Océ sets digital press for newspapers

By Mary L. Van Meter
Publisher

MUNICH, Germany - Océ Printing Systems last month unveiled a new digital press aimed squarely at newspaper publishers interested in migrating from offset to digital printing.
The JetStream 2800, available later this year, is the firm's latest evolution in short-run web-fed full-color presses, said Guy Broadhurst, vice president of technology and client development, production printing systems for Oce North America.
It follows in the footsteps of the JetStream 2200 digital press, a narrow-web machine Océ introduced in 2007. The JetStream machines use Oce's proprietary DigiDot piezoelectric inkjet, which varies the size of each ink drop automatically.
The 2800, priced at between $5 million and $6 million depending on configuration, can be outfitted with Océ's latest workflow, PrismaProduction 4.02, which supports fully integrated preflight and make-ready tools.

Photos: Newspapers & Technology
Océ’s Guy Broadhurst.

The new press is configured with a 30-inch web and a live-image area of 29.5 inches. It can image at a resolution of 600-by-600 dots per inch and has a run speed of 130 meters per minute, or 4,000 copies per hour for a 32-page tabloid newspaper, Broadhurst said.
It can be equipped with finishing systems from Hunkeler and Bowe Bell + Howell and uses software and inkjet engine technology from Creo and Miyakoshi Printing Machinery Co., respectively.
Up to 85 percent of all newspaper formats can be produced on the press, Broadhurst said. "We believe the 2800 is designed to support the market's accelerating transition from offset to digital printing," he said.
"As newspaper publishers are struggling with rising costs, changing market expectations and a challenging economy, we feel that we can help address their business issues and improve supply chain and business models."
Broadhurst said changing reader habits will drive publishers to adopt short-run printing.

The JetStream 2800 can output as many as 4,000

32-page tabloid newspapers per hour, in full color.

"Readers used to have to wait to get copies of their homeland newspapers. By printing digitally, however, editions can roll off the presses in as little as 20 minutes after deadline," he said. Digital production will also help publishers attract new revenue streams by allowing advertisers to target readership more effectively with personalized content, he said.
"We have the speed, quality and productivity for newspapers to migrate to digital production. Now the industry can think about new personalized newspaper projects," Broadhurst said.

Flexible content
Additionally, said Crit Driessen, Oce's vice president of marketing and strategy, digital presses provide publishers with great flexibility in how they want to create new products.
Rather than conventional, centralized production and mass-market distribution, the advent of presses such as the JetStream 2800 will enable newspapers to create hyper-local products, with flexible content and formats. That includes things like tailored FSIs and slimmed-down versions of newspapers for distribution to travelers and other targeted readers. Los Angleles-based O'Neil Data Systems, for example, already prints a number of Australian titles for Qantas Airlines passsengers. "We believe newspapers will become one of our biggest growth markets," Driessen said.
Meantime, Océ said it sold a JetStream 2200 digital press to Madrid-based publisher Imcodavila. The firm said it will use the machine to print in full color 6,000, 80-page broadsheet papers each day — a mixture of dailies, weeklies and monthlies.
The machine, with a speed of 150 meters per minute and a web width of 21.5 inches, will go on-edition next month. It will allow Imcodavila to eliminate having to produce short-run titles on the publisher's existing manroland Uniset machines.
"The installation of an Océ JetStream printing system will help us to provide our customers with a wide range of quality publications in full color," said Imcodavila Manager Luciano Monedero, adding that the firm will begin producing foreign financial newspapers on the digital press later this year.

Digital pricing 1,2,3
Océ Printing Systems breaks its pricing structure into three separate components: the hardware, which is the actual digital press; a service contract that covers maintenance and, if requested, software and finishing equipment; and ink plus clicks.
It’s the latter that sometimes confuses newspaper production managers who are more familiar with the costs associated with running a web offset press.
Simply, said Guy Broadhurst, vice president of technology and client development, production printing systems for Océ North America, ink plus clicks means a publisher would only be charged on the amount of throughput per linear foot on the press. It is not based on web width of the press. This type of billing is similar to how many commercial operations charge for digital press time.
Ink plus clicks is monitored via software installed on the press. The software tracks how much paper moves through the press and at the end of the month the clicks (12 inches, or one linear foot) are charged as a variable cost. The clicks measured black or full color printing. Spare parts are also put under the click area.
Broadhurst said Océ works hard to ensure users that digital ink costs are priced fairly. The company, he said, fully discloses ink yields, coverage ratios and the cost per imaging.
"It's a different industry, and newspaper executives can’t think of digital press operational costs in the same terms as offset. Digital printing should be examined under the total cost of ownership, dependent upon volume and ink coverage," he said.

Newsworld kicks off digital printing of Mail in U.S.

By Tara McMeekin
Editor

Newsworld Corp. Ltd. last month kicked off digital production of London's Daily Mail at a New Jersey print site for distribution to readers in New York.
Newsworld produces 500 Daily Mail copies six days a week on a Screen Truepress Jet520 digital press outfitted with a Hunkeler finishing system. The papers are printed at AlphaGraphics in New Jersey before they are distributed in New York, said David Renouf, Newsworld's chief executive.
"We started production on Sunday night of the Daily Mail — successful production and produced the papers for Monday's edition," Renouf told Newspapers & Technology.
The papers were delivered by newspaper distributor Speedimpex to newsstands throughout Manhattan for single-copy sales.

Photo: Newsworld

Newsworld's David Renouf shows off the inaugural edition of the Daily Mail produced at AlphaGraphics in New Jersey for New York distribution.
Last year, Associated Newspapers Ltd., which publishes the Daily Mail, signed a four-year deal with Newsworld to produce the British paper in the United States for distribution in New York.
For now, Newsworld is printing the Daily Mail six days a week but will begin producing the Mail on Sunday later this year, Renouf said.

Dubai printer ramps up
Meantime, Newsworld partnered with Atlas Media in Dubai for the digital production of U.K., European and U.S. newspaper titles in the Gulf region.
The deal includes a $2.6 million investment in a new Screen Truepress Jet520 digital press, which could be commissioned as early as May, according to Amit Radia, chief executive officer of Atlas Media.
"There has always been a demand for international titles in the UAE, but the drawback was the lead time from import to newsstand delivery, which was always 10-12 hours too late," he said. "We will overcome that with this model."
The partnership will launch with approximately six undisclosed titles, with the printer producing anywhere from 500 to 2,000 copies of each.
Atlas has traditionally been a web offset printer of magazines, but recently developed a digital media division, which Radia said will focus on new media and technology.
"Newsworld has an excellent business model and the titles they work with are some of the most popular ones," he said.
Radia believes this model can be a successful one for newspapers as long as they make it valuable.
"It is a very niche industry and one has to develop the market with value-add in terms of distribution and service (which) deviates completely from the traditional print model," he said.
Radia said he's confident in the capability of the Screen and Hunkeler equipment to deliver the quality readers and advertisers demand.
"The quality is on par if not better than that of a normal newsprint paper on an offset web."

MediaNews unit sets plans for tailored news

By Tara McMeekin
Editor

MediaNews Group's Targeted Products Division said it hopes to begin testing its "individuated newspaper" concept this summer in an undisclosed market.
The project, dubbed I-News, will deliver targeted and customized newspaper content to subscribers via their home desktop computers, said Peter Vandevanter, MNG's vice president of targeted products.
I-News is the latest step in MNG's initiative to deliver new-form, niche products to newspaper readers (see Newspapers & Technology, September 2008).
"We're trying to create a new experience for our subscribers," Vandevanter told Newspapers & Technology. "It will be news people choose, delivered on a home printer in conjunction with their subscription to the paper."
Once MNG settles on a test market, I-News will be offered to interested readers who will receive their targeted content three or four days a week.
"Some newspapers make money on the big insert days and lose money on other days and that's why publishers like Detroit have said they will no longer print on those days," Vandevanter said. "Our idea is that we don't want to lose these subscribers, but instead we want to better serve them."
Detroit Media Partnership in December announced it would cut home delivery of the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News to only a few days a week and devote the bulk of its editorial resources to online distribution.
DMP, which is making the shift March 30, is the first major metro to make such a move. Vandevanter said Detroit is a model he'll be "watching like a hawk."
"We are trying to take the best of both worlds — give people the paper when it's valuable with inserts, etc., and then give them a product they want on other days," he said.
MNG is also looking at ways to allocate I-News so that it will count as paid circulation in its participating papers' Audit Bureau of Circulations numbers.
"We want to be able to grow circulation — something newspapers haven't done in decades," Vandevanter said.

Growing circulation
The home printer technology, currently being developed by a printing vendor that does not wish to be named, will not be tethered to a computer, Vandevanter said. Instead, users will plug in their devices into a conventional phone line in order to enable the printers to output the requested information.
The printing manufacturer participating in the test and the publisher may subsidize the price of ink and paper — up to five sheets per day — to offset users' costs.
Vandevanter said MNG is still hashing out other I-News details, including the pricing model and how many days out readers will be able to select the news they wish to receive. MNG is also evaluating how to pair targeted advertising with users' content.
Meantime, MNG is continuing its research on the role high-speed digital printers might play in the future of personalized newspapers. To that end, it's working with Océ to develop suitable workflow options to drive I-News and other potential products.
MediaNews' Targeted Products Group is one of a number of companies mulling the future of customized newspapers. The Washington Times and German software developer Syntops are also developing their own initiatives (see Newspapers & Technology, February 2009).

Vendor touting out-of-market printing as benefit

By Tara McMeekin
Editor

Printing newspapers out of market isn't a new concept, but a Miami-based vendor contends it's time for publishers to take a fresh look at the model.
The supplier, PressTerra, said it can help newspapers find economical outlets through which they can print their product out of market through its publication management service.
PressTerra has found partner print sites for some 40-plus titles, the bulk of those in Lisbon, Portugal, according to President and Chief Executive Officer Jerri Palmer.
"We take publishers and find print sites for them," she said. "We do the conversion (of files) and make sure we find a distributor close by or that has a printer on-site. If that distributor has a digital printer then they have hands-on capability to say how many of each paper they can print."
PressTerra most recently found digital printing outlets for titles including Al Jazeera of Saudi Arabia and Belgium's Vers l'Avenir.
Palmer views her company's service as a pathway for newspapers to break the mold.
"It's a win-win because the publisher is really taking no risk — there are no distribution demands," Palmer explained. "The distributor prints what he needs and sells it and the publisher gets a royalty based on what sells."
The magic number for digital printers is somewhere around 700 copies, according to Palmer, in terms of speed, time and profitability.

Growing circ numbers
Printing out of market gives publishers a way to grow their circ numbers and ad dollars when their own market is saturated.
The Los Angeles Times and Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of Germany are among the publishers that have grown circ numbers by printing in Lisbon, Palmer said. PressTerra is printing about 50 extra copies of WAZ each day currently, and Palmer said that number is growing, particularly at certain times of the year.
"A lot of newspaper publishers haven't thought about changing their ways and the models are very old and then what happens, too, is the ABC hasn't revamped the standards to demand ad dollars — for example, maybe their business section is a lot more popular than another section," Palmer said. "If you have great international sales then why can't you have international ad dollars? Publishers need to think beyond that standard business model."
Palmer has seen most of the digital vendors' presses in action, including those from Agfa, Océ, Screen and Kodak, and although they all get the job done, she said vendors need to adapt the machines to be more compact and faster.
"It's got to be able to fit in a distribution warehouse in a corner somewhere," she said. "They are going to have to get down to a reasonably-priced system and get a Hunkeler (finisher) that finishes as fast as it prints."
Profitability increases with machines that can run all the time and partner print sites want to have a press that can do other jobs as well as the newspapers. Successful sites, Palmer said print newspapers up to a certain time of day and then also print other products.
There are still time obstacles that need to be resolved in out-of-market printing, Palmer said, including in Asian countries that awake first and need to get a paper from L.A. or New York.
"There is no way you can have Day A papers by 9 a.m. in some areas. For instance, Australia time — there is no way — so to me, it's an entire mindset in publishing and advertising that has to change," Palmer said. "I think people are going to start to demand it — it's going to be pushed by consumers."

Brand loyalty
Palmer said brand loyalty is another factor driving the out-of-market model. Despite the availability of national publications like USA Today and The New York Times in the United States, she said there are still people that are extremely loyal to their own paper.
"People are extremely loyal to The Miami Herald, for example, and if they travel outside of Miami, they still want The Herald," she said. "So in the U.S. you have to break down people in certain areas. When British people travel, they go for The Times of London — it's the overall state of newspapers."
PressTerra's model works in two ways, aiming its service at distributors who know which papers they want to print and to publishers that have specific geographic areas in which they want to print and distribute.

Where e-editions fit in
Palmer said PressTerra's service doesn't necessarily compete with digital editions and that e-editions will still be popular with readers on the go and for publishers looking for ways to digitally archive their information.
Both models, she said, can attract advertising dollars.
"Publishers need to approach it as something we have to do — we need to be on the forefront of this — maybe a (printed) newspaper is in synergy with digital."
She warns, however, that some digital models currently available can devalue a newspaper's content.
"A publisher's intellectual property is their actual value, so how are newspapers benefiting from these models. Is their royalty being bastardized?" she asked. "We look at the whole solution and how to implement it and make it work to maximize profit."
By printing an actual paper remotely, Palmer said newspapers can receive royalty payments for anything they sell and also post numbers that can be tracked by circulation audit agencies.
"If you're going to do something, make money at it," she said. That's your goal as a newspaper — to care and guard your intellectual property and make money off of it."

PressTerra at a glance
Newspaper titles available for on-demand printing through PressTerra include 24 Heures, Al Jazeera, De Morgren, De Standaard, Die Presse, Ekstra Bladet, El Nuevo Herald, Evening Standard, the Globe and Mail, La Presse, the Los Angeles Times, the Miami Herald. Politiken, the Wall Street Journal Asia, the Washington Post, Vers l’Avenir, Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung.
In addition to the print site in Lisbon, PressTerra works with more than 30 partner print sites including those in Sydney; Singapore; Dubai; Istanbul, Turkey; Moscow; Munich, Germany; Geneva; London, Toronto; Madrid, Spain; Cancun, Mexico; and Kingston, Jamaica. U.S. partner sites include those in New York; Washington D.C.; Miami; Detroit; Los Angeles and Troy, Mich.

Newsworld taps Screen in project to produce newspapers in Gulf

Newsworld Corp. said it’s partnered with Atlas Media Communications for the digital production of U.K., European and U.S. newspaper titles in the Gulf region.
The deal includes a $2.6 million investment in a Screen Truepress Jet 520 digital press, which could be commissioned as early as April, Newsworld said. Through its “distribute then print” service launched in 2007, Newsworld leverages and pairs publishers with printing outlets equipped with a Screen digital press and Hunkeler inline finishing system.
“This area is of great interest to publishers who are looking to reach the increasing number of business executives, expatriates and visitors to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Kuwait with timely, relevant news and information,” said John Ashfield, chairman of Newsworld.
Meantime, Newsworld this month began distributing Associated Newspapers’ Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday to New York residents.
The papers are produced on a Truepress Jet 520 press under a deal with New Jersey-based AlphaGraphics (see Newspapers & Technology, September 2008).
“As we continue to invest in this technology and form partnerships worldwide, we are opening up a very exciting opportunity for newspaper publishers to grow their brand, not only locally but in a more effective and efficient way,” said Newsworld’s David Renouf.

4 questions with Donald Allred

Newspapers & Technology continues its 4 Questions series aimed at digital press vendors. This month, Donald Allred, director of business development for inkjet printing solutions with Kodak’s Graphic Communications Group, talks about his company’s offerings and where they fit into the newspaper market.




How is Kodak approaching newspapers and how do you see Kodak fitting into this industry?

Kodak has been a part of the success of the newspaper industry for more than 100 years. Our product portfolio includes CTP devices, workflow products, digital plates and chemistry. In addition, Kodak has been helping customers reach success using our wide range of variable digital printing systems for direct mail and including promotional content with transactional statements. With these combined attributes, Kodak is a natural and logical partner to help newspapers take advantage of digital printing.

Kodak is the only partner to provide a broad selection of digital printing equipment. We provide addressing systems to enable proper delivery through the mail, part page systems that enable on-press digital printing without slowing down the presses, and stand-alone complete digital newspaper press systems.

According to Kodak, what are some of the benefits of drop-on-demand vs. continuous inkjet technology for newspapers?

Kodak believes that both technologies have a role to play in digital newspaper printing. In fact, Kodak employs both technologies in products designed for the newspaper printing industry. We use the inherent capability of high print speed associated with continuous inkjet to provide products that can provide variable digital printing right on the newspaper press — at newspaper press speeds. CIJ is the basis of the Kodak Versamark VX printing system, offering very high-speed digital newspaper printing, while drop-on-demand technology powers the Kodak Versamark VL printing system, which achieves a slightly slower speed, but enhanced image quality. Both products offer low cost of operation, and highly efficient operation.

What trends do you see in digital printing for newspapers as far as news products, niche products, etc? What new technologies/features do you see emerging in digital presses that could potentially benefit newspapers?

A general drive to become more relevant is necessary for newspapers to maintain their readership during this age of information on demand. One area of success has been shorter run, targeted community newspapers. General news and advertisements can be combined with content provided through Web portals by members of communities.

Most U.S.-based newspapers have a tremendously powerful asset — their customer list and their home-delivery system. These two capabilities can be combined to provide a cost-effective alternative to direct mail. Short run inserts containing advertisements or stories, targeted to general demographical information of specific neighborhoods or streets, can be combined with the morning delivery.

A key trend of digital printing is the combination of increasing quality and lowering the cost of printing. The image quality of the Kodak Versamark VL2000 printing system meets or exceeds requirements for any newspaper printing job. The focus on productivity and value combine to reduce operating costs, making digital production of short-run newspapers feasible for many applications. These trends will continue in the future as the company brings its Kodak Stream Inkjet technology into the newspaper production market, enabling an even broader range of digital applications.

The newspaper industry has been talking for many years about the potential benefits of digital printing. Is the technology really ready to deliver these benefits?

Kodak’s current offerings provide reliability and cost effectiveness, performance metrics that support the technical fit to the application. Software workflow systems are the critical enabler for the transition to digital printing. Remote digital printing can be done easily today with PDF workflows and high-speed Kodak front ends. Other applications may require software workflow elements such as Web portal-based community news with automated print set up, automated gaming and demographic advertising.

MNG launches site dedicated to INC meetings

MediaNews Group last month launched its Web site dedicated to the publisher’s two upcoming Individuated News Conferences.

The site, www.individuatednews.com, powered by Accrisoft Inc., includes registration information and other details about the publisher’s forthcoming meetings.

The site also includes information about the topic of targeted newspaper products, with links to relevant blogs and personalization sites.

The next conference will be June 24-26, at The Washington Times in Washington, D.C.

—Tara McMeekin

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.

4 Questions with Bill Brunone

Newspapers & Technology continues its 4 Questions series with digital press vendors. This month, Bill Brunone, vice president of targeted inkjet systems for Screen, talks about Screen’s newspaper offerings.

How is Screen approaching newspapers and how do you see Screen fitting into this industry?

The Truepress Jet520 is a drop-on-demand, water-based, color inkjet press that can print a variety of publications and direct mail, but is especially suited for newsprint because of its small drop size, grayscale heads and high resolution. With no special modifications, the TPJ520 press is the center of a three-part package for newspapers. This includes workflow and composition software — Screen’s Newsworker — that takes into consideration the fact that in newspaper production, each section is printed, stacked and folded in-line, not statically printed and collated later.

The second part is the Truepress Jet520, and the third component is specialized cut/stack/folding (finishing) equipment from Hunkeler.

This combination is proven and ready for placement in the appropriate segments of the newspaper industry.

According to Screen, what are the benefits of drop-on-demand versus continuous inkjet technology for newspapers?

Using DOD technology translates to greater uptime and higher print quality.

Screen’s Truepress Jet520 system is based on Epson’s piezoelectric head technology and inks are supplied in airtight bladders. Because of this, ink never contacts air or contaminants before being projected from the printhead. This significantly reduces the need for maintenance and speeds startup and shutdown procedures.

Because of the small printhead size, Screen has brought the distance between application of colors to very close proximity, minimizing paper slip and stretch issues that would destroy color-to-color registration.

DOD allows for grayscale printing, and the use of very small droplet sizes gives the reader yet another tier of image quality and clarity. In the unlikely event that there is a problem with a printhead, it can be replaced quickly by the user.

What trends do you see in digital printing for newspapers as far as news products, niche products, etc? What new technologies/features do you see emerging in digital presses that could potentially benefit newspapers?

Once newspaper publishers embrace the idea of distributed print as well as the advantages short-run and variable personalized printing can offer, they will find almost unlimited potential.

From the hardware manufacturers’ point of view, what you see is just the beginning of the industry’s offerings. You are already seeing variations of printing devices: faster, wider and higher-quality systems, but you will probably also see less-capable systems offering better economics in specialized situations.

The newspaper industry has been talking for many years about the potential benefits of digital printing. Is the technology really ready to deliver these benefits?

We think that the productivity and uptime of the Truepress Jet520 is certainly ready for the newspaper industry, based in part by the fact that the press has been commercially available and in operation by customers for more than two years.

We think that there are situations in which digital printing can be leveraged to reduce costs, increase advertising response or increase the readers’ experience. However, we do not think that digital print technology will replace large-run offset printing in the near future. This is primarily due to the greater cost of consumables required — compared to offset printing.

Some of the situations in which digital print for newspapers can be profitable include those (in which) a publisher has geographic areas that are difficult or expensive to service by traditional central print and delivery methods. Placing a digital press close to the delivery point can reduce the cost of distribution and increase customer satisfaction by giving the reader more current content, since printing is done in close proximity to the delivery point, and at the last possible moment.

Publishers can leverage what the direct mail and commercial print industries have known for years: Personalization increases reader response rates, thus allowing publishers to command higher prices for personalized print advertising.

Publishers can also create unlimited microzones, without regard to plate change costs, thereby increasing the appeal of the publication.

Océ kicks off customer center as firm targets newspapers

By Mary L. Van Meter
Publisher

BOCA RATON, Fla. — Océ last month opened its Customer Experience Center as the digital press vendor demonstrated its continued commitment to the newspaper and graphic arts industries.

Mal Baboyian, president of Océ’s North American production printing systems unit, encouraged printers to avoid standing still, particularly in the face of the global economic downturn.

Océ’s 18,000 square-foot Océ Customer Experience Center in Boca Raton, Fla.

“We are committed to strengthen our core business and advance our technology,” he said as he formally opened the 18,000-square-foot center. “We have increased our printing speeds and technology innovations as printers demand scalable and modular solutions in order to achieve profitable growth.”

Newspapers, which are beginning to evaluate the role high-speed digital presses might play in the future, are a prime target for Océ, Baboyian said.

The vendor beefed up its JetStream family of inkjet machines, adding models capable of producing up to 3,000 40-page newspapers per hour.

In addition, Océ bolstered its 1100 and 2200 product lines with magnetic ink character recognition. The MICR systems are the first of their kind to integrate magnetic ink directly with the print engine, Baboyian said. MICR support allows printers to produce a wider variety of marketing materials and promotions. The MICR-equipped presses will be commercially available in February 2009, Baboyian said.

Océ’s integrated MICR ink unit, far right, is located directly on the print engine.

All of Océ’s presses are equipped with DigiDot, a piezoelectric, drop-on-demand technology. The ICC profile compliant technology varies the size and amount of each ink drop, Baboyian said.

Océ has also launched an education program to help printers implement digital production. The Graphic Arts Alliance Program “will help simplify (printers’) transition from offset to digital workflow,” Baboyian said.

Industry eyes turn to digital press workflow options

By Tara McMeekin
Editor

Now that digital press vendors have trotted out their wares to newspapers, the next logical question the newspaper might ask is this: What kind of software will be needed to drive these machines?

The answer? Vendors are still working on it.

Kodak, which has brought to market its Versamark VT 3000 digital press, will approach workflow in two components — device controllers and workflow systems, according to Stephen Miller, product manager for packaging and newspaper workflow.

“All presses include a workflow component that renders input into some file format that is used by the press to put ink on substrate, “ he said. “This component also controls press actions, monitors performance, etc. Upstream from the device controller is a broader workflow solution that assembles and prepares content for production.

“With today’s use of industry standards — PDF and JDF — most press suppliers can interface with almost any manufacturer of the upstream workflow components.”

Hewlett Packard, which plans to bring its digital press to market next year, offers the HP SmartStream Ultra Print Server, which is not currently a newspaper-specific workflow system.

The vendor said it plans to adapt SmartStream to work on its forthcoming HP Inkjet Web Press.

“The SmartStream umbrella portfolio consists of both HP and third-party software — HP digital processing controllers and third-party post print production solutions — to meet a broad range of market segment and application needs ranging from newspapers to books to direct mail to transaction documents,” said Scott Schiller, director of marketing for inkjet high-speed production solutions. “The system supports many standard formats, such as PDF, and for the newspaper segment specifically, additional capabilities and third-party solutions will be added over time, as needed.”

Océ is currently marketing Prisma software to newspapers purchasing its digital press products. The app is well-suited to Océ’s various products because of its scalability, according to Andrew Gordon, manager of business intelligence.

Screen, meantime, last month announced Trueflow SE, version 6.0, the latest iteration of its PDF/JDF workflow. Trueflow has evolved from an intelligent RIP application for CTP workflows to a universal app for hybrid offset/digital workflows.

Specific to newspapers, Screen also offers Newsworker software, according to Bill Brunone, vice president of targeted inkjet systems, and its TruePress Jet 520 digital press .

4 questions with Duncan Newton

Newspapers & Technology continues its 4 Questions series aimed at digital press vendors. Duncan Newton, manager of business development for Océ North America, talks about Océ’s digital print offerings for newspapers.

How is Océ approaching newspapers and how do you see Océ fitting into this industry?

Océ has been in the newspaper business for a number of years, primarily in monochrome. With the launch of the JetStream family of six new high-speed, full-color, inkjet printers, the whole span of newspaper opportunities opened up. High speed, of course, means that these machines can meet tight deadlines. Full color will appeal to advertisers. Inkjet will deliver a much higher image quality than is normally associated with newspaper output — which should also appeal to advertisers. The fact that this is all digital means that the newspapers can be more narrowly focused. Ultimately they can be personalized and individualized. Local editions, weeklies, shopping guides all are prime opportunities.

According to Océ, what are the benefits of drop-on-demand vs. continuous inkjet technology for newspapers?

DOD vs. CIJ will make for many interesting discussions, but most of them will be pointless. The only vendor using CIJ is Kodak on their Versamark family. CIJ is a 30-year-old technology, which was developed for label printing. Because it is a continuously flowing stream of ink the heads and nozzles tend to wear out more quickly than DOD heads. Halftones and scanned images suffer greatly in CIJ because of its lack of precision. But we have seen new announcements from Kodak and others; machines will start to appear in a year or so. None of them use CIJ. Everything new is DOD. The DOD heads are faster, more accurate, have longer lifespans and are easier to maintain.

What trends do you see in digital printing for newspapers as far as news products, niche products, etc? What new technologies/features do you see emerging in digital presses that could potentially benefit newspapers?

There are four factors that make digital particularly well suited for newspapers. The size of the form, the speed of the machines, the ability to create individualized print runs and the ability to do full color. But caution should be exercised. The ability to individualize, distribute and deliver is limited by many factors and probably will not be applicable to the big papers for quite a long time.

This, however, leaves the door wide open for local editions of highly focused papers. These highly focused editions will make the perfect vehicle to revive sagging ad revenue. A paper like that can appeal to localized merchants. A local ice cream parlor would never advertise in a citywide paper, but probably would if the paper could target a 2-to-5-mile wide marketing circle. It is not unforeseeable that you could create your own version of the newspaper, too. By selecting your areas of interest a personalized paper could be sent to you on a weekly basis — along with ads from merchants who cater to those areas of interest.

The newspaper industry has been talking for many years about the potential benefits of digital printing. Is the technology really ready to deliver these benefits?

Had this question been asked even a year ago the answer would have to have been very heavily qualified, but that is no longer the case. The speed of the new inkjet printers makes it possible to actually meet the delivery schedules required by the industry. But the question isn’t whether or not the equipment is ready; it’s more is the industry ready? Too many of the established publishers are working with antiquated marketing techniques. They are not ready to take advantage of the possibilities that would be created by going digital. Ink on paper is easy. Delivering it on the doorstep is an entirely different matter. The publishers have not invested in the kinds of information-rich database management technology that will be required to create individualized, localized editions of specialized papers. And those are the main reasons for adopting digital technology.

MediaNews Group blazing trail toward targeted newspaper

By Tara McMeekin
Editor


DENVER — MediaNews Group is basing its next generation of targeted publications on the concept of “individuated” newspapers, fueled by the evolution of high-speed digital presses.

“I’ve followed digital presses long enough,” said Peter Vandevanter, MNG’s vice president of targeted products. “I knew it was going to happen. It’s just a matter of when.”

Drupa in June provided the backdrop for a number of digital press providers to show that their machines may finally be equipped to deliver results to an industry that’s been ready for them for some time now (see Newspapers & Technology, July 2008).

“We know these presses drive down the cost of printing,” Vandevanter said.

MNG is no stranger to niche publishing. In addition to its stable of daily newspapers, it currently offers 239 separate publications that include free magazines, newspaper weeklies and TMCs, from which the publisher posts annual revenues in excess of $90 million.

Now, Vandevanter said MNG is ready to draw on its expertise to become the “iPod of newspapers,” offering targeted daily products to readers with all of the content they want and nothing they don’t.

New concept of targeting readers

MNG is so keen on the idea of targeted newspapers that the publisher coined the term “individuated newspapers” to describe the concept and distinguish it as going beyond targeted products currently available.

The individuated newspaper was the topic of a meeting MNG sponsored at its Denver headquarters in June.

“If we print what our readers, not we, want, if we disregard our arrogance and old ideas, if we let our readers participate, we will succeed,” MNG Chairman William Dean Singleton told attendees. “Imagine the value of the targeted newspaper if the newspaper we published knew what a particular reader wanted and could combine relevant stories and relevant advertising in each individuated newspaper.”

Attendees to the event, the second of its kind hosted by MNG, came from a variety of areas within the newspaper industry, from software and community publishing suppliers to digital press vendors.

MNG has two more events planned dedicated to the topic, one Jan. 15-16, 2009, in Boca Raton, Fla., and one June 24-26, 2009, in Washington, D.C.

Finding the right fit

MNG is keeping a close eye on the new generation of digital presses, searching the market to find the right fit for its own products even as it attempts to create the right blend of products to make the individuated newspaper a reality.

“Workflow software is a big part of this — the whole prepress aspect is big,” Vandevanter said. “How are you collecting your data, is it RSS feeds or what? There are still so many pieces that have to come together that it’s a mammoth.”

Regardless of the technological foundation involved, the end product must mirror the publisher’s key focus, Vandevanter said, citing DailyMe as a good interface for gauging reader interests.

The trail MNG is blazing is one other newspaper publishers will likely closely evaluate. During his 15 years producing niche pubs, Vandevanter has developed a good sense of the value of targeted advertising.

“That whole dynamic of ‘print less, charge more’ is what niche publications are all about,” he said. “If you get down to a one-page product, what’s the value of an ad on that page?”

Considering CPM

In terms of cost per thousand, he said the target for profitability lies somewhere between $100 and $400 CPM for products with circulations under 20,000.

“At $400 CPM you can get $4 for an ad on a page that cost you 5 cents to print,” he said. “If you could get to a 1-to-1 newspaper, that’s a very nice business model — we wouldn’t even have to get there in the next two years to show value in these presses.”

Vandevanter said he heard a lot of comments at the June conference that individuated magazines would likely become a reality before individuated newspapers.

“It doesn’t matter what comes first,” he said. “The key is that it’s individualized.”

There are two things that will derail the success of the individuated newspaper, according to Vandevanter. The first is failing to adequately test how these products will interface with the public. They have to be properly developed and tested, he said, in order to ensure their success.

“The public has to be as addicted to individualization of news as they are to individualization music,” he said. “We want to be the iPod of newspapers.”

The second threat is not placing enough value on advertising.

“If we don’t establish the value of this advertising from the beginning, we run the risk of devaluing it.”

Better than shoes?

Publishers must also recognize the value of the sociological aspect of an individuated newspaper, he said.

“Once this becomes personalized, you can sell it — this will be better than shoes.”

Vandevanter said MNG has no imminent plans to buy a digital press, but that the publisher wants to offer some type of individuated product in 2009, whether or not it’s initially produced on an MNG-owned press.

User-generated publications on horizon with Printcasting

By Marcelo Duran
Associate Editor

A project now under way at The Bakersfield Californian could give newspapers nationwide the ability to let readers easily create their own niche publications.

The Californian earlier this year won an $837,000 grant from the Knight Foundation to develop an interface, dubbed Printcasting, that allows readers to customize publications containing content from participating blogs and newspaper Web sites.

The upshot: user-generated publications that can be e-mailed as a PDF or printed at home or in the office, said Dan Pacheco, senior manager of digital products at The Californian.

“Maybe it’s about music and you can get a bunch of content from (The Californian’s Web site) Bakotopia, or maybe it’s about a certain craft or neighborhood news,” he said, explaining that Printcasting dovetails nicely with the paper’s strategy to identify important audiences that could be served through niche products.

“What we know is that there are so many audiences that may not be as big as that for a newspaper, but there still will be a certain community that’s interested in that topic or organization,” he said.

Printcasting will also help newspapers capitalize on the continued appeal of print and allow them to reach local retailers wary of current print advertising models, Pacheco said.

“If you look at a small niche interests that may have 5,000 people dedicated to that community, there could be a half dozen or more businesses that would love to reach them,” said Pacheco. “Those types of businesses are not advertising in our larger print products and certainly not in our main newspaper because it’s too expensive and it would use their entire marketing budget in the span of a week.”

Making it happen

Printcasting sprang from what The Californian learned by creating its own network of social networking sites (see related story on page 37.)

“Initially, what we talked about was how we can have people create their own social networks about very specific interests,” said Pacheco. “And the term used for that was instabrand, but we haven’t quite gotten there yet. I think that Printcasting is going to make that happen.”

The newspaper is three months into its first leg of a two-year project that will make Printcasting available to anyone who wants to use it. It will be offered as an open source product, thus allowing newspapers to download the software and integrate it into their existing systems, Pacheco said.

The first phase of the project includes design and beta testing the Printcasting interface. The second phase, slated to start next March, includes testing the system at The Californian and the third phase encompasses testing Printcasting with five volunteer publications.

Printcasting also includes a self-service ad interface to enable advertisers to place ads on their own, Pacheco said.

“Printcasting is also a bridge strategy for serving local advertisers that may not be advertising anywhere right now, let alone in print,” he said.

Once The Californian begins testing Printcasting next spring, Pacheco said he hopes to create an “American Idol” effect around the subsequent user-generated niche publications.

“We figure if we get enough people to create these things and we track which ones are the most popular, certain stars are going to emerge,” he said. “We hope we’ll see 100 come out over a three-month period where 10 of them are consistently good.”

If that part of the plan pans out, The Californian will evaluate printing and distributing those magazines that spark the most popularity or best meet a specific demographic, Pacheco said.

Hyper customization

Pacheco said Printcasting meshes with the current demand among consumers for products and services that meet their specific interests.

“The print world hasn’t been forgotten and when you see circulations go down it’s not that people don’t want to consume print,” he said. “It’s more of a statement about the one-size-fits-all audience strategy that newspapers have pursued for so many years.”

The development of Printcasting comes as newspapers begin to explore more deeply ways to serve niche audiences.

“I’ve learned that there is this whole movement that I didn’t know existed, but we are starting to learn about each other,” said Pacheco. “Printcasting is part of that movement. Fortunately we’re not the only innovators in that area, which makes it exciting.”

Newsworld to produce British dailies in N.Y. with digital press

By Tara McMeekin
Editor

British newspapers the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday will be digitally printed in New York starting this month through a four-year contract between Newsworld Corp. Ltd. and Associated Newspapers Ltd.

The papers will be produced seven days a week using a Screen Truepress Jet520 line (two engines) and an inline Hunkeler finishing system through Newsworld’s “distribute then print” service, which it launched last year.

“In the last two years we’ve pulled together a series of interconnected things — software, a printing machine from Screen and the Hunkeler machine is the finishing arm of what we do,” said David Renouf, chief executive at Newsworld. “When we pull that all together it becomes a compelling package for publishers around the world.”

The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday will initially launch with UK versions, but the publisher said plans are to eventually tailor editions to New Yorkers, complete with local content and advertising. Fifty percent of the 96-page editions will be in full color.

Local copy, local ads on tap

“They want to turn it into a specific New York edition,” Renouf said. “The software that we have at the front end of this allows us to drop in local ads and local copy very easily.”

That software, he said, also allows for normal imposition and provides reporting numbers publishers can use for their audit circulation.

“Previous attempts to establish the principle of printing newspapers locally have been compromised by speed, color or quality,” said Newsworld Chairman John Ashfield. “We can provide the quality, look and feel of the original brand product, coupled with significant time savings, which allow the papers to be on sale on the same day.”

Bakersfield Californian leading social networking

By Marcelo Duran
Associate Editor

For newspapers, social networking is slowly becoming the little user-generated content feature that could.

This was evident in the Newspaper Association of America’s June report, “Engaging Users: User-Generated Content and Tools for Newspapers,” which found that interest in newspaper-based social networking features was high among respondents who have used social networking in the past. About 45 percent of those respondents indicated interest in reading or posting reviews on local businesses and services.

Yet while many newspapers are still trying to determine how to package social networking, one paper, The Bakersfield Californian, earlier this year marked its third anniversary as a social networking pioneer.

The newspaper’s Bakotopia, introduced in early 2005, came about as a preemptive strike against sites like Craigslist before they hit the Bakersfield area, said Dan Pacheco, The Californian’s senior manager of digital products.

Outside of newspaper

“At the time, the company identified several different audiences and I think we were one of the first newspapers in the U.S. to come out and say we need to grow audience one way or another and it doesn’t have to be through the core newspaper,” he said. “The idea was that Bakotopia would be a center for anything about the alternative Bakersfield.”

Six months after Bakotopia’s launch, the paper began adding more features to the site, including the ability for users to create profiles, upload photos and list events, all of which struck a chord with the local music scene.

“We had lots of bands show up to post their events and once we started having bands in our community we started thinking the bands should have profiles and add their music,” Pacheco said.

Bands post songs on the site through a feature dubbed Bakotunes and content is made available under a creative commons license. Users can listen, download and use the music in any way as long as it’s not for commercial purposes.

Pacheco said Bakotopia’s impact in the local music community was further cemented after a radio station provided The Californian with 46 radio spots as part of a co-promotion between the station and the paper.

The Californian invited bands to fill the spots. It received a lot of response and Pacheco said that a number of groups even created original songs about the Web site. The songs produced for the radio spots can be found at www.bakotopia.com/home/user/bakotopianews.

“What that experience showed us is that we were getting something from the musicians being on our site and the bands were getting exposure from us by getting on local radio,” he said.

Thousands of users

Californian Vice President of Audience Development Mary Lou Fulton said that Bakotopia now has more than 500 band profiles and 5,000 registered users on the site.

“You can tell from these numbers that we have become the local place for bands to connect with their fans and post their music. That has helped with our marketing because bands are out there in the community performing all the time and letting people know that they are on Bakotopia and that (fans) should check it out,” she said.

Fulton said newspapers should capitalize on aiming their social networking sites at already established special interest groups rather than attempt to create communities from scratch.

Over the past three years, The Californian added social networking features to all 11 of its Web sites and has seen how users are exploiting the tools on each of the sites, Fulton said.

Case in point: The paper’s Bakersfield.com flagship site, which attracts more than 2,000 bloggers. “What’s fascinating is that we put the exact tools on a Web site focused on a particular community with a different product manager and get completely different results,” she said.

Bakoproducts

Most important, The Californian found ways to leverage the popularity generated by its myriad sites and experiment with ways to earn some money.

To that end, the paper released a CD compilation of the best of Bakotunes, showcasing local bands.

“They sold it for $5. It didn’t make a lot of money but paid for the CD,” Pacheco said. “Even though (readers) listen to Bakotunes on the Web site, they loved to get the CD when it was offered at events.”

The publisher rolled out a bi-weekly magazine as well, which is also called Bakotopia, and contains user-generated stories, photos and other content generated on the site.

The popularity of the ink-and-paper publication indicates to Pacheco that younger people remain interested in print.

“They use the Web site and magazine together, a hybrid experience, because they know the magazine includes posted content and know that if they are involved in the community online it increases the chances their content will show up in the magazine,” he said. “They love that idea because their content, pictures or profiles are out there at all the local clubs and they become a celebrity.”

4 questions with Aurelio Maruggi

Aurelio Maruggi, vice president and general manager of inkjet high-speed production solutions for Hewlett-Packard, spoke to Newspapers & Technology about HP’s digital print offerings for the newspaper industry and whether the technology is really ready to deliver.




How is HP approaching newspapers and how do you see HP fitting into this industry?

It is a key focus for HP to engage with the industry to understand pain points and trends. The conversations we have participated in with newspaper experts to date have helped us shape the product strategy in a way that can effectively address what the industry requires.

The newspaper industry is seeing some trends and pressure in common with other graphic arts industries, such as rising input costs, demand for more personalized and targeted information and growing digital sophistication. The newspaper industry is in a unique position by virtue of the fact that it embraced the Web at an early stage, but there has been to date very limited connectivity between traditional print and the digital world. We believe our solutions reflect a significant step forward to enable a connection for the newspaper industry.

According to HP, what are the benefits of drop-on-demand vs. continuous inkjet technology for newspapers?

The approach that we have taken to address the analog-to-digital transformation for the newspaper industry has been to a certain extent technology-agnostic. We have focused on meeting the newspaper publisher’s specific requirements, and have learned that there is a need for a digital printing platform that provides the best combination of format size, productivity, print quality and economics. We have identified the HP Scalable Printing Technology (SPT) as a great fit for these needs. This inkjet technology has been specifically developed to remove the limitations in width and speed of other technologies, and it is used on a broad portfolio of HP products spanning from high-end office products to photo kiosks. It delivers high quality at a level of economics that benefit of the large scale of HP manufacturing.

In addition to these benefits, HP SPT offers a unique “bonding agent” technology that allows newspaper publishers to continue to use their own paper, removing one the major limiting factors of other digital printing technologies.

What trends do you see in digital printing for newspapers as far as news products, niche products, etc? What new technologies and features do you see emerging in digital presses that could potentially benefit newspapers?

The newspaper industry has — at the same time — an opportunity and a threat coming from the Web. Readers’ demand for more up-to-date and relevant content is growing at a fast pace and it is causing a shift in behaviors, making online more relevant. Advertisers are seeing this trend and adjusting their spending shares accordingly. For example, we’ve seen research noting that, for the 2005-2009 time period, online advertising is growing at a rate close to 30 percent, while newspapers’ advertising growth is in the low single digits.

The availability of a production infrastructure based on a distributed network of digital presses will allow the newspaper industry to shorten the time to deliver news and even customize the kind of news delivered to each individual reader. This may eventually result in an inversion of the readership trends and make newspapers a preferred advertising medium.

The newspaper industry has been talking for many years about the potential benefits of digital printing. Is the technology really ready to deliver these benefits?

Digital printing technology has been used so far by the newspaper industry in very niche applications because of the limitations in format size, productivity, print quality and economics. The HP Inkjet Web Press represents a breakthrough that we believe has the potential to start a “virtuous cycle” in this industry. Assuming that the price and performance benefits of digital continue on their current trajectory, digital holds the potential to transform the newspaper industry much as digital cameras did for photography.

U.K.’s Guardian reaches U.S. with digital edition

Although the introduction of color is a relatively new addition to digital newspaper printing, some dailies have offered black-and-white digital editions for years.

Case in point, Carlstadt, N.J.-based Global Document Solutions, which since 2003 has been printing 300 full broadsheet black-and-white copies of The Guardian nightly on an Oce 9210 wide format machine.

Global Document Solutions also operates facilities in New York City and Hayward, Calif.

“We print it every night,” said John Slaney, chief operating officer. “We print the full broadsheet so we’re really duplicating what it looks like in the U.K.”

The copies are picked up and distributed around New York City.

“People are getting that day’s paper instead of yesterday’s paper,” Slaney said.

Slaney said there was a large demand for The Guardian out of market and he is also working with some other newspapers that are interested in following The Guardian’s model.

He said some newspapers also want to print newspapers for distribution on planes. Los Angeles-based O’Neil Data Systems already prints a number of Australian newspapers for distribution on Qantas Airlines flights using Oce machines.

Slaney said he can see definite value for newspapers adopting these models.

“This gives flexibility for targeted ads,” he said. “ Ads running in London could be redirected here so that they are more pertinent and I think there is tremendous value in that — targeted marketing and messaging and at a smaller size run.”

Global Document Solutions worked with a mill to create the blend of newsprint that allows it to print newspapers on the digital press. The shop uses Hunkeler finishing equipment.

— Tara McMeekin

Digital presses stream into Drupa 2008

By Mary L. Van Meter
Publisher

DUSSELDORF, Germany — One of the hottest trends emerging at last month’s Drupa 2008 was the explosion of short-run digital presses aimed at newspapers.

No fewer than a half-dozen vendors launched web-fed digital presses specifically engineered to serve newspapers’ print-on-demand needs.

The goal: to allow papers to meet the demand placed by business travelers and other consumers that want to pick up a newspaper at remote locations like airports and hotels. That segment, in conjunction with the increase of niche publications, short-run materials and other periodicals with less than 15,000 circulation, dovetails perfectly with the advent of these digital presses, observers say.

The web-fed presses showcased at drupa have throughputs, finishing systems and printing features that transcend the machines now aimed at transactional promotional printing.

To that end, they offer full color, increased speeds — in some cases up to 3,000 40-page newspapers per hour, about triple the output currently available — the ability to produce shorter press runs economically, and capabilities that permit the production of such products as micro-zoned materials and personalized inserts.

Most of the web-fed digital presses at Drupa were configured as continuous-feed, single-pass for double-side printing. They were also available with turner bars similar to those found within newspaper offset printing operations.

While some vendors, such as Oce, Nipson, Agfa, Hewlett Packard and Screen touted their grayscale drop-on-demand systems. Kodak offered three platforms, continuous inkjet, drop-on-demand and continuous stream.

All the companies said they are working with newspapers to test the machines. One vendor, Screen, showcased its Truepress Jet 520 in conjunction with finishing systems vendor Hunkeler and software vendor Newsworld to print live editions of several newspapers, including USA Today, during the show.

Then there was Xerox, which displayed its 980 Color Continuous Feed machine, which will be introduced later this year. The press uses hot flash-fusing LED technology common throughout Xerox’ product lines. With a resolution of 600 dots per inch, the press can produce up to 980 pages per minute and will be available later this year, according to Wendy K. Apton, Xerox’ assistant technology program manager.

A rundown of what was offered at the show (in alphabetical order):

Agfa

Agfa, which entered the digital press market in 2004 when it acquired Barco’s Dotrix technology, hasn’t aggressively marketed Dotrix to newspapers. But that is all about to change, said Kurt Smits, who heads Agfa’s strategic business development of global accounts. It begins with the Dotrix DGNews, which the company unveiled at drupa.

Photos: Newspapers & Technology Agfa press, and Kurt Smits, Agfa’s strategic business development global accounts.

The machine, available now, employs a grayscale drop-on-demand technology and uses a single-pass inkjet color engine.

“The press can print not only standard newspaper sizes on standard newsprint but also offers numerous financial applications that could incorporate personalized and customized content,” Smits said. The machine has an output capacity of 78 feet per minute and can print products up to 24.8 inches wide. (For more information about the DGNews.

Hewlett Packard

HP introduced its HP Inkjet Web Press, available with a scalable web width of up to 30 inches for production of full-broadsheet newspaper formats or multiple-up documents. The drop-on-demand press, using HP’s Edgeline thermal inkjet technology, can print up to 200 2-sided broadsheets per minute (Nordic format, 29.92 inches wide by 22.75 inches tall) with a resolution of 600 dpi.

Aurelio Maruggi, vice president and general manager of HP’s inkjet high-speed production solutions, said a U.S. newspaper plans to test the 30-inch version of the machine later this year, producing 14 zoned versions every day. The press will be commercially available during the second half of 2009, Maruggi said.

Hewlett Packard unveiled its Inkjet Web Press, which will be tested by an undisclosed U.S. newspaper.

Kodak


Kodak showcased is Versamark VT 3000, a continuous-feed, single-pass press with continuous 4-color inkjet print technology. The VT 3000 is a scalable press that can handle web widths ranging from 8 inches to 20 inches and is offered in either 300-by-300 or 300-by-600 dpi resolution. Printing speeds vary per model but the VT 3000 can reach a maximum speed of 500 feet, or 2,040 pages, per minute. The press can support monochrome, spot and process color printing on the same platform, Kodak said.

Antonio M. Perez, chairman and chief executive officer, Kodak.
Nipson

Nipson Printing Systems unveiled its new generation of print heads for the VaryPress 200 and VaryPress 500 web-fed digital presses. Both presses use Nipson’s magnetographic imaging and flash fusing processes. The technology uses a magnetic print drum combined with flash toner fusing. The cold flash fusing system fuses the toner without heating the substrate, so the web does not shrink, warp, distort, or dry out, according to Martine Berger, marketing communications manager for Nipson.

The VaryPress 200 runs up to 295 feet per minute on a printable width of 18.45 inches (web width of 20.5 inches) with 600 dpi print quality. The VaryPress 500 has production speeds of up to 492 feet-per-minute.

Oce

Oce, whose black-and-white digital presses are used by several newspapers, introduced three new models of its full process-color JetStream machines.

The JetStream 750, 1500 and 3000 systems join the 2200 and 1100 machines Oce formally introduced last December. All employ Oce’s DigiDot piezo-based drop-on-demand printing platform.

The 750, with a 328-foot-per-minute capacity, is an entry-level machine, said Michael R. Polin, product manager.

The JetStream 1500 produces 1,300 full-color A4-size images per minute in two-up duplex format while the 3000 has an output capacity of 656 feet-per-minute with a resolution of 480-by-600 dpi.

Michael R. Polin, product manager, Oce.

Wendy K. Apton, assistant technology program manager at Xerox.

Screen

The Screen TruePress Jet 520 variable printing system blends grayscale drop-on-demand technology with Epson’s latest multitone piezo drop-on-demand inkjet print head. The press uses water-based dye inks, water-based pigment inks and four process colors (CMYK). The machine can print up to 210 feet per minute with a resolution of 720-by-360 dpi. Page widths run from 6.5 inches to 20.47 inches, with a cutoff of 40 inches.

“Print-on-demand will bring new business opportunities to newspapers,” said Seiichi Nakao, Screen’s manager of sales and marketing. “It will eliminate the financial cost and environmental impact of air-freighting newspapers while ensuring same-day availability no matter where their readers might be,” he said.

Seiichi Nakao, manager of sales and marketing, Screen.

Agfa readies to tackle papers with DGNews digital press

At drupa 2008 Agfa Graphics introduced the Dotrix DGNews, a digital inkjet press for short-run printing. The new press is based on Agfa’s Dotrix Transcolor designed for transactional and transpromotional printing. The technology inside is similar to the Dotrix Modular, which was designed to print on a variety of substrates for industrial applications — folding cartons, packaging, displays, and plastic bags. To construct the DGNews press, Agfa took the duplexing capability from the Dotrix Transcolor and primed it for newsprint, added a sheet cutter, a drum collator and a double folding unit for single and double folds to produce fully finished tabloid or broadsheet newspapers.

Newspapers & Technology talked with Richard Barham, Agfa Graphics’ vice president for inkjet, worldwide about the company’s plans regarding digital printing in the newspaper market.
Photo: Agfa
Agfa’s Richard Barham stands next to an Agfa Modular press at last
month’s drupa.

N&T: What is the market potential for short-run digital printing?

Barham: We see the short-run digital printing taking hold in three phases.

First, we see newspaper distributors as the early adopters of this technology. A system such as the Dotrix DGNews will allow them to distribute precise circulation for large newspapers in remote locations. Already, there are two audiences — professionals who are living abroad and want to see the news from their native country. We call this the roaming market. A French broker, for example, working in New York on Wall Street would be able to get an 8:30 edition of Les Echos instead of having to wait until late afternoon, which is currently the case.

The other audience is tourists. Europeans who may be vacationing in Miami Beach will be able to get the early edition of their home newspaper each morning.

Distributors will be able to print for their newspaper clients locally, so the newspaper can reach those markets on a more timely basis with minimal waste. With the Dotrix DGNews they can print the exact quantity when needed with comparable quality to the original. They can even print the same size; there is no need to shrink the titles since the Dotrix DGNews can handle a full broadsheet.

A major advantage for the newspaper will be the ability to capture local advertisers. So Coppertone will be able to reach a very finely tuned tourist trade as well as its larger mass market. The first installation of the DGNews is taking place this summer at a distributor who caters to this very market — the firm delivers native newspapers to tourists traveling abroad.

We see the second wave of digital printing occurring as the capabilities of the technology increase. With faster speeds newspapers will be able to reach out to secondary markets with shorter, highly efficient editions. They will be able to deliver more targeted audiences to their advertisers. Community papers are a typical example of this case.

In the third wave, those newspapers will be able to personalize newspapers — that is, deliver very specific types of content by demographic. For example, newspapers going to a college campus will include advertising inserts geared specifically to 18 to 21 year olds. They’ll be able to deliver custom titles to markets they are currently unable to reach.

N&T: Are you describing a new business model for newspapers?

Barham: I would describe it more as a new opportunity for distributors where remote delivery is a requirement. Then as the technology moves forward, newspapers will adopt the technology to serve their local markets on a much more targeted basis. It isn’t necessarily changing the model, it is broadening it.

N&T: Can you provide a cost model comparison?

Barham: Newspapers typically use 2,000 or 3,000 tabloid copies, depending on the operation, as the breakeven point for offset printing. With the Dotrix DGNews you can print as few as one to 50 copies and still be competitive. The cost per copy is the same whether you print one or 3000 copies.

We are working on increasing the speed of the DGNews substantially over the course of the next year, with a goal toward bringing the cost per copy down even further.

N&T: If you are selling to distributors, who sells and services the system?

Barham: Agfa handles sales, installation, training and service.

N&T: How is color management handled?

Barham: Agfa integrates our ColorTune color management suite with the Dotrix DGNews. This is the technology we use in our proofing systems that allows us to match any output profile. Color is accurate. UV inks also allow a much wider color gamut for better color matching, especially important for matching special color.

N&T: How does the DGNews integrate into the workflow?

Barham: Very easily with our Apogee X workflow software. The DGNews was designed to integrate easily into any workflow — Agfa or non-Agfa.