspapers and outer ring focus, digital printing can provide a cost-effective solution to multiple short run titles,” Allred said.

Kodak is marketing two products, a high-speed-on-press inkjet developed in concert with manroland, and a digital short-run newspaper press.

The inkjet, installed on a colorman press, enables in-line variable digital printing at press speeds of up to 90,000 copies per hour.

Kodak’s VL2000 digital newspaper system can produce between 500 and 1,000 600-by-600 dpi newspapers per hour. A continuous-stream digital press, slated for delivery in 2011, will boost that output, Allred said.

Hewlett Packard, which expects to make its HP Inkjet Press available next year, was the only vendor to mention cost when discussing its digital newspaper offerings, with Vice President and General Manager Aurelio Maruggi confirming that the machine will carry a price tag of $2.5 million.

HP already markets its Indigo line of high-quality-4-color presses for general commercial and direct mail products.

Its inkjet newspaper press will run at speeds of 400 FPM at 600-by-600 dpi.

Newspapers & Technology Editor Tara McMeekin contributed to this article.