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The news publishing technology magazine

Hu’s viewssCMP chief joins wAN-ifra’s Hong Kong dialogue

Vol 14/2 June 2014 Asia-Pacific

Plus:News’ urban renewalAd tech honeypotswUG goes troppoMalay Mail’s GR8 ideaCossar days revisited

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Newspaper technology Publication production

An MPC Media publicationVolume 14 Number 2 June 2014

Managing editor Peter Coleman Tel: +61 7-5485 0079 Mob: +61 407 580 094 Email [email protected] sales Lisa Hendry, Mob: 0487 400 374Editorial, administration, production: PO Box 40, Cooran, Qld 4569, Australia Tel: +61 7-5485 0079 Fax: +61 2-4381 0246 E-mail: [email protected] Maggie ColemanPrinted by Galloping Press, NSW, AustraliaSee us at www.gxpress.net and digital.gxpress.net

Published by MPC Media (Pileport Pty Ltd) ABN 30 056 610 363

Subscriptions A$44 pa. (inc GST) within Australia. Other rates on application

© Pileport Pty Ltd 2014. No part of this publication may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means without prior written permission. The views expressed by contributors to GXpress are not necessarily those of the publisher

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iNSidEAd tEch honEyPot: Huge growth has turned Sydney into a honeypot for programmatic firms PAGE 5

victiMs of succEss: John Juliano looks at values and perceptions PAGE 8

PowErhousE: WAN-ifra tackles issues in HK PAGE 12-15

gAllic syMbol: Using digital print to address distribution costs PAGE 18

urbAn rEnEwAl: News Corp changes the controls and the culture PAGE 20

gonE troPPo: SWUG travels to the city where ‘anything goes’ PAGE 22-26

cossAr tAlEs: tracking the flatbed rotary PAGE 30our thAnks to thEsE AdvErtisErs:CCi Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11dainippon Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19EidosMedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9Goss international . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40Harland-Simon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27manroland web systems . . . . . . . . . . . 17ProtecMedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Qi Press Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26technotrans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29WAN-ifra india Conference . . . . . . . . . 16WAN-ifra World Publishing Expo . . . . . . . 6

Gr8 idea sells 30,000 sUbs witH tAbletsMalaysian daily the Malay Mail

has sold 30,000 subscriptions on the strength of a unique offer which packages a phablet or

smartphone with the paper and apps.Currently readers – mostly in the country’s

peninsula region – can buy a subscription for RM288 (under $100) and get an 8Gb Huawei Mediapad and a package of apps into the bargain. A 16Gb Galaxy Tab 3 is also available.

So successful has the Gr8 tablet project been, that a second phase is planned shortly.

Editor-in-chief Wong Sai Wan says the main objective was to capture younger readers and

counter pressure from digital advertising: “The Gr8 project meets both objectives in one stroke,” he says.

The ‘opportunity window’ for a white label device bundled with content has become appealing as the costs of newsprint and physical newspaper delivery – especially in urban areas – have continued to rise, while the device cost has dropped significantly.

The Malay Mail plans to push 100,000 devices – including tablets, phablets and smartphones – in 12 months through a partnership with Huawei and Serioustec.

Devices from Huawei – and in a separate promotion, Samsung – have ‘burned-in’ apps from project sponsors including e-bookstore Karangkraf, radio

station durianFM and TGV Cinemas.The devices also carry e-reader apps and

newsfeeds for the English-language Malay Mail and Media Alliance partner publications including Hong Kong Chinese daily Oriental Daily, Malay (Bahasa) daily Sinar Harian and Tamil daily Makkal Osai. News also comes from Mail stablemate the Malaysian Reserve, also owned by the Redberry group.

John Fong of technology partner Serioustec says the success of the sponsor apps – which cannot be deleted – is key to the project: “I believe this is the first initiative of its kind,” he says. “So far, results have been very strong with more than 30,000 devices sold to date and a second phase is going to roll out soon.” nngx

wordPress users get to connectW oodWing has automated

publication to WordPress websites in its latest

Enterprise version. A new connector enables centralised publication of content to WordPress in 9.2.

Product vice president Dennis van Nooij says what was first primarily seen as a simple blogging tool has expanded towards being a mature web CMS, blurring the distinction between traditional blogs and full-featured websites. Now WordPress has been accepted by brands including Forbes, time.com, gigaom.com and techcrunch.com (all US), Metro (UK), Piaggio Group Americas (Vespa) and Justin Timberlake. WordPress claims 409 million people view more than 13.1 billion of their pages each month.

The connector for Enterprise via Content Station follows the same three-step process as for any other digital channel – creation of a dossier, authoring of text and images, and the immediate publication of the article. With 9.2, article components and other

content published to WordPress sites can easily be reused in social media, mobile, other CMS systems, in print and on tablets – and vice versa.

With 9.2, WoodWing also officially released the support for Adobe InDesign CC and InCopy CC, following intensive public testing.

• A big year in 2013 for Creative Folks – including winning Bauer Media as a client – has seen them rewarded by WoodWing as a diamond partner.

The upgrade recognises sales of its Enterprise publishing system, while the Sydney company is also awarded platinum status for the Elvis DAM asset management system.

Creative Folks has been a WoodWing partner since 2006, and counts Pacific Magazines, News Corp Australia, Yaffa Publishing Group and Bauer among its clients for the products. The first diamond partner in the Asia Pacific, they are one of only four (of a total of about 80 solution partners) worldwide.

WoodWing chief executive Roel-

Jan Mouw says the recognition reflects “growth we experience in the region for both Enterprise and Elvis”. Creative Folks sales and project director Andrew Lomas says his company has implemented many sites from five to more than 500 users across Australia and New Zealand: “Due to the newly-assigned status of diamond partner, we are even better positioned to further develop the business in the publishing industry and beyond,” he says.

Magazine publisher Bauer Media Australia – which became a new user of Enterprise and Elvis DAM in 2013 – publishes more than 80 titles including monthly the Australian Women’s Weekly, and top weekly Woman’s Day, supporting them with reader websites and digital editions.

WoodWing Asia Pacific managing director Remco Koster says there is also an opportunity to target new markets outside the publishing industry: “We see great opportunities throughout the entire region,” he says. nngx

Hamburg date for ppi open dayspeakers have been named for ppi Media’s open days in Hamburg, Germany, from June 23-24. They include Local Media Association chair Nancy Lane, Times of India chief information officer Sachin Gupta and ppi’s US chief executive Markus Feldenkirchen while former St. Pauli soccer player Benjamin Adrion is the dinner speaker.

Gametracker adds basketballBasketBall has been added to the My Team Scoop Game Tracker software used to relay play-by-play accounts of high school games.

Software company Presteligence says the fully hosted high school sports management service includes web and mobile sites, apps, and a built-in CMS with reverse publishing.

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Smart Scandinavian with nuclear family meets reliable Chinese partner: The pairing of CCI Europe and AWT System in China and

southeast Asia reads like a match made in heaven.

And it is, according to Mike Garland, who helped engineer the exclusive strategic partnership, which sees AWT delivering and supporting CCI’s NewsGate product.

“We’d been interested in breaking into the China market for about three years, and had held meetings with some very large IT organisations,” says Garland, CCI’s Melbourne-based regional sales director. “Then we met (AWT chief consultant) Terrence Fok at the World Newspaper Congress in Bangkok and realised we had objectives in common.”

AWT – which has its own comprehensive software suite – was looking for a way to extend its offering and at the same time, shorten the time to market for the multichannel products it wanted. Meetings during the second half of last year progressed to a “look under the hood” of NewsGate in Denmark, discussions with chief executive Dan Korsgaard and the formation of partnership ideas.

“The timing was very good for us,” says Fok. “With the digital trend finally having an impact on this region, we were interested in working with an existing developer and have progressed from there.”

The new agreement covers China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia for NewsGate and associated solutions including online and digital.

Both parties see

it as significantly more than a reseller agreement: “This is a genuine partnership agreement we’ve entered into with CCI that will see us working very closely with them,” Fok says, while Korsgaard says AWT’s profile in the region – coupled with an experienced IT and editorial support organisation – were important factors.

The two are working together to bring the Chinese language to NewsGate and extend features to tailor it to the needs of users in the region. Over 20 years in the industry, Hong Kong headquartered software developer and system integrator AWT has gained a leading place in Asia’s Chinese publishing industry, with about 30 daily newspapers and 30 magazines using its editorial and advertising systems.

Customers – including publishers, TV channels

and marketing companies – are supported through branch offices in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan and representative offices in China.

Now with training for its 40-strong team underway, AWT will offer its customers an upgrade path to CCI’s NewsGate, dealing with local issues such as linguistics, censorship and operating platforms in the process. “Chinese is our strength,” says Fok.

Both are enthusiastic about the opportunity: “The beauty with AWT is

the involvement and respect,” says Garland. “We don’t push in.” nngx

Pictured: AWT System’s Terrence Fok (left) with Dan Korsgaard

CCi’s cHina CoNNeCtioN

Aol expands programmaticaOl is expandinG its presence in programmatic advertising with the launch of One, a new global platform for brands, agencies and publishers.

Chairman and chief executive Tim Armstrong and AOL Platforms chief executive Bob Lord announced the move at Ad:tech in San Francisco, pointing to the $5 billion they say will be spent on programmatic in Australia over the next four years.

The companies claim One will improve efficiencies for publishers, reducing the ‘tech tax’ which cuts actual revenue receipts. One will mechanise marketing so that advertisers and publishers can tap digital innovation to drive growth and efficiency, especially in the Asia Pacific where high adoption of programmatic is expected.

One includes programmatic mobile and display advertising units and will provide a ‘single digital hub’ for automated media buying, including AOL advertising products, including Adap.tv, AdLearn Open Platform and AOL Marketplace. nngx

sydney hub follows retargetting boomretarGettinG platfOrm AdRoll has opened a regional hub in Sydney with a 20-strong team planned. The move follows establishment of a European base in Dublin last October. Digital pioneer Ben Sharp – who cofounded Allure Media and spent six years at Yahoo! – has been appointed managing director. He was most recently general manager of Vizury.

Retargetting – the business of repitching ads after a consumer has visited a site without buying – has driven unprecedented growth for AdRoll, which claims a 500 per cent advertiser growth in Australia and 565 per cent overall growth across the Asia Pacific region. With Australian online advertising up more than 19.3 per cent year on year, AdRoll says it will help marketers collect, analyse and act on their data.

AdRoll chief executive Aaron Bell says it’s “awesome” to be finally launching in Sydney: “Over the past year, we’ve seen Australia explode into one of the fastest growing markets with strong demand from advertisers and agencies,” he says.

AdRoll will employ more than 20 staff in Sydney. nngx

Huge growth has turned Sydney into a honeypot for programmatic and ad technology companies.

Ad tech company AppNexus (see this page) cites IDC predictions that

RTB spending in Australia would reach $74 million in 2013, an increase of 105 per cent from 2012, with eMarketer anticipating the figure will nearly double this year to $131.7 million.

Among those responding to the boom is global digital marketing technology company Crimtan which has brought Tara Crosby back to Sydney – where she worked for News Limited – to open a new office. Digital specialist Crosby – who becomes managing director – worked for News before before joining Crimtan at its London headquarters.

Crimtan has been serving clients in Australia for more than two years and says it will use this experience and local user data to deliver campaigns using both programmatic RTB and unique non-exchange inventory.

A proprietary real-time audience and media platform, Ramp360 allows data to flow between integrated DMP and DSP, providing campaign analysis and audience insights for mobile and display. Audience data is enhanced by integration with comScore demographic data and hyperlocal geotargeting through a partnership with Digital Element.

At the new Australia office in Pitt Street, Crosby will be joined by sales manager Candice Driver (right) – who previously held roles at Yahoo and AOL UK – and client services manager Angus Rollason from Boost Media.

“Australia’s display market is maturing and Crimtan will play a significant role in its future growth,” says Crosby. “We have our own technology – which differentiates us from companies using third party DSPs – and as we offer unique data, tools and strategies, we can work comfortably alongside agency trading desks and complement their existing activity.”

She says opportunities for marketers in Australia are vast, and looks forward to building new partnerships in the Asia-Pacific.

Crimtan has offices in 12 countries and operates in more than 50 EMEA and Australasia markets. It was recently been named a finalist in the 2014 August Equity Pathfinder 20 Index of the UK’s most exciting emerging technology companies, the accolade following becoming a Red Herring Europe Top 100 winner and being named ‘one to watch’ by the UK Sunday Times’ Tech Track 100 League. nngx

AD teCH HOneypOt

C xense has enhanced its Big Data-based offering to publishers and says it has

signed 12 new media clients and expanded relationships with ten more.

The new Cxense DMP is an anchor application, offering publishers improved aggregation, segmentation and use of customer data to better engage and monetise visitors across all digital channels, including mobile phones and tablets.

The software-as-a-service-based products provide site visitors with better experiences across mobile,

tablet and desktop devices, while helping publishers increase digital revenue through precisely targeted advertising and personalised content, it says. Robust growth is rapidly increasing its global reach and broadening utilisation of solutions which help publishers better understand and engage with users and increase online revenues.

Among new clients this year is Japan’s Voyage Group, while South Africa’s Times Media Group, Ireland’s Sunday World and Columbian news portal El Colombiano are among those taking on products

including Cxense Analytics. Cxense says existing customers including Morris Communications (publisher of the Florida Times Union’s Jacksonville.com); Ringier and Tamedia (Switzerland); Norran (Sweden) and Styria Media (Austria) are broadening their use of the technology.

“These industry-leading publishers are based in various geographies around the world, but they all share the common goals of improving the user experience for their readers and boosting digital revenue,” says chief executive Raman Bhatnagar. nngx

big data company adds analytics customers, pitches publishers

AppNexus signs Fairfax and Mi9ad tecH cOmpany AppNexus has opened an office in Sydney and has signed clients including Fairfax, Mi9, Xaxis and Big Mobile.

The move down under aims to capitalise on the increasing field of programmatic buying in the Australian marketplace. Former global accounts vice president David Osborn has been appointed Asia-Pacific sales vice president. AppNexus claims to be the world’s largest independent ad tech company, serving buyers and sellers of internet advertising in 53 countries.

Fairfax digital ad development director Tereza Alexandatros says the platform is used as a part of an overall advertising tech stack, enabling Fairfax to trade programmatically with advertising partners. nngx

Ready for the boom: Crimtan’s Tara Crosby (above) and Candice Driver

sOcial relationship platform HootSuite is to broaden its Asia Pacific appeal with new Chinese apps. The company says a “refreshed” set of Chinese app integrations in its app directory will include Sina Weibo, Tencent Weibo, as well as Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo Analytics by Klarity.

Regional managing director Ken Mandel says the new apps will enable enterprises to “derive meaning and take action on social conversations” in both Chinese and English.

“This market represents tremendous potential for social enterprises, and we’re committed to offering the most localised social media software,” he says. “We are available in six Asian languages and this app release reflects our dedication to the region.”

Christopher Wong, chief executive of Klarity developer Social Media Broadcasts says it has been “really exciting” to see the first integrated app, Sina Weibo Analytics gain traction over the past three months. “With the addition of Tencent Weibo Analytics, we look forward to providing HootSuite users even more resources to understand social behaviour in China and support their data-driven marketing strategies.”

VideO platfOrm Brightcove has commissioned research company Aberdeen Group to find how publishers approach content marketing.

Marketing vice president Steve Rotter says content marketing has emerged as a powerful vehicle for buyer engagement, thought leadership, and demand generation.

Supported by Brightcove, the research project aims to identify best-in-class practices across the content marketing lifecycle, from content development, management, and distribution, to analytics and optimisation.

“Their analysis will quantify the value of content in the marketing mix and help identify the

new economics of content marketing,” says Rotter.

• Brightcove launched a new video marketing suite at its customer conference in New York. The suite combines video management, marketing and analytics – including cloud implementations – and is complemented by a Gallery product set to help marketers create engaging video portals.

Wan-ifra has added new categories to its World Young Reader Prize which honours news publishers who succeed in engaging the young. These reflect changing media habits and needs of young people, the evolving media environment and new players who can help in the effort.

“These prizes make known the excellent but often hidden work that news publishers are doing to assure a new audience of literate, civic minded citizens who care about, and can contribute to, excellent journalism,” says secretary general Larry Kilman.

The new categories are:• Digital First for creative engagement of the young through mobile devices;• Going Green honours projects that give the young guidance and hope for improving the environment;• Playing with News is for inventive activities that teach ten to 14-year-olds about the news “by doing the news”;• A Great Help is for a win-win partnership with a financial supporter that helps sustain excellence in news publisher engagement and service of youth.

Entries are being accepted until July 15. Full details and registration information are at www.wan-ifra.org/worldyoungreaderprize

The new categories join the core Young Reader Prize categories of brand, editorial, enduring excellence, learning with the news, public service, the Natasa Prize award for printing plants and World Young Reader Newspaper of the Year. All categories call for activities that target people under age 25. nngx

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Journalism needs to be backed up by technological competence, cooperation and flexibility, Axel Springer’s Tilmann Knoll says.

Reporting on last year’s trip to Silicon Valley undertaken by the German publishing giant’s entire 80-strong top level management, the Berlin-based head of management development says commercial staff and IT experts need to work together on “product ideas and optimisations”.

“What is more, the working environment – and by that I mean how the technical factors, spaces, and time schedules are designed at work – must be better aligned toward interdisciplinary cooperation and communication,” he says in a blog post for INMA.

At its core the three-day learning journey brought changes of its own:

software smarts choose content for car ads

A smart application of Wave2’s AdPortal system at AutoTrader in South Africa sees the software choose the cars to be advertised

– using access to a dealer’s promotional database – before creating the ad.

Based on a set of pre-agreed ad building rules, it automatically decides which vehicles are most appropriate to be included in the advert and extracts details of each along with an image if available.

“The software then sorts the basic vehicle descriptions via a number of elements that it expects to find – the make, model, age or price for example – and automatically creates the ad according to the individual motor dealer’s preferences,” says managing director Chris Hodges.

The UK developer has extended a five-year relationship with its South Africam

customer. It says the self-service advertising solution is already being used by more than 300 motor and truck dealers.

Automated software provides a publisher with a fully integrated and enhanced solution for its motor and truck dealers, with the software helping to define ad content before automatically creating the layout.

Hodges says an issue was that motor and truck dealers were used to a very personal level of service: “A sales person would help to compile a new advert for the customer for every edition of the publication, with ad content likely to change up to the very last minute. Our software needs to mimic this high level of customer service while reducing the costs of creating an ad.”

An email of the ad is automatically sent to the dealer, with the option to make

manual changes if required, and if none are received it is deemed acceptable.

“This is one of the most sophisticated systems that we have developed to date,” says Hodges. “In the Auto Trader system our rules structure is actually helping to determine what the content is before we fit that content into the predefined space.”

• Wave2 have introduced a software-as-a-service version of its self‐service advertising solution, AdPortal Cloud. The pre-configured, hosted service is delivered in packaged form and operated as a service. nngx

tilmann Knoll: lessons from Axel springer’s silicon valley trip

iN beD witH

cHanGe:

ideas with young company founders, investors, and accelerators who support and network start-ups.

The intense programme – like “tanking up at high pace” with the spirit of Silicon Valley – is proving to have “quite an impact” on attitudes and corporate culture, he says. Ideas and suggestions – for specific areas and the company as a whole – have emerged with follow-up workshops and practical applications.

“One of the main impulses for change that emerged from the trip to Silicon Valley was the realisation that not only must journalism remain at the heart of our corporate identity, but technological competence should also become an integral component

of the company’s activities and its journalistic work,” Knoll says.

He also says implementation will call for more open spaces, flexible working, and large newsrooms in which all work steps and processes can be better networked with one another.

“Ultimately, we reached the conclusion that transformation and innovation work even better when decisions are made faster and with less hierarchy,” he says. “Senior members of staff must place trust in their employees and managers and give them enough space to act on their own.”

The value of the Silicon Valley trip continues to resonate: Ultimately it “made the change process tangible and real” to those who took part – and “caused things to happen at a symbolic and emotional level in the company and in the industry far beyond the small circle who travelled to San Francisco”.• See the Axel Springer video on our website nngx

Executives, editors-in-chief and the management board flew economy and shared rooms – and even beds – in a “charmingly hip three-star hotel in one of the city’s less noble districts”. The result was that participants would “leave your comfort zone and come together to embrace the role of the inquisitive learner”.

The US hub of technological innovation is home to a huge number of technology and internet-based corporations, and group visits included Apple, Google, Facebook and eBay. On a visit to Stanford University and elsewhere, they learned about collaborating at new levels and having conversations which had been impossible before.

Above all, they shared an opportunity to catch the vibe of innovation which permeates the San Francisco Bay area. Knoll says participants could also exchange

the system automatically decides which vehicles are most appropriate and extracts details

www.worldpublishingexpo.com

Publishing on all channels!


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‘Are you safe?’ I sent this one line email to three friends the moment the acquisition of Mediaspan by Newscycle

became public. The first responded immediately, “Yes.

Let’s speak once everything calms down.” The second, to an old, old friend in the UK, was answered, “not sure, waiting to see contract.” The same, from an American, who I still think of as a young man because we met when he was in his early 20s, 20 years ago.

As of today, they are all ‘safe’. My British friend worries less because ‘‘non-competes,’’ which are so prevalent here in the USA, are illegal there. He will never have to make the decision about whether to sign a non-compete to keep this position, while trading away his ability to work in his chosen industry should his employer decide to exercise their “at will” option.

If you don’t live in the States, this may sound like a barbaric practice. It is common to agree not to work for any competitor for some length of time, often two years, should you no longer work for your current employer. Oftentimes working for a European company relieves one from having to make such a choice. Non-competes can sometimes be negotiated around, but Americans oftentimes sign whatever’s put before them. Once, I did not hire a very talented woman once because she had signed such an agreement. Although my legal friends told me it would be unenforceable, her former employer was on the phone to me before I had made an offer to her, threatening me with legal action, the expense of which, even if I had won, would have made her employment unprofitable.

Leaving non-competes aside, we’ve seen yet another major vendor disappear, and the apparent implosion of Digital First Media. Is there a message to be gained from the two events? (This will actually be the subject of a lunch I’m hosting in Chicago for a group of newspaper executives.)

At first glance they seem to be counter indicative. The acquisition of yet another vendor by Newscycle can be viewed as being very bullish on our industry. If the rumors that abound have any validity at all, Vista Partners, the fund behind Newscycle, has spent more than US$150 million so far.

The story being told by those inside of DFM is much more interesting. Where I and so many others see an implosion and failure, those I’ve spoken to – who I count

as friends – tell the exact opposite story. DFM is a victim of its own success!

This is a consistent story: DFM hit its sale price and the story’s over. Period. There’s no more to tell.

According to my contacts, the DFM properties were bought on a multiple of 2-to-1. They’re now valued at between five- and 7-to-1, and it’s time to sell. Doing the arithmetic, it’s easy to see that even if the valuation had dropped by 50%, the profit is more than a 50 per cent return and as you go up from there the profit looks better and better.

That there was surprise that the fund that owns DFM would do such a thing is difficult for me to get over. Inside DFM, I heard such things as, ‘‘I can’t believe this is happening when we are being so successful.’’ ‘‘The problem is that we were too successful.’’

The real problem seems to be that the investors were very honest: They were in the deal to make a certain amount of money, when they can make that amount of money, they sell and move on.

The people at DFM are my friends. Like my friends at Mediaspan, I’m interested in what will happen to them next. It seems, as is often true in these things, a few players end up with all the equity, and those who thought they were in and protected were not. I’m told that when DFM declared bankruptcy in 2012, my friends lost all of their equity. One told me he couldn’t believe he had been that naïve. The other said something akin to, “on to the next venture”… and then told me he was investigating opportunities on a different continent.

DFM is apparently being cut up because there is no buyer able to swallow the entire fish in one gulp. I’m led to believe there are more than enough buyers willing to pay a good multiple. This speaks well of the stability of the buyers, who are said to be other newspaper chains in the main, and of their view of our industry in the USA.

With our industry in such turmoil – and in turmoil there is opportunity – I wondered why anyone would come work in it. To find out, I called a number of people in their 20s and 30s who have joined our industry and asked why. The people I called were evenly split between vendors to the industry and people working in the industry. The answers shouldn’t have surprised me, because they are the exact same answers that my peers would give if I were to ask them.jo

hnju

liano

viCtiMs oF successJohn Juliano looks at values and perceptions in the news industry

Journalists and editors joined our industry because they believe in it. Everyone I spoke to was unanimous in this. The answers ranged from “I am a fifth-generation newspaper person,” to “I believe in the importance of a newspaper to keep the local community informed.” One man was married to another journalist. Together they seem to reinforce each other’s belief in the importance of their calling.

People like me on the vendor side, seemed to get there by happenstance. One took a job with a newspaper products supplier because she wasn’t licensed to work in her chosen profession in the city where her partner pursued an opportunity. Others were looking for jobs that matched their skills and the vendor where they are working is the vendor who made the best offer. I work in newspapers now because there was a certain technology I wanted to use in a certain way. A now-long-defunct newspaper industry vendor was looking for someone who was an expert in that certain technology and wanted to use it in the same way.

There’s a new management phrase floating around the USA, LCHO; it’s pronounced el-co and it stands for low-cost, high opportunity. I’m told it is the term for hiring very young people straight out of school. I’m told it’s used to get rid of experienced high cost talent. Being experienced talent, I see this as a debased and evil thing to do.

The American job market is very tight and new graduates have a difficult time finding a job. As a new graduate, I would see this as an opportunity for me to demonstrate the value of my education. When I was a teenager, American companies passed rules of forced retirement at age 65. The rules were positioned as a corporate initiative to allow the younger generation (baby boomers) to enter the workforce.

What goes around, comes around. But now, I wonder how much corporate responsibility to the community was really a factor and whether it was just LCHO without a corporate acronym.

Although there seem to be human casualties along the way, all the signs are of a strengthening industry that is attracting investment and new young blood. nngx• Newspaper systems industry veteran John Juliano writes regularly for GXpress Magazine. He is North American vice president of business development at Miles 33. Contact him at [email protected]


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Metro Media signedmediaspectrum has added Metro Media Publishing to an Australian customer list which already includes News Corp Australia. A new approach to managing content and advertising follows a merger in 2012 with Fairfax Community Newspapers, and recognition that it depended on a wide range of IT systems to support various advertising, content and publishing needs.

Chief technology officer Damian Mansour says the group has gone through “an exciting time of change and growth” in evolving from publishing The Weekly Review to encompassing more than 15 magazines and newspapers. nngx

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From little things, La Stampa growslittle tHinGs can add up, but the idea of using a Fiat 500 as a mobile newsroom is an interesting one. Editor-in-chief of La Stampa Mario Calabresi says he draws on international journalism for his inspiration, but admits the Italian daily is not short of ideas of its own.

The home town paper of Turin, where WAN-Ifra’s World Editors Forum isbeing held this month – and Calabresi is to be a speaker – tapped the local marque for the car to which a disproportionately large satellite dish has been attached.

Connected to a new integrated newsroom running EidosMedia’s Méthode, the little car mixes glamour with a working life and turned up to help with the red carpet coverage of the Venice Film Festival last September. The car is a product of La Stampa’s MediaLab studio which acts as an incubator for innovation and a place to experiment with digital storytelling. Apart from being a base for roving journalists, it provides a satellite-enabled wifi hotspot which could also be used in a natural emergency.

Calabresi was set to speak in a session entitled ‘Editors’ evolution: are you in danger of becoming extinct?’ nngx

www.ccieurope.com

GLOBAL STRENGTH

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE

A partnership combining local expertise with world class editorial, online and advertising systems

++

CCI EUROPE ESCENIC AWT SYSTEM

+

GoiNG to tHe BrOWserThe number of global systems vendors

– especially those serving the US market – has dropped another notch

with the acquisition of MediaSpan Group by Newscycle Solutions. The innovative former Harris/Baseview business brings browser-based softare expertise to the group formed from acquisitions of DTI, Saxotech and Atex Inc. About 75 employees will join Newscycle.

The MediaSpan deal brings some 3000 newspaper and broadcast sites to Newscycle (making a claimed 8000) and comes as a surprise to some parts of the market.

With a 40-year history which extends to the early Harris composition systems of the 1960s – it produced the first newspaper

system in 1968 – MediaSpan had cultured broadcast, government and religious markets in addition to its core news publishing base. Clients include the Australian Radio Network and Radio Network New Zealand, as well as media majors such as BH Media Group, Black Press, Civitas Media, GateHouse Media and community newspapers.

President Dan Roberts was previously with Harris Publishing Systems and helped orchestrate the purchase of Harris and Baseview in 2001. He becomes Newscycle’s business strategy vice president. Other key members are vice presidents Ken Freedman (sales and marketing), Tom Henry (product development) and Carla Green (customer services). nngx

S till one of the world’s most prestigious titles, The Times has completed a move to new publishing technology which partly mirrors that at News Corp sites in

Australia and the US.Managing editor Craig Tregurtha says the

change – part of News UK & Ireland’s Newsroom 360 reorganisation – has been a huge investment in the paper’s future, “both in terms of the new software and the training and education programme that has accompanied it”.

Publishing operations have switched to EidosMedia’s Méthode platform, with the system also used for its online editions, weekly supplements and separate Times Literary Supplement.

Other titles including the Sunday Times and The Sun are set to follow, with the platform set to serve a total of 1500 journalists and editors. “The Newsroom 360 project has given us the tools to get to grips with multiplatform journalism in the digital age,” Tregurtha says.

Méthode is also in use at the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and News Corp Australia’s portfolio of titles.

• Details of the News Corp Australia rollout – the largest and fastest Méthode deployment so far – were given to delegates at EidosMedia’s customer meeting

Zuora adds officeOnline subscription commerce service Zuora is backing regional clients including Singapore Press Holdings with an office in the island state. Zuora – which opened offices in office in London and Sydney in 2010 and 2012 – says more than a quarter of its business now comes from outside the US.

The ‘subscription economy’ is now a $500 billion market, set to grow exponentially as innovations are increasingly delivered as services. It has caught on in a big way in Singapore, seventh in this year’s Bloomberg Global Innovation Index. – where early adopter customers include Singapore Press Holdings, ViewQwest and PropertyGuru. nngx

Mobile apps soarresearcH cOmpany Nielsen says mobile apps are on the rise, with consumers happy to use ad-supported apps which are useful to them.

Head of the company’s media industry group Monique Perry says sites such as Carsales.com.au have captured incremental consumer touch-points for engagement by providing high-quality content on both mobile website and app – giving consumers a choice of how to access it – Carsales has seen engagement levels soar.

More than a quarter of their online user sessions last month came directly from their mobile app, with 57 per cent of total sessions coming from mobile. nngx

laredo plans startupatex reGiOnal chief executive Jerome Laredo left the company at the end of April, and is succeeded by Graham Green as regional business director. Laredo, who was appointed in January 2012, says he is pursuing some personal projects in Singapore, including establishing a new company with some friends.

It is understood that regional chief operating officer Mark McLaughlan has also left. He now lists himself on LinkedIn as a director of Freeman Inc, responsible for logistics and strategy on “a significant greenfield project” in Italy/France scheduled for launch in May/June. nngx

olD lADy Goes neW tecHin London last month. Attendees were also introduced to new features of the forthcoming 6.0 release including a new user more configurable interface designed to maximise user ergonomics and comfort.

A new release of the Mémo app adds new online and offline functions for mobile journalists and editors to create and edit multimedia news content using iPhones and iPads. Méthode also has new social media tools including a ‘dashboard’ providing an overview of reader responses to editorial content and new search tools.

The main toolbar will be organised in context-

sensitive tabs, to collect functions related to the same task: text editing, page design, web pagination and more. New contexts will be introduced for even increased efficiency. A “quick access” area will collect frequently used features, plus a new search box, with one-click access to pre-configured queries and other search options.

New toolbars will cover all the existing functionalities, and include commands previously available only in panels, menus or via keyboard shortcuts. A collection of new UI elements includes drop-down menus, combo boxes and special buttons. nngx


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chief executive Wong Chun Wai discussed approaches and outcomes: The “collision” of the media and digital economies was an opportunity to move out to new audiences and explore new monetisation and marketing, Hu says.

“News gets bigger as newspapers get smaller… and gets transmitted quicker to more people,” he says, but we no longer control the media; meanwhile, digital-only publications are reaching “new heights and values”. One local site had achieved HK$12.6 billion sales in six hours

Wong Chun Wai told how Star had grown from print origins in Penang in 1971 to a national daily with 1.41 million

readers, and then via Malaysia’s first news portal to a multimedia group with 220,000 Chinese-language weekly Red Tomato, radio, TV, classified portals and investments in digital pure players. An e-paper launched in 2012 had been “a fantastic story” – solving problems with distribution and late delivery and reaching 80,000 subscribers – while a lifestyle news channel had spawned lifestyle, education, property and health exhibitions.

Redevelopment of Star’s former headquarters had brought an alternative revenue source, and the group was “still on the acquisition trail,” he says.

“We have tried to learn the Singapore way.”

While SCMP’s property portfolio was “very modest”, Hu says its parent is a big player, “and we need profits to invest in businesses which are still evolving. We know there will be a point where digital becomes profitable.”

Having already taken issue witH keynoter Sverre Munck’s assertions about the future of print – and gained the concession that local circumstances could affect its fate – Doug Wills was back on the second day to tell the story of the London Evening Standard’s recovery from the edge of extinction.

And to admit that the business now owned by former KGB spy turned oligarch >>turn to page 15

There was no doubt that digital was front and centre at WAN-Ifra’s Publish Asia conference in Hong Kong, but instead of drilling deep as the group’s Digital Media Asia does, it

focussed on issues and transformation.The powerhouse setting – expressed as

“where China connects to the world” – was a significant one as the global superpower begins to assert its position and the rest of the world looks for ways of working with it.

Whether or not it was diplomacy, there was apparent consensus in chief executive of the Hong Kong special administrative region Leung Chun-ling’s agreement with WAN-Ifra president Tomas Brunegard about the value of media freedom: It was “about our way of life,” he said.

But despite global concerns about freedom which have seen WAN-Ifra send a special mission to the UK, more immediate was the pressure of a business in which advertising trends were going south and financial markets were taking a tougher view of news media, Brunegard says.

Across a packed two-day programme, Publish Asia addressed the issues and the ‘nuts and bolts’ of current trends: native advertising, partnerships and social media, networks and Big Data… and found time as well for digital printing and drone journalism.

keynote speaker sverre Munck, executive vice president of Scandinavian-turned-global giant Schibsted took publishers from the “natural monopoly” that had been print publishing to a world in which distribution had become a free-for-all and traditional assets had become liabilities.

With the benefit of trust ownership delivering stability, Schibsted had discovered the digital world in 1995 and now derives half its revenue and “more than half its profits” from digital publishing. Among ventures is a partnership with Singapore Press Holdings covering four brands.

Munck claims to be an optimist, and says, “it will be possible to survive and thrive” once the transition is complete. In a world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) “there are ways you

can adapt,” he says.The once hugely-successful VG print

edition has a print circulation half of that at its peak, and “might have to be discontinued in four or five years”, but its overall audience is growing and advertising revenue is skyrocketing.

“We should see if we can accumulate life-cycles,” he says. As each business had its own “moment of truth”, Schibsted’s policy was to separate its new digital operations, giving them “just one thing to think about – growing the business”.

And he adds that “disengaging is as important as engaging,” acknowledging VG’s print reality and recalling the group’s decision to abandon its social network before it was overtaken by Facebook.

The VG website – read by 2.2 million people – is, of course, the “print killer”, its mobile site accounting for half of the country’s non-Google advertising. And Schibsted continues to have success with print-based launches, most recently with Aftenposten Junior, which has grown 30,000 subscribers.

Uncertain about user payments – “to promote digital services or protect print” – Schibsted used a variety of systems: “No one size fits all, and you should experiment,” he says.

He says most publishers are managing data capture well, but those that have stored payment data had an advantage: “Ninety per cent of those for whom card data is stored will go ahead with a purchase,” he says.

“Brand and innovation capability are perhaps the only sustainable competitive advantages.”

delegates MigHt Have Hoped tHat soMe of the success of two of the region’s standout operators might rub off in another informal panel session.

Robin Hu chief executive of the South China Morning Post and Star Publications

a triO Of panelists agreed that maintaining trust was a priority in the development of native advertising. Michelle Haase for the New York Times and Mo Chung for Next Mobile (above) and Inez Albert for The Economist Group (below) to explain and discuss the benefits of the emerging advertising format.

The consensus here was that retaining reader trust was a priority, but that the format offered advertisers the opportunity to be associated with high quality content. “It’s about storytelling,” Inez Albert, The Economist’s regional digital sales director said of a project for GE. Native advertising as a whole, however, was “advertorial given a good shake,” she says.

Apple Daily’s Hong Kong website – among the top ten with more than 35 million daily views, 11 million of them for videos – introduced native advertising last year and finds 70 per cent of views come from mobile users, Mo Chung says. “The growth of native

responds to the decline in display advertising and client demands for engaging branded content,” he says.

Apple Daily doesn’t separate native ads, putting them “right beside” editorial on listings pages (right) including a

disclosure.“If we do it

right, it will not be so intrusive; readers will enjoy and engage with it,” he says. But he says it is important to ensure lines are not blurred and credibility jeopardised: “The challenge is to establish advertising standards,” he says. “User trust is most important, or it won’t be read.”

Inez Albert showed examples from The Economist including GE’s ‘Look ahead’ campaign, produced by a separate editorial team and clearly labelled: “They’re proud of it and want to be associated with

it,” she says. The New York Times might

use an advertiser’s content, but equally would be willing to knock back business which did not align with their standards. “We want to provide advertisers with an optimal service,” Michelle Haas says.

All three would steer advertisers towards other formats such as advertorial and display where appropriate.

Later, South China Morning Post chief executive Robin Hu was to observe that native advertising was “the centerpiece that will be the salvation for us.

“Going below the line is something we shall all have to do,” he says. nngx

trust Us below tHe liNe

Powerhouse summit

in the city ‘where China meets the world’ wAN-ifra tackled the big issues confronting publishers. peter coleman reports

Power lifters: (left from top) WAN-Ifra president Tomas Brunegard, chief executive of the Hong Kong’s special administrative region Leung Chun-ling, chief executive of Mediagene Motoko Imada, and Robin Hu, chief executive of the South China Morning Post


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A round the ballroom of the Hong Kong Shangri-La hotel, collections of spiky transparent awards assembled as Asia’s top

performing news publishing groups were recognised.

I found myself sitting opposite five staffers from Malaysia’s Star Publications, who amassed a total of four awards, and their haul was by no means the night’s best. Local hero, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post was another with

four awards to collect, but the evening’s star, not unusually, was Singapore Press Holdings with nine awards to take home.

Some 29 judges from international media companies assessed entries to select the 45 winners honoured at the gala dinner during the Publish Asia conference in Hong Kong.

Winners Were:Best in print (over 150,000

copies): gold– Apple Daily Publication Development, Taiwan for Apple Daily (Taiwan); silver– Singapore Press Holdings for Lianhe Zaobao, and Singapore Press Holdings for The Straits Times (two awards); bronze– Apple Daily Printing for Apple Daily (Hong Kong), and HT Media

Cameron Highlands; silver– Singapore Press Holdings for The Straits Times Foreign Desk; bronze– Star Publications (Malaysia) for The Star.

Newspaper feature article: gold– Singapore Press Holdings for Kor Kian Beng and Ho Ai Li; silver– Post Media Co. for Big Biz Using Tiny Hands; bronze– HT Media for My India My Vote 2013.

Best in online infographics, newspaper infographics: gold– Muscat Press and Publishing House for Times of Oman; silver– South China Morning Post Publishers for South China Morning Post; bronze– South China Morning Post Publishers for South China Morning Post.

Magazine infographics: gold– Muscat Press and Publishing House for Times of Oman’s Thursday Magazine; silver– Muscat Press and Publishing House for Hi Weekly; bronze– Business Media Pvt for Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner.

Best in newspaper marketing: gold– Kasturi & Sons for The Hindu - ‘We’ve Changed with You’; silver– Jagran Prakashan for Dainik Jagran; bronze– Kasturi & Sons for The Hindu - ‘Behave Yourself, India’.

Best in community service: gold– Gaya Favorit Press for Wanita Wirausaha (Woman Entrepreneurship); silver– The New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) for Titipan Kasih Harian Metro; bronze– Star Publications (Malaysia) for Do Good Volunteer 2.0.

Best in photojournalism, news photography: gold– Jawa Pos Koran for Banjir Pakal; silver– Post Media for Stung Meanchey Riot; bronze– Kompas Media Nusantara for Jakarta Tak Berdaya.

Feature photography: gold– Singapore Press Holdings for The Straits Times - Alphonsus Chern; silver– South China Morning Post Publishers for South China Morning Post; bronze– Malayala Manorama Company for The Week.

Sports photography: gold– Malayala Manorama Company for Malayala Manorama; silver– The New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) for The New Straits Times Press; bronze– Star Publications (Malaysia) for Star Publications.Peter Coleman nngx

for Hindustan Times (two awards).Best in print (below 150,000

copies): gold– United Printing & Publishing for Al Ittihad; silver– Singapore Press Holdings for Berita Harian; bronze– Al Nisr Publishing for Gulf News.

Best in design, newspaper overall design: gold– South China Morning Post Publishers for South China Morning Post; silver– Al Nisr Publishing for Shams 1 a step towards energy security; bronze– The Indian Express for The Financial Express.

Magazine overall design: gold– SPH Magazines for Peak April 2013; silver– Mongoose Publishing for Esquire Malaysia; bronze– Singapore Press Holdings for ZbBz.

Newspaper front page: gold– The New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) for BH [Berita Harian]; silver– Jawa Pos Koran for Indonesia di Tangan Pemuda; bronze– Al Nisr Publishing for We got it.

Magazine cover: gold– Mongoose Publishing for Esquire Malaysia; silver– Ming Pao Enterprise Corporation for Ming Pao Weekly; bronze– Tempo Inti Media Daily for Majalah Tempo.

Editorial content, newspaper breaking news article: gold– Star Publications (Malaysia) for The Rape of

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process” of daily newspapers going back to their weekly origins – while FT publisher Angela Mackay’s had the 150-year-old business paper’s success off pat: “We’ve come through the crucible of change in rude health and with strong profits,” she says .

Revenues from content exceed advertising, FastFT is addressing mobile growth, 7.5 million users are an indication of the extent to which the publisher is “catching up’ on social media and even print is profitable, but the pace is “ratcheting up” constantly and Mackay wants to know what’s next: Google glass or a ‘behind ear’ device, perhaps, she pondered.

As do we all: One piece of technology delivering a changed viewpoint for publishers is the drone and – in addition to received wisdom on the subject – one

delegate got to take one home. Bangkok Post editor-in-chief Pichau

Chuensuksawadi and photo producer Sithikorn Wongwudthianun introduced the latest tool at the disposal of photojournalists. One benefit is that when event organisers make attendance claims, camera angles are possible which show the real picture, Wongwudthianun says.

Berita Harian digital editor Puad Ibrahim would have been able to put the theory into practice when he got his prize home – courtesy of CCI Europe – and promised to share the booty with fellow members of the SPH unit.

There was much more of the two-day event – including the Asia Media Awards dinner and parallel seminars covering inkjet digital (see facing page) and “green” printing – plus a breakout session on partnering Google.

Whatever your standpoint, it would have been hard not to get value from the event and the attractions of its vibrant setting. nngx

on third-party sites, but the company retains control of its own data. A Cxense management platform collects, analyses and divides audience data and is “a win-win for client and audience”, Imada says. “Content is personalised and the data is yours.”

On a similar theme, Cassian Cheung, chief executive of Apple Daily publisher Next Media, told how print circulation of the paid-sale daily had been falling as commuters turned to mobile devices for news in a city which has 238 per cent mobile penetration, twice that of the USA.

Next’s great success is its inhouse-produced 3D news animation which helps the publisher to six million app downloads, 1.2 billion pageviews a month and 465 million video views. Eight million unique devices are connected in a month, not bad for a population of seven million.

Cheung says the priority was to deliver audience, but collecting and handling the data has equipped the publisher to serve location-based offers using its own “heat map” based tracking software. Games are also popular, with a partnership delivering HK$100 million in gross revenue in six months.

“Big data is about being small,” says Cheung. “Understanding individuals and allowing a one-to-one relationship between reader and publisher; we never ask for the user’s identity, although we know them intimately.”

The focus on audience engagement delivered Storyful founder Mark Little and Scott Lamb, Buzzfeed’s international vice president, while Crowdynews’ chief executive Jeroen Zanan was in the exhibition area, along with a mass of other mostly digital-focussed providers.

The afternoon delivered the observations of Bonnier’s Jacek Utko on design and usability – and the “reverse

>>from page 13 Alexander Lebedev would count on digital publishing for its future growth.

The story of what Lebedev was able to pick up for a couple of quid – a British pound for the loss-making Standard and another for the equally parlous Independent – the political and society connections, a well-publicised public apology and the “do or die” decision to go free without, he claims, becoming a freesheet, is a good one.

Wills, managing editor of Lebdev Holdings and the Standard had already joined a panel discussion on moving “from print-centric to digital first” and on the conference’s second day admitted that digital ventures had “greater potential” for the UK publisher.

That said, removing the evening paper’s cover price had helped turn it from losses of £30 million a year to three years of profit; its paid-sale circulation having dwindled to 200,000 copies, the free paper was an instant success – retaining its campaigning stance – and is now back to the 700,000 distribution of its former glory days.

Things are less rosy at the Independent and a new TV station – with “young, vibrant, unknown presenters” – launched only a couple of weeks before the conference remains a drain on resources, but Lebedev is happy to take a long view of prospects and “doesn’t interfere in editorial”.

Wills warns against complacency: “Take it for granted, and you’ll lose it,” he says.

not tHat digital is necessarily a picnic: Chief executive of Mediagene Motoko Imada told of the 50-80 per cent of advertisement revenue lost to mobile – a medium dominated by Google and Facebook – and related the company’s three-years experience of content marketing.

Native ads, including those on Gizmodo, are promoted by buying display space

the story of what lebedev was able to pick up for a couple of quid... is a good one

Top left: Doug Wills, managing editor of Lebdev Holdings and the Standard Below: Star Publications chief executive Wong Chun Wai Right: Guests take part in the ceremonial opening

Armfuls of Asia awardsfor sPH, sCMP and Star

Star performers: With chief executive Wong Chun Wai (centre) are Star Publications’ winning team of (from left) assistant chief photographer Glenn Guan, associate editor T. Selva, reporters Isabelle Lai and P Aruna, and senior corporate affairs executive Selina Ng Top right: Jawa Post president director Azrul Ananda (left) took the winner’s picture after congratulating photographer Dipta Wahyu


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I nkjet web press makers will have to work to meet customer expectations about the life of their equipment, a report says.According to IDC, print customers who

may take up the technologies are used to having presses last ten years or more: “Vendor success may be impacted by their ability to protect a customer’s investment, with technology that is both scalable and extensible,” it says.

Inkjet will continue to dominate the worldwide market for what it calls ‘continuous-feed printers’ beyond 2014, “advancing a dramatic shift in the worldwide production print market”.

The International Data Corporation research says inkjet has already taken over from electrophotography, with the change set to continue through the 2014-2018 forecast period. Equipment sales are expected to reach $1 billion by 2018 with compound annual

vendors are opening up new opportunities in publishing and commercial print, it says. “Considering the immense print volumes produced in these segments, aspirations to convert these volumes to digital print are driving business development activities.

“This application diversification will accelerate as vendors find the right balance of operating costs, productivity, and print quality.”

IDC says there are currently with analysts predicting a “looming vendor shakeout” is on the horizon as the market begins picking inkjet winners.

IDC's Worldwide and U.S. Continuous Feed 2014-2018 Forecast and Analysis (IDC #248239) presents data and analysis to support planning, development and go-to-market strategies for technology vendors participating in the continuous-feed production print market. nngx

growth of 10.8 per cent."A dramatic technology shift occurred

in 2013 as high-speed inkjet maintained its momentum, while incumbent technologies declined," said Andrew Gordon, research director, Production Output Solutions. He says high-speed inkjet vendors will make “great strides” toward improving print quality and substrate flexibility.

While the majority of HSIJ placements are going to the traditional markets, technology

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‘sHakeOut’ AHeAD FoR iNKjetvendors will have to face up to customer expectations of longer equipment life

17 - 18 September 2014, New Delhi

Conference NewsroomSummit

PrintingSummit

CrossmediaAdvertisingSummit

Workshops

PlantVisit

FoyerInfo-tables

WAN-IFRAIndia201422nd Annual Conference

www.wan-ifra.org/india2014

CONFERENCE

Co-sponsored byThe Indian Newspaper Society


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Dainippon Screen (Australia) Pty Ltd [email protected] • Freecall: 1300 305 118 Information: http://bit.ly/1ifuYg1

I CAN’T BELIEVE

this newspaper was printed digitally

Scan QR Code

to see video

What if, instead of slashing unprofitable circulation and contemplating cutting it back altogether, making printed newspapers

available was an obligation?Logically you’d look for ways to make

a virtue of a necessity and exploit costly distribution networks, perhaps taking advantage of technologies such as digital newspaper printing.

Which is exactly what Hubert Péderand is doing in France, one of several European countries where temporary government subsidies support the national delivery of printed daily newspapers.

Péderand – who owns a digitally-printed newspaper business himself in Réunion, a French island in the Indian Ocean – is on a mission: Back in Paris to advise the government through the Union Nationale d’Imprimeries et de le Communication (UNIC) he has identified 141 distribution pressure points where he believes daily newspapers would be better served by digital printing.

And while the government’s 15 million Euros ($22.5 million) industry reorganisation support lasts, he is keen to encourage publishers and printers to take advantage of digital print technology developments to help themselves before it is too late.

In the process, an opportunity exists to create businesses which “can’t be Googled or Amazoned” and link Gutenberg to Zuckerberg, he says, with some of the $59 billion Google took in 2013 in his targets. Using paper as “a true content portal”, strategically-placed digital print sites would produce daily editions with content localised geographically and to match a reader’s specific interests.

“With digital print, you can sell the same space more than once, more than recouping extra the 36 per cent it costs over offset,” he says. “The return on marketing investment (ROMI), the selling value is much higher than the increased costs. You need to stop focussing on cutting cost and think about added value per page for advertisers.

“And you can use the equipment to create amazing new digital products such as catalogues, inserts, coupons and manuals.”

tHis is very MucH wHat péderand, a speaker at last month’s Publish Asia conference, has been doing in Réunion for the last five years.

The remote island in the Indian Ocean – east of Madagascar and 9500 km from Paris – is one of five ‘overseas departments’ of France (the others are French Guiana in South America, Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean, and Mayotte, also in the Indian Ocean) and subject to similar treatment as mainland regions.

One benefit comes from the country’s media subsidies, which help residents keep up with daily news from national newspapers

Gallic syMbol

Government subsidies give French publishers a chance to rethink their print publishing strategies, writes peter coleman

such as Le Monde, Le Figaro and sports title L’Equipe which are printed on the island on their day of publication on a Kodak VL4200 inkjet web along with local newspapers.

But Péderand – a joint manager and director of RotOcéan, a digital print partnership which includes island publisher Temoignages and local printer Graphica – is exploiting the technology to do much more. RotOcéan prints a variety of variable data direct mail and newspaper insert products on the 128 metres-a-minute Kodak press which has Datamatrix coding and correction capabilities.

“Not everything has to be done on edition, so frequently we print sophisticated targetted products in advance for inclusion in the newspaper,” he says.

returned witH His faMily to paris to drive the Inigraph change project for the French government – but still sharing management of RotOcéan – he is convinced the same lessons can be applied to advantage in mainland France.

With post-DRUPA developments in digital printing, he puts the marginal cost threshold for a 48-page tabloid at about 4000 copies against a two-around single-width press. An HP T400 with 1066 mm web width printing at 250 metres/minute will produce 16-page tabloids at 17,700 cph (or a 48-page tab at 5903 cph) he says.

Given the French government’s funding, he’s also keen to push the country’s competence in dot-on-demand inkjet, expressed through Impika, which is now part of Xerox.

He cites the successes of digital book printer Rotolito Lombardo, and Screen user Atlas Printing which prints same-day newspaper editions in Dubai, but stresses that the needed change will involve a new publishing model, rather than mere press technology.

For newspapers, “the keyword is distribution,” he says, and leveraging what he calls “the power of local” through developments in the use of digital algorithms, some of which are available as plug-ins for Adobe’s InDesign layout application.

“Digital print converts static pages into dynamic pages,” he says.

Taking the concept ‘on tour’ through France over the last couple of years with a detailed list of geographic pressure points, he has found ready support from distributors – many of which have been involved for years in some form of variable data through addressing – but rather less from publishers, for whom the scheme is intended. “They either don’t understand, they’re too old, or there are problems with unions, strikes and banks that don’t like printers.

“The industry is shrinking, so it is important to tell people that this could be a new industry, a starting point.”

But despite all indications – national newspapers and weekly news magazine circulations in France are falling by 11-12 per cent a year – selling the idea is still a struggle. Péderand says a French revolution is in progress, “but publishers need to eat more dust before it will happen”.

And in the Asia-Pacific? “You can’t compare France with Asia, India and China,” he says, “but we could be ahead of what is to come.” nngx

Ahead of the curve: RotOcéan’s 2010

digital launch; Hubert Péderand; some of the newspapers printed in

Réunion

Two new developments from HP extend the scope of inkjet digital

printing upwards and downwards.

One is a mono version of the company’s inkjet web press, initially developed for multiple Chinese user Hucais Group to print black and white books in large and small quantities.

First offering has a 660 mm web width designed for book formats, and is rated to print at up to 244 metres per minute. It has a duty cycle of 123 million A4 sized equivalent images a month. It will be available

in other markets later this year.

A new priming solution enables HP inkjet web users to print on commercially-available coated stocks, which typically repel ink creating issues such as coalescence and drying problems.

A first matt solution uses an HP-developed priming agent with Epic Products’ PrimeCoat system.

Regional graphics solutions business vice president and general manager Gido van Praag says customers wanted want to print on a wide

variety of media: “The new priming solution reinforces our strategy of offering expanded media options and bringing to market new technology that helps them do more with their presses,” he says.

HP also announced additions to its solutions partner programme, and said it would take its inkjet technology into the growing packaging market. Magnum Digital Solutions, Eltex-Elektrostratik and Kolbus have new equipment for inkjet press users including a sheeter/stacker and electrostatic moisturiser. nngx

HP develops mono inkjet for China’s Hucais

a tecHnOlOGy forum at Rotolito Lombarda in Italy demonstrated manroland’s FoldLine finishing system with an HP T410 inkjet digital press.

The company says more than 40 people visited the Milan company which has been active in digital print since 2010, and plans to integrate press and finishing next month.

The FoldLine system is designed to produce up to 96 tabloid pages (48 broadsheet) at up to 300 m/min from a web of up to 1067 mm… equivalent to up to 7100 Berlin newspaper copies of 32 pages, 15,000 stitched A3 brochures of 16 pages, or 30,000 16-page signatures an hour. At Rotolito Lombarda, it was shown producing a 24-page tabloid,

then a 24-page Berliner, and then two eight-page newspaper sections collected and folded into a 40 pager of three sections.

manrOland web systems will cooperate closely on inkjet imprinting following a direct reseller agreement with Kodak. The partnership enables the German press maker to offer ‘single source’ imprinting solutions, and covers Kodak’s Prosper S20 and S30 systems.

German publisher Axel Springer uses the technology as part of a new business model for print–and-digital publishing. Technology and order processing vice president Dieter Betzmeier says printheads there have been integrated into the production workflow, with a printed inkjet ‘date pass’ code an important part of Bild’s paid content model, creating a bridge between print and online editions. The integrated systems print variable data on edition including lottery numbers, breaking news, QR codes and local and personalised advertising. nngx


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page Bulletin editions with 200 pages of real estate and “tons and tons of advertising”… a contrast to today’s papers which are not much more than half the size and with circulation down from about 85,000 to nearer 50,000 copies.

Now the Gold Coast print site is being closed, with the press and mailroom equipment likely to be mothballed, as production of the still very vibrant daily newspaper – and the 25,000 copies of the Daily Telegraph for local and northern NSW markets – is brought to Murarrie.

The decision to close what they says is “the best equipped site in the country” was a difficult one: “It became compelling when you considered the additional management and property overheads,” Booth says. “When we had the ability to run four presses here, to move everything into the Brisbane site just made financial sense.”

Weekly and most daily editions have now moved to Murarrie, with Hooke says, “just the last few products” being printed there.

At one point, time for staff to attend “a very formal process of training” was created by buying press time at the Fairfax Media’s plant at suburban Ormiston. The Certificate 3 (Lean manufacturing) for all staff and Certificate 4 (Competitive manufacturing and leadership) for a select group mirrors what has News has done around the country. While crafted by external contractor Leadership Management Australia to ensure relevance to the jobs of printers and publishers, it delivered a portable qualification with a focus on personal as well as professional goals.

“That’s been part of the buy-in, that if they moved to another job in another industry, they had a nationally-recognised qualification,” he says.

Classroom training – and a requirement to put in some personal time – was “on top of their day jobs, not instead of them” but the programme has been well received: “There has been a lot of personal growth that staff have taken out of the training as well,” says Booth. “I’ve been to most of the graduations around the country and to actually see the changes in people and their pride in it has been very encouraging.”

While the programme acknowledges continuing change in a shrinking industry, Hooke says a real advantage is that News is a business which really values print, “something we can articulate to people.

“There is no way this project would have happened without that belief in newspapers: This whole project has cost $13 million, a significant investment in what a lot of people consider to be a dying industry.” nngx

drives – freeing up parts for those still in use in Adelaide, Melbourne and Perth – plus reduced waste and better colour control.

The manroland order with its new tablet-based mobile controls – complicated by the need to adapt software for a shafted press – was the world’s first and accounted for half the global orders when announced at IfraExpo in Frankfurt in 2012. It enables each press to be controlled from a tablet, with smaller units available for use in maintenance.

News is also the first user of QI’s IDS system in Australia – since also ordered by Fairfax Media for the North Richmond, NSW, site where metro daily the Sydney Morning Herald is to be printed – and already has the system running successfully in Sydney.

Consistency of colour reproduction from press to press and across the country, is top of the list for justification – Booth cites matching the Commonwealth Bank’s tricky gold branding as an example – but reduction in start-up waste and ink usage contribute to a “significant business case”.

Hooke says experience in Sydney over the past nine months – where “printing by eye” had driven a tendency to over-ink – is really good: “Pressmen wanted to tinker at first, but have learned to trust the technology and just watch it,” he says. “Again it’s a cultural change.”

Ink usage is “well down” in Sydney, with a reduction of about 100 copies in start-up waste, “adding up to quite a bit on every start”. On manning, the Sydney experience has been that printers are much more able to relieve each other during meal breaks – something that would have been unheard of before – though it is not clear whether that will translate from the more-automated Geomans to a Newsman site such as Brisbane.

The programme has been accompanied by an upgrade in lighting, reducing power consumption, and changes for the reliability team including new planning and scheduling software.

BootH, like site leader Mike Molloy – a former compositor who returned to Brisbane a year ago after running News’ Gold Coast and Perth print sites – has seen the changes which have taken place in the industry over his 35 years with News.

Even the last year, and with the changes taking place, Molloy says newsprint tonnage through Brisbane has fallen about ten per cent to 700 tonnes a week.

The Gold Coast site, upgraded in 2003 with a nine-tower KBA Comet press was a response to an advertising boom, 400-plus

Rupert Murdoch’s acquisition of the Herald & Weekly Times and ahead of a 1990 financial crisis which famously came close to unravelling News Corp altogether.

A 4/4 tower had been added to each in 2005, and lately the four nine-cylinder satellite units of the Murarrie presses – designed to print four colours on one side of the web and two on the other – have been paired to enable 96-page all-colour tabloids to be printed through the week, with two satellites split at weekends to print up to 128 pages, but with 32 of those limited to spot colour.

A necessary control upgrade project – planned a couple of years back – involves two core areas: manroland web systems is replacing drives and control systems to provide much of the company’s autoprint functionality – including inline control systems, production planning, start-up automation, monitoring and reporting – while QI Press Controls has installed its IDS closed-loop colour density control and register systems.

There are a host of benefits, not the least of which is improved reliability from the replacement of the original Reliance

The metal is more than 20 years old, but appearances can be deceptive.

Behind the blue cabinetry of the manroland Newsman presses at News Corp Australia’s Brisbane

print centre, control technology is state-of-the art and a new facilitative culture inhabits the people who run it.

The latest manroland and QI Press Controls systems are only part of a story of regeneration which tailors newspaper manufacturing facilities to the reality of today’s shrinking print publishing environment without installing new presses.

“We’ve taken a press they had worked on for 20 years, pulled the electronics out of it and put new in; the printers are back in the quiet room, looking at the same blue metal that’s always been there but it works completely differently,” says national production and logistics director Geoff Booth.

And so do they: Cultural change has been fundamental to the transformation and consolidation which will see the nearby Gold Coast print site closed and almost 100 jobs shed. Notable is a switch from “directive” to “facilitative” leadership which sees management step back from telling printers how to print and focus on providing them with “a framework for succeeding”.

Says Booth, “The changes have been enormous – the work people do and how they do it, and how they are managed or rather, led to an outcome – that’s a really big shift and is by no means done yet.”

A change not everyone could make, and there is acknowledgement that while most have stepped up, there have been others who have been provided with the opportunity to leave. Across the two sites, almost 100 have taken redundancy, first in July 2012 when an underutilised Murarrie press was closed, enabling the electrical replacements and disruptive maintenance work to get underway last April.

Structural changes in leadership – where total numbers came down from 38 to about 18 – followed late last September after announcement of the progressive Gold Coast shutdown.

He says printers have done “an amazing job” and praises especially the “extraordinarily progressive” culture of the Gold Coast team of whom only about 15-17 will move to Murarrie.

tHe two-year $13 Million prograMMe at News’ print site at Murarrie, just southwest of the city’s Gateway arterial and its giant twin river bridges, has its origins with Booth’s

“What we do as a manufacturing process is no different to making a can of Coke or a loaf of bread, without discounting the quality of our journalism or our content. For our part of the business, it’s pure manufacturing and there are things we can learn from companies such as Toyota which have been lean for 20 years.”

What’s different from the Sydney situation is that instead of the new Geoman lines, the Brisbane site – which was printing metro daily the Courier-Mail and The Australian and suburban titles – had four of the oldest large newspaper presses in the country, manroland Newsman presses from a giant order placed in 1987.

With Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Perth – and presses for Wapping, Knowsley and Glasgow in the UK – they were part of a $1 billion order placed not long after

appointment and his vision for a different approach to producing newspapers.

With a financial rather than a production background, Booth began his 35 years with News at the Gold Coast Bulletin, and worked for the group’s New York Post and as general manager of the Sydney Daily Telegraph before taking on his present role four years ago.

New presses were going into Sydney at the time, “and the view was that you didn’t want to do things the same way we always had,” says Marcus Hooke, recruited from toothpaste maker Colgate to lead a focus on lean manufacturing processes.

“It was Geoff ’s vision move away from a newspaper mindset, to running it as a manufacturing operation using what are lean practices to turn it into a more efficient place.

Flexible: (clockwise from top) New facilities such as trimming have been added to the powerful 1995 mailroom, which splits output from the four folders to eight inserting lines for supplements and inserts, although the main book is typically printed in one pass; printer Simon Wood at one of the new consoles; palletised inserts for retailer JB Hifi await hand loading Main picture: Marcus Hooke, Mike Molloy and Geoff Booth in the Murarrie pressroom

while retrofitting the latest control technology to its 20-year-old brisbane presses, News Corp Australia has brought a new manufacturing culture to the print site, writes peter coleman

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newspaper, and Domino inkjet used for lucky numbers and check copies.

Probably the most technical part of the conference, the engineers’ sessions had been merged into a single group and updated on chemical free plates and UV printing, flatwrapping, ‘tramming’ and planned maintenance… as well as exploring the mystery of the Dubbo press which prints a magenta image longer than the others in the set.

While most user delegates came from technical roles in print sites, fewer had been prepared to submit their work for the scrutiny of awards judges this year.

A report presented on behalf of Graham Cole, Wayne Johnson and Peter Hook said that despite the small number of entries, the overall standard was comparatively high: “Some third-place entries would have won in previous years,” they said.

Criticism was reserved for the problems of print through, mixed newsprint colours and the way in which entries were submitted. Set-off was a serious issue and that flesh tones “should be realistic”.

Awards in four categories – and prizes valued at $25,000 – were presented on the final evening, when entertainment was provided by illusionist Phil Cass.

SWUG is looking for a host site for next year’s conference. nngx>> More reports following pages

PNEB board member, announced.Both Lockley and Goldsmith urged

delegates to nominate candidates for their respective development scholarships: GAMAA has chosen West Australian Newspapers’ Derek Williamson as the recipient of its $15,000 bursary, but SWUG – with $20,000 to give away – is still looking for applicants.

“I’m sure you all have a gem of an idea you’d like to pursue, and we’d like to give you the money to do so,” Goldsmith says.

Two winners were announced for this year’s apprentice of the year prize during the presentation dinner. They are Ben Whittaker from the Canberra Times print site and Aaron Bayne from Fairfax Media Printing North Richmond.

last year’s apprentice winner nicole Clarke (pictured with a python at the Crocosaurus Cove welcome party) says her friends visualise an office inkjet when she tells them she’s a printer: She’s not, and the former apprentice of the year – who fronted up with orange hair and nose-ring – made it clear she has plenty of ideas of her own.

Taking time out from her job at News’ Chullora, Sydney, print site for her prize, she visited newspaper and commercial print sites – and the factories of a consumable vendor or two – in Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales. In addition to newspaper sites in Ormiston, the Gold Coast, Beaudesert, Murarrie, Narangba and Yandina (Queensland), commercial sites including AIW and Phil Taylor’s Franklin Web – sharing his golf buggy to tour the ten heatset presses – in Melbourne, and Offset Alpine in Sydney, there was also a visit to can printer Visy Beverage: “If you think the presses at your place are noisy, you haven’t heard anything,” she says of the automated plant.

And finally to Fairfax North Richmond, gaining “a gust of new energy” from seeing all the changes, new platelines and publishing.

for tHeir own gust of energy on tHe 35°c days, delegates visited the nearby print site of News Corp Australia’s Northern Territory News, where a new four-tower KBA Comet press and Ferag mailroom were installed two years ago to print the 16,000-circulation daily and other titles.

Site leader and regional continuous improvement leader Noel Brennan says the 15 mastheads produced include every NT paper, among them the Centralian Advocate for Alice Springs, 1500 km away.

Facilities include the first EasySert inserting system installed in an Australian

Brissett citing Sgt Paul (‘JJ’) Cale, an outsider who earned the respect of his fellows by strangling a Taliban fighter following an ambush and went on to develop close-quarters training.

Was he ever scared? “If you’re not, then you don’t fully understand the situation,” he says.

tHere were recurring tHeMes including digital printing and digital publishing, the ‘elephant in the room’.

Karen Goldsmith, executive director of vendors’ group GAMAA, teamed with manroland Australasia managing director Steve Dunwell to tackle environmental aspects head-on, introducing the Two Sides print and paper lobby group to delegates. “Digital always requires energy,” Dunwell says. “We need to counter inaccurate statements and tell people the facts of the print and paper industry.”

The Newspaper Works-owned Publishers National Environment Bureau is also about to weigh into the debate with a ‘Trees are hugging back’ consumer press campaign fronted by ambassador Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, SWUG president Bob Lockley, who is a

If we’re allowed that word.Rachel Hancock, editor of host

newspaper the Northern Territory News, tried to help delegates into the mindset of the city where “anything goes” with a rundown on “that paper with the funny headlines” and its world-famous front pages on the first day.

But it was too late by then: Warren Hinder of welcome party sponsor Fujifilm Australia had been “volunteered” for a dip with the crocs the night before, although the man who pushed him – president Bob Lockley – had yet to be kissed by champion boxer Danny Green.

Lockley, who is printing and distribution chief executive of Fairfax Media, was counting ‘ums’ (one of them) when last year’s apprentice of the year, Nicole Clarke took the stage with orange hair and a nose-ring to recall her bursary tour of print sites.

The banter had her using the name Sarah – a reference to the last female apprentice winner, criticised by Lockley for over-use of the u-word – but the 22-year-old wasn’t having any nonsense: She works for rival News Corp.

Hancock told of her own abrupt introduction to the city in McDonald’s with a diner asked whether her breasts were her own. The story made the front page, of course, with a ‘Not McHappy meal’ headline.

Since moving from staid South Australia and its Murray Valley Standard, Adelaide Advertiser and – with four months on the New York Post – she’s learned “the importance of a good front page”, and is joining in the fun with headlines and front pages which frequently go viral: “I have a few

with rice crackers – is a daily brekfast ritual: “It’s a bloke thing,” he says.

A bonus for SWUG was the presence of former Army officer Kurt Brissett, suggested by his printing roller manufacturer grandfather as an alternative to an address on roller maintenance.

He had messages for delegates drawn from the ambushes and experiences of his 13 years’ military service, which included a mission following the Garuda air disaster in which five Australians died, and his three tours of duty in Afghanistan. Plus powerful images and a soundtrack peppered with Puff Daddy, Rachid Taha and Gyroscope.

He emphasised the importance of:• timely decisionmaking – “a timely decision with 80 per cent of the information is always preferable to a great decision performed late”;• planning – “a thorough planning process is far more important than the plan itself”;• staying agile – “a moving target is harder to hit,” he says. Lack of innovation “can leave you obsolete in the modern world”;• teamwork, partnering and trust – “a must in the commercial world”; and• the need to “train hard to fight easy” –

sleepless nights at times,” she says.The recent ‘I’ve got a Packer up my

clacker’ front was the cause of one, but she said “nothing is sweeter” than the sound of the press running, “so thank you”.

Numbers were slightly down for this year’s conference, moved to a later date to spare delegates from The Wet, but clashing with commitments such as Australia’s National Print Awards and New Zealand’s Pride in Print. Fairfax’s switch of the printing of its Melbourne and Sydney metro dailies to regional sites in Ballarat and North Richmond – though much talked-of – was also concentrating other minds elsewhere.

as it turned out australian Boxing Hero Danny Green was one of two motivational speakers during the weekend conference. Green somehow reconciled the apparent contradiction of a career in which he had targeted weaknesses such as an opponent with a “thin skull” with being a proud family man and an ambassador for the Coward’s Punch campaign.

Apart from the fights, he had met his hero Mohammed Ali, and shared the limelight on TV’s Dancing With The Stars with a tall and long-legged blonde: “My wife was thrilled at that,” he says.

When one delegate suggested Bob Lockley “wanted to lay one on you”, Green said nothing, turning to give the SWUG president a surprise kiss. Lockley says he wants a blow-up of our picture on his garage wall… hopefully with a GX watermark in the corner.

Reading a printed newspaper – along

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GoNe trOppOp erhaps it was the tropical destination, nearer to Dili than

to other Australian capital cities; perhaps it was the mix of delegates – some absences driven by other commitments – but swUG’s 2014 conference in Darwin was, um, different

(writes Peter Coleman).

Happy snaps: (clockwise from centre) Nicole Clarke with Bob Lockley and a snake called Eli; delegates pose during the plant tour; Warren Hinder confronts a crcodile at Crocosaurus Cove; cyclone-devasted remains of the old town hall; Danny Green seals his message with a kiss; buskers in the mall; hard-to-pass Mitchell Street; the wave pool opposite the conference venue was another distraction

From top: Northern Territory News editor Rachel Hancock; apprentices of the year Ben Whittaker and Aaron Bayne lend each other support; and delegates listen to Danny Green

‘i’m sure you all have a gem of an idea you’d like to pursue, and we’d like to give you the money to do so,’ says Karen Goldsmith


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favouring the format for its versatility and ease of maintenance.

A trend from a small number of mass-circulation newspapers to a wider choice of more-focussed titles is especially noticeable in countries where press freedom is more relaxed, he says.

And even in controlled markets such as Vietnam, circulations are gradually rising with increased media freedom. A “middle group” which includes Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei, sees moderate growth for Malay papers while those for Chinese are stagnant and English-language titles struggle against competition from digital media.

The “hotspots” are among countries with the most relaxed media laws, including the Philippines, Hong Kong, Mayanmar and Taiwan.

Manila offers “huge potential” as the Philippines American-style political system spawns numerous new newspapers of various political persuasions with its three-

year election cycle, although some disappear soon after polls close.

Hong Kong’s hot free newspaper market is in an “age of innocence against the odds” with many titles running 70 per cent advertising content. “Honkies love newspapers,” he says. In Indonesia’s creative environment, titles tailored to special interests – especially youth, sport and even divorce – are thriving, and Sim Yong says the marker is “well worth looking at”.

In Myanmar – the region’s “last frontier” for printed newspapers – opportunities abound. “They can’t afford good machinery, so I see a great opportunity for contract printers,” he says. “It’s a short-run market, but with lots of titles and literacy improving. You’d enjoy it, trust me.

“We can still win the fight against digital, and would be happy to work with you.”

Borneo, he says, is an island where three countries and numerous ethnic groups intersect, and many are investing. nngx




Dealing with the federal government is “like talking to my wife,” according to Fairfax Beresfield electrical engineer Simon Leach: “They say one thing and mean another.”

He took delegates through the process of planning, costing and approving environmentally-friendly lighting… and getting grant applications approved and paid for before the relevant government unit closed.

High bay lighting delivered the greatest savings, and a discounted $200 million investment saw consumption reduced from 1766 to 646 MW-hr. There were issues with bay heights and spread, and in some cases compact fluorescents were changed to LEDs at some sites.

WHat Happens when the Worksafe inspector comes to call? Fairfax Wodonga print site manager Frank O’Grady had experience to share after inspectors helping to track a stolen car racket came to call.

The advantage (for them) in such circumstances is that powers are greater than those of police, with no need to give notice.

“They wanted MSDs, registers and lists of chemicals and contacts, and will look for a pattern in accidents and a response to them,” he says. “If something is wrong they can issue an improvement notice or shut you down.” Mobile plant, manual tasks and “test and tag” equipment, ladders, flammable and chlorine-based chemicals – which need to be kept apart – and machine guarding are typical targets.

“It was a positive outcome for us,” O’Grady says, “with the report noting ‘it was a pleasure to visit’ and’we don’t see many sites as good’.

“Documentation pays off,” O’Grady adds.Also on safety, national operations general

manager Marcus Hooke reported that News has banned A-frame ladders; while Wayne Bailey (Fairfax Mandurah) reminded of the need to reassess risks when staff suggest a different way of doing things.

JOHn enGiscH and Anthony Payne have retired from the SWUG committee, each with 20 years service. It now comprises Bob Lockley (president), Anita White (treasurer/events), Peter Kirwan, Michael Gee, Angus Scott and Mark Gooding.

nOrske skOG australia changed the market dynamic when it converted a newsprint machine at its Boyer, Tasmania, mill to LWC production. Tania Gordon says capital costs totalling almost $100 million

were mitigated through federal and state government grants and an arrangement where the supplier of the ground calcium carbonate (GCC) filler in the catalogue papers – seven gsm on one side and 7.5 on the other – installed their own plant on site. Fairfax and News

Townsville press during his visit last year.Innovations there include a ‘Buddy Wednesday’

– when staff show their colleagues what they do – and development of a semiautomatic plate remover to reduce shoulder strains. The company has trained casuals in ALL areas, he says.

trucker’s sOn Peter Archer from APN Toowoomba is a successful home renovator, and has been lucky in draws as well, once winning a Toyota ute. His travels have included an Australian tour and a visit to a print site in Noida, India. “Take nothing for granted,” he says.

And SWUG NZ 2013 apprentice of the year Edmond Huch (right) from APN Ellerslie talked about family, religion and his upcoming Outward Bound pursuit course.

demOnstratiOns of Goss International’s new Magnum Compact automated single-width press are delivering near two-minute job changes with 100 copies waste between one and the next – whether one tower or six are affected, regional sales vice president Peter Kirwan says. He let a video of the Shanghai demonstrations do the talking, but explained that ink settings are reset while the preloaded plates are changed, and print quantities can be pre-programmed.

First presses have been sold to the Staten Island Advance in New York and an undisclosed purchaser in Asia.

Qi press cOntrOls’ IDS automatic ink density control system is an unlikely partner for smaller single-width presses, the company’s cofounder Menno Jansen told Bob Lockley. Hardware costs for single are

double that double-width presses producing the same pagination, although one Goss Universal press has been retrofitted with the system – “the savings are on the makeready,” Jansen says. The closed-loop colour controls are now in use at News Corp Australia and Fairfax Media print sites.

Jansen says the system takes charge of the 1358 variables involved in printing a typical edition – with some users achieving 77 per cent less set-up waste and ink savings of 14 per cent – often returning its investment cost in as little as 20 months.

in WellinGtOn, New Zealand, where Fairfax is installing a Geoman press from Tullamarine at its Petone print site, print manager Ricky Baker got down and dirty on earthquake-proof press foundations: “I’ve never lost a web in an earthquake,” he says.

Precautions for the existing press include rubber insulation and side bracing, scoring an 80-100 per cent insurance rating against the 30 per cent required. nngx

have also obliged with contracts until 2020. GCC is also used in bread and toothpaste.

a “fOOlisH mOment” during preventative maintenance on an inserter in which Fairfax Ballarat engineer Steve Thomas wiped a moving drive chain with a rag put him in hospital needing

reconstructive surgery to the fingers of his right hand (left). After months off work, therapy, boredom – and being told he’ll lose his job if he does anything like it again – he had a message for delegates, “short cuts cause accidents”.

a snappy ideas session saw Fairfax Murray Bridge site manager Trevor Channon explain systems for insert management and ventilation of the plant’s compressor room, while James Acland of DS Chemport turned to the health and functional problems associated with microbes in dampening water. While test laboratories were slow and expensive, dip slides provide a $3 alternative, delivering an indication after 48 hours’ incubation. Committee member Angus Scott also had the opportunity to introduce changes made at his Rollmakers company following its acquisition by US-based Rotadyne.

Ferag Australia managing director Daniel Faesser – who worked in research and development and design when he joined the company in Switzerland – contributed new product options such as thumb-indexing, glued panoramas, stick-ons and flatwrapping with technology ideas from his own company and partners Planatol and Tolerans.

One Of a family of high achievers, Meredith Darke wanted to be a ballerina, but got into printing via her (then) husband’s small offset business and than as personal assistant to the managing director of

(then) manroland agent Print & Pack. She joined DIC Australia in 2006 and is about to take over leadership of its New Zealand operation.

A “book addict”, she is also keen on theatre, zombies and travel… and has snaps from all over the world – most recently Russia, Turkey and Soujth America – to prove it. “When you get home, you realize how lucky we are,” she says.

matt ricHards from News’ Townville Bulletin print site – which also prints the Cairns Post among work for readers east to Mt Isa and from the Torres Strait to Mackay – says he “waited for someone to die” to get the opportunity of a night shift job.

After spending time in Sydney prior to the installation of a similar Geoman – as part of a $52 million upgrade – and completion of Certificate 4, he got to show Rupert Murdoch how to start the

Notebook: what you’d have learned in Darwin

Australian newspaper printers should look to the opportunity in Asia, says United Borneo Press chief executive Sim Yong Lian.

“There’s a good market for you and we can still win the fight against digital,” he says.

An accountant who has helped drive UBP’s journey into commercial printing, he listed the region’s hotspots in an address to Australia’s Single Width Users Group in Darwin on Sunday.

For the Borneo company attached to a 70-year-old Chinese-language newspaper, contract work has been key to growth. It prints six Malay dailies and two each in Chinese and English at print centres in each of Borneo’s four main cities – a commitment which sometimes calls for 17 set-ups a day on a single pressline.

UBP now has 115 press units, seven times its capacity of 2007, and more presses are on order. A single-width Magnum is the latest of numerous Goss presses, Sim Yong (pictured)

oPPoRtUNity (1) asia print

Myanmar – the ‘last frontier’ for printed newspapers – is a great opportunity for contract printers, sim yong says

W ith one Australian news media company set to install digital printing technology

and at least two others looking at it, the topic was bound to come up at the SWUG conference.

Delagates heard about the technology, the opportunities it creates and the ways in which output can be modified to target individual markets… and to market to individuals.

One company building a business on digital printing is Dubai-based Atlas Printing, one of 1400 specialist companies in the UAE city’s tax-free media zone. James Haisman of technology supplier Dainippon Screen told how the publisher – with 36 titles of its own – was batch-printing facsimile newspapers for premium guests of Emirates Airlines, as well as for expat

workers in the ”unique” country. It even has permission to deliver copies “air-side” to aircraft steps.

One of three major Australian publishers with plans to introduce the technology, News Corp has reached a shortlist of four press suppliers. Outside the auditorium, Haisman suggested that Screen might be at a disadvantage among competition because of the higher cost of its pigment ink. Time will tell… as it will show whether the choice of SWUG speakers is in any way related to the way member companies are thinking.

Although not a substitute for high-volume offset, digital presses can be easily moved and provide an opportunity to target markets such as fly-in, fly-out workers, with their preferred sport and regional news.

KBA’s Oliver Barr (left) discussed options including imprinting – for which it is a Kodak-certified partner – and inkjet web. “Fighting the

internet is not a solution, but there are ways we can work with print to take advantage of it,” he says.

He told how Germany’s Main-Post – located close to KBA’s Wurzburg factory – is working with them on projects including a digitally-printed wrapper personalised with targeted information, pictures and side offers including a pre-filled postcard for responses. Outcomes have included a 70 per cent in crease in response rates and four times as many orders. A third issue is planned.

Finishing systems offer a key opportunity for users: manroland Australasia’s Steve Dunwell talked about his company’s high speed folding and collation systems for book and newspaper production, so far installed in Italy and China.

Müller Martini sales executive George Riva presented a new inserting system designed to handle postcode-targeted print products, accepting consecutive different ultrashort-run jobs and mixed products. A first customer, In is producing a four-page wrapper stuffed with inserts.

Taking the ‘elephant’ by the tusks, he asked, “Is this the end”… and used a book publisher’s YouTube video for an emphatic rebuttal: “We need to get control over costs and find new products,” he says. nngx

oPPoRtUNity (2) diGital


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a clOud was cast over the second day’s proceedings with news of the death of Fairfax Canberra operations manager Barrie Murphy, who had died that morning.

Aged 59, he had been diagnosed with motor neurone disease a year ago following a stroke. In recent years, he had been a

key member of the Fairfax Media management team as printing and distribution product manager, despite an ongoing to commitment to the Canberra Times and to a quality culture he once told me, “starts at the top”.

Barrie Murphy entered the industry as an apprentice at the Star in Christchurch, New Zealand, and was later to be involved

in the commissioning of Fairfax’s new printing plant there… as well as with its projects in Mandurah, Ballarat, Ormiston and Murray Bridge. So too was he for the installation of the Geoman press in Canberra, installed in 1996 during Kerry Stokes’ ownership but forever regarded as “the new press” and looked after accordingly. nngx

technical awardstHe fairfax Canberra Times print site won two of the three excellence awards presented in its double-width category, pipped for first place only by APN’s hybrid Yandina print site.

Canberra apprentice Ben Whittaker was also one of two named for this year’s apprentice of the year award, sharing the honour with Aaron Baines from Rural Press North Richmond.

Awards went to:Best overall print quality (Brissett Shield): winner– Fairfax Media Newcastle for Newcastle Herald (manroland Uniset 70); runner-up– APN Toowoomba for Review (Manugraph); highly commended– WAN Colourpress for Kalgoorlie Miner (KBA Comet).Best coldset commercial publication (Flint Group Shield): winner– Fairfax Media Tamworth for Regional Council Tamworth (Goss Community);

runner-up– Fairfax Media Tamworth for Moree Show; highly commended– APN Toowoomba for Tong Qld Korean Weekly.Best overall print quality, double width (Norske Skog Shield): winner– APN Yandina for News-Mail (manroland Regioman); runner-up– Fairfax Media Canberra for Illawarra Mercury (manroland Geoman); highly commended– Fairfax Media Canberra for Goulburn Post.Best newspaper on enhanced stock, over 50gsm: winner– Fairfax Media Mandurah for the Perth Voice (manroland Uniset 75); runner-up– APN Yandina for Noosa Today; highly commended– Fairfax Media Albury/Wodonga for Henly Machinery Field Days (Goss Uniliner S).

Pictured: Peter Akers of (top left) with Glenn Brissett of Brissett Rollers With Norske Skog’s Tania Gordon (second left) are APN Yandina category winner Peter Broadfoot, and Canberra’s Bill Shortland and apprentice Ben Whittaker nngx

lockley updates on metro printing

Fairfax Media’s Tullamarine print site closed at the beginning of May following an $18.5 million investment in Ballarat

which includes the capability to print two 96-page tabloids – the format of all the group’s titles except the Canberra Times – including 32 pages of heatset colour.

The latest report was presented to SWUG delegates by printing and distribution chief executive Bob Lockley – who is the group’s president – during the conference: “On press, the biggest trick has been running webs from the ten-year-old Geoman towers into the single-width Uniset at full speed”, he says.

Most of that weekend’s Sydney Morning Herald had been printed at the expanded

North Richmond print site on Sydney’s northernmost outskirts, but with the Chullora site set to shut in early June, no buyer had been found for the 22-tower pressline.

Müller Martini and Ferag mailroom systems at the two sites have been upgraded and Fairfax is looking at Kodak digital printheads for them. Presses in Victoria, NSW, WA and ACT now all have stitching.

The $42 million cost of the upgrade in Ballarat and North Richmond is expected to pay back in a year, Bob Lockley says, without proceeds from the sale of buildings.• APN New Zealand has closed its Wanganui and Hastings print sites and is outsourcing production of its lower North Island titles to Beacon Print, which has added an additional print site to cope with the business. nngx

Print manager Matt Hancock with a copy of The Age printed at Ballarat (Picture The Courier)

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Gannett moves USA Today and ten locals to ColumbuseditiOns Of USA Today switched to the compact multi-section format of the Columbus Dispatch in May.

Publisher Gannett announced that it will extend its relationship with Dispatch Printing Company in Columbus, Ohio, by switching production of USA Today there, together with the Newark Advocate and nine other titles.

The move extends Dispatch Printing’s relationship with Gannett, which moved production of the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Kentucky Enquirer to Columbus, which is the pioneer of a three-around print process, in 2013. The publisher says that although pages will be narrower, there is no plan to change the formats of the newspapers. nngx

sixth People’s Daily order adds to tallyC hina’s People’s Daily has placed

a sixth order with manroland web, this time for a six-tower

Uniset press. It will be the second in the country with the maker’s new ControlCenter operating system, launched at DRUPA 2012.

The newspaper – credited with being China’s most influential – produces more than 70 different editions totalling about five million broadsheet copies each day, equivalent to 18.25 billion copies a year. At a signing ceremony, secretary general of People´s

Daily Yan Xiaoming said all their manroland press installations had proved their worth during the last years: “We chose the Uniset mainly because of the German quality, the technological reliability, high standard and the outstanding productivity,” he said.

The latest press will have six towers, three folders, four balloon formers and seven reel splicers, and is designed to run at 80,000 cph.

Single-width Uniset presses are installed at Guizhou Ribao, Sichuan Ribao and Anhui Ribao in China, and manroland claims a total of 136 in the country.

The new People’s Daily press will be installed at the end of this year in an all-new building (left) at their most recent printing site, where there are plans to relocate several existing presses. nngx

wPC finds partner in baldwin technologypress peripHerals company Baldwin Technology has bought colour automation developer Web Printing Controls, its first acquisition under the year-old ownership of Forsyth Capital. Baldwin chief executive and Forsyth co-founder Kyle Chapman says WPC was “an ideal opportunity” to expand its product offerings: “WPC’s highly-regarded brand of products complementary to Baldwin’s offerings, exceptional team members, and consistent history of superior product development make it a perfect first add-on,” he says.

WPC president Herman Gnuechtel continueing to lead WPC as a Baldwin product line division, alongside cleaning, spray dampening, and UV/IR dryers. Baldwin chief commercial officer Peter Hultberg says Baldwin’s global sales and service platform will allow WPC to tap into new markets and serve customers “who may have been beyond its scope historically”. nngx

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several manufacturers, and active in the crowded but busy retrofit market.

QI joint chairman Erik van Holten says the acquisition underlines his company’s commitment to the printing industry: “Innovation has always been key to our success. With the acquisition of EAE, we are able to meet the requirements of the printing industry in an even more comprehensive way.”

Founded in 1962 by Richard Ewert, EAE makes control and automation systems and software for newspaper printers – from prepress to mailroom – in more than 550 newspaper plants worldwide. It had also become more active in gravure with a retrofit order from Prinovis and membership of the European Rotagravure Association. nngx

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Qi acquisition takes eAe out of the loopQ I Press Controls has extended its

scope and taken out a competitor with the acquisition of EAE

from bankruptcy. The acquisition – for an undisclosed sum – includes EAE’s operations in Ahrensburg, near Hamburg, and Atlanta, USA.

After failing to find additional investment, EAE filed for bankruptcy protection in August 2013, under which the Reinbek district court required restructuring – with the sale of its stage technology business and closure of switchboard production – but relieved it of debt. With no sale by December, the company then filed for bankruptcy, although creditors allowed unrestricted business to continue and new orders signed in Europe

and in the USA. Founder Richard Ewert had resigned from the management board of EAE Ewert Holding in 2011, moving to the supervisory board.

QI says it will continue EAE’s core business at Ahrensburg and Atlanta, with “nearly all” employees staying on. Joint chairman Menno Jansen told GXpress a new product to replace EAE’s Loop – the automatic colour control which became a main area of competition between the two – will be launched at Ifra World Publishing Expo, but QI will continue to support existing installations. Among users are German giant Axel Springer.

Otherwise the activities are highly complementary, with EAE supplying its control systems as original equipment for

Victory is sweet: QI joint chairman Erik van Holten and Menno Jansen in the entrance of the EAE offices in Ahrensburg

A new product to replace eAe’s loop will be launched at ifra expo in Amsterdam

PoS FlyiNG sOlOT emprina Media

Grafika, one of the world’s biggest Goss users, is adding

a new six-tower press to address continuing growth of Jawa Pos.

The company, a subsidiary of Indonesia’s Jawa Pos Media Group, already has almost 900 Goss units in use across the country, including a 60 year-old press still in full production.

The new two-folder Community SSC single-width is to be installed in Solo City, Central Java, to provide more sections and increased colour in the award-winning newspaper.

Jawa Pos Media Group is headquartered in Surabaya in East Java.

As you might imagine, TMP general manager Agus Suryo is “very satisfied” with the combination of quality, reliability and

flexibility of the presses. Continued growth

over the years has seen Jawa Pos become one of the leading newspaper publishers and the biggest media network in Indonesia, including a TV network of 20 channels.

With a combined circulation of over one million copies per day, it prints more than 150 local newspapers and 20 weekly tabloids, as well as the largest national daily newspaper, the Jawa Pos, printed in 80 different cities across Indonesia.

This is also supported by the company’s own paper mill and power plant in an integrated facility alongside the Surabaya printing site.

“We are very proud of our dynamic and innovative leadership style that has enabled us to become the leading brand

in this region,” says Suryo. “Embracing the

younger population, we were the first newspaper in Indonesia to have a section (Det Eksi) dedicated to younger readers which was a great success.”

Under the leadership of Dahlan Iskan, Jawa Pos was transformed from a small newspaper in 1982 to one of the largest media groups in Asia today. Jawa Pos readership has risen steadily, and during a five-year period grew circulation from 6000 copies to more than 300,000 copies. It now has around 500,000 readers from Java Island to Bali.

Iskan now serves as Indonesia’s minister of state-owned enterprises, and the newspaper is led by his 35 year-old son, Azrul Ananda. Last year, it achieved growth of 14 per cent. nngx

A success with younger readers Det Eksi (top) helped the Jawa Pos win WAN-Ifra’s 2011 World Young Reader prize Above: Solo in Central Java

wifag/Polytype takes on former ilford teampress and packaging group Wifag/Polytype has snapped up the Swiss R&D team of failed photo paper manufacturer Ilford Imaging, which went bankrupt last year.

Former Ilford chief operating officer Lars Sommerhäuser and a team of chemists, laboratory technicians and process engineers – based in nearby Marly – have joined the company bringing expertise in the development of inkjet inks and functional layers. Wifag Maschinenfabrik chief executive Jörgen Karlsson says hiring the core Ilford research and development team is another step in the group’s transformation.

Pictured: Lars Sommerhäuser (fourth from left) with ten of the former Ilford employees and Jörgen Karlsson (fourth from right). Far left is Wifag-Polytype managing director Esa-Matti Aalto

kBa’s run of sales for its productive Commander CL press continues with an order for the Main-Echo in Aschaffenburg. The German regional publisher’s three-tower all-colour press will go live late next year – replacing a 14-year-old manroland line – and follows an order for Märkische Allgemeine in Potsdam near Berlin. It is the seventh of this type sold to Germany and the tenth worldwide since its launch.

• A dryer is being teamed with KBA’s waterless technology in a new installation for a Norwegian publisher. Polaris Trykk in Trondheim will install the 48pp Cortina press to expand options for its customers. Scheduled to go live in autumn 2014, the waterless press will replace two existing KBA Express lines which in 1997 replaced three earlier sections dating back to 1978.

canada’s largest family-owned newspaper, the Chronicle Herald in Halifax, Nova Scotia, has named ABB to upgrade controls and management system on their Wifag OF370 press. They will supply three control consoles, new folder, reelstand and tower controls, APOS positioning and new drives.

ABB also completed a retrofit at Al-Ahram, in Cairo, Egypt, placed by KBA. MPS Production press management replaced a 20-year-old system which ran under the OpenVMS operating system, with all production data saved to the new.

tWO neW Mitsubishi DiamondSpirit presses for Japanese newspaper Oita Godo Shimbun will each print 40-page editions at 80,000 cph. The publisher, headquartered in Oita in Kyushu, has a daily circulation of 440,000 and market share of nearly 60 per cent of all newspapers sold within the prefecture.

The new 4x1 presses, to print up to 40 pages with 24 in full colour, will be installed next year.

a neW cOlOrman e:line press installation will be a pilot for manroland’s inhouse-developed ink density control system.

Installation of the two-tower e:line 50 with autoprint at Mediengruppe Oberfranken in Bamberg, Germany, is set for November, and it will take over production of two older KBA presses by the following April.

The Bamberg print site produces eight different daily newspaper editions, and the 32 page press – rated for up to 50,000 cylinder revolutions an hour – will print about 150,000 copies a day. With a lot of job changes for editions, the autoprint features will help to reduce

makeready and waste, allowing a parallel makeready, with only three operators. The press will be equipped with manroland’s ControlCenter operation system and equipped with MobilPad, and be a pilot project for the company’s new ink density control, which uses a moving head camera and micro marks.

upGrades of two presses at Punjab Kesari Group in Jalandhar are part of growth plans for the northern Indian newspaper group.

QI Press Controls has been commissioned to install a total of 129 of its mRC+ cameras for colour and cut-off register on two press lines.

Growth plans for Punjab Kesari include additional editions for Delhi, Simla, Bathinda and Rohtak, with new print plants and an upgrade of print quality and capacity. Existing presses are being automated with motorisation, register controls and spray dampening. A seven-tower Manugraph Cityline Express and a six-tower Ronald web press will be equipped with the 129 cameras, which are to be mounted directly after the last print couple, taking advantage of the ability to read from an unsupported web.

australia’s future print training programme is “exceeding all expectations”, according to Printing Industries’ Joan Grace. More than 131 new trainees have started work and 85 businesses signed up under the new model, a tenfold increase since the start of February.

Grace, who is Printing Industries general manager for innovation, training and employment, says the results show the industry is embracing the new model: “About a quarter of trainees are entirely new to the industry – which is a great result – with the balance made up of existing workers whose employers have taken the opportunity to upskill their people to meet predicted future needs.”

She says consultation with the AMWU, a partner in the project, and other stakeholders is providing valuable feedback. A recent focus has been industry progression benchmarks which will be used to assess trainee progress and determine their wage progression.

“We are in the middle of running meetings with businesses in the precincts to ensure the training and assessment model is meeting their requirements and have also met again with RTOs to ensure they are on board with the changes we are making across the country,” says Grace. Some 33 vacancies are currently advertised on the group’s website at www.FuturePrint.org.au nngx


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Print historygxpress.net


A variety of models were available, some for larger page formats and with cylinders arranged to provide for extra webs and provision for reels to be preprinted and included on edition.

The intervention of World War I meant no more were built until 1918, by which time the maker company had evolved to become Dawson, Payne & Elliott.

tHe cossar was not tHe only press to combine flatbed and reel-fed production – another was the American Duplex, which appeared in 1889 – but was by reputation the most user-friendly and delivered the best quality, especially on halftones.

Initially, the US competition was domestic: The Duplex invented by Paul Cox in 1889 and built in Battle Creek, Michigan, was soon confronted by the Multipress, invented by Walter Scott of Plainfield, New Jersey, the latter passing into what was to become the UK’s Linotype & Machinery.

Cox’s press was also built from 1896 by Otley rival Dawsons as the Cox-Duplex, and later by Buhler, the Swiss maker of pasta and food processing equipment from 1907 to the early 1960s. Examples of the ‘Swiss Duplex’ also found their way to Australia and New Zealand. One found its way to the Taihape Times, where Steve Carle of the Pahiatua Bush Telegraph recalls seeing it running.

Another competitor was Coulthard’s Preston-built Lancashire of 1898.

Eventually mergers were the Cossar’s downfall: George Mann & Co of Leeds started building the Buhler machine, and when both Manns and Dawson, Payne & Elliott became part of the Vickers-owned RW Crabtree, the death knell was sounded. While the owners decided in 1968 that the Duplex had “better market potential”, the reality of course, was that by then neither had a future.

‘Cold’ typesetting promised a different future, populated by small web-offset presses such as the Goss Community, Harris V15 and Color King, with the transition enabled by paper paste-up.

And while letterpress rotaries gained a stay of execution with saddles and photopolymer plates, the Cossar was quite simply, out the door.

The number of people with firsthand experience of the press is fast diminishing and so far as we can establish, only two presses remain in the world: In Scotland, the Crieff press – currently in working order in store in Govan – and a twinned press given by APN New Zealand to Wellington’s Printing Museum but still in the care of the Bush Telegraph. nngx

as a two-feeder Wharfedale. Single-cylinder machines printed on only one side of the web, which was then fed back in to perfect it, and it appears most of the early two-cylinder Cossars – which printed four, six or eight page newspapers – went to Australia and New Zealand.

Change was afoot, however, and after a major redesign a first Type II press was installed in eastern England in 1915. It had stationary type formes, with the ink rollers and impression cylinders moving across them, and used rollers at the reel end to ensure constant web speed, with ‘looping rollers’ at each deck compensating for the movement of the impression rollers over the type formes.

W.H. Hargreaves as “the largest, latest and best Cossar flat-bed machine turned out”.

Powered by a new 17 horsepower Crossley gas engine – and with more than 2000 parts, “some very heavy castings” – it would produce 3000 copies an hour.

Cossar was described as a perfectionist, and despite what author Bernard Seward called “the unique pulsating roar and clatter” of the press, one user reported the ability to balance a penny coin on its edge on the frame of a press running full speed.

The first presses were designed so that the paper path was constant, with the flatbed formes of type oscillated up and down, printing in both directions in the same way

They were everywhere and then they were gone: the answer to a prayer at small town and regional newspapers.

Introduced in 1903 – by which time Ottmar

Merganthaler’s Linotype was moving on from ‘novelty’ status – the flatbed rotary Cossar newspaper press was a ‘new technology’ solution for publishers with circulations too large for sheetfed printing and too small for rotary letterpress.

From rolls of newsprint, it printed sections or complete newspapers from formes of hot-metal type, without the need for the semicircular stereo plates required by ‘high speed’ rotaries. Not only was casting equipment and the obligatory pot containing four or five tonnes of molten lead done away with; no need either of ‘specialist’ staff who frequently belonged to a different union.

Despite having been built in Yorkshire, England, to the design of a Scotsman, the Cossar had a special place in the hearts of New Zealand newspaper publishers, one of whom bought the first press in 1903. A radical new model introduced in 1915 was also popular and two of the last four known to exist in the world are still in working order in the country’s North Island.

The story goes that after each run of the Govan Press, Tom Cossar would strip parts of the two-feeder Dawson press used to print his parents’ paper and experiment with systems to handle a continuous web.

His Scots father John had been a printer and publisher of the Govan paper, and had invented a folding and glueing machine, but died when he was only 49. His widow, born Jane Brown, continued and developed the business, adding two new titles and taking a leading role until her death aged 83 in 1926. She and her husband are commemorated in busts over the building they had occupied in Govan.

One of two sons, Tom had been apprenticed to a local shipyard and pursued his interest in engineering when he returned to the family business. He took out a patent on the new reel-fed press in 1899, and while brother Andrew stayed with and was later to run the business, Tom accepted an invitation to join Wharfedale maker Payne & Son in Otley, Yorkshire and supervise the manufacture of the press which was to take his name.

The first complete press – capable of printing and folding an eight-page newspaper – was shipped to New Zealand in 1903. It took over the printing of the Wanganui Chronicle the following year on

Scotland, was still in use until 1991 and is now in the national museum collection.

A month after the Crieff press was commissioned, another early adopter was the Poverty Bay Herald – launched as a biweekly in 1874 and continuing today as New Zealand’s proudly privately-owned Gisborne Herald.

The first of two Cossars used between 1906 and 1943 was the most modern press in Australasia and a source of “great excitement”. The latest in a succession of equipment which included hand Albion, Lily and gas-driven Wharfedale presses, it could print eight pages in one operation, and was described by English installation engineer

February 29, an editorial bursting with pride in its technology, “selected by our J.A. Young from the best and latest machines from builders in the Old Country”.

Indeed, when Young visited the Otley works, he found “the firm’s experts were experimenting with a rough, but finished, model”, and stayed in town to see it in production tests: “This, we need scarcely say, proved thoroughly satisfactory,” the paper reported.

Within a couple of years, Cossar had developed a two-cylinder version capable of 16-pages, and 50 or more of these were built, many going for export. A local installation in July 1907 at the Strathearn Herald in Crieff,

cOssar tAles

Two surviving presses at the Bush Telegraph at Pahiatua, New Zealand, are a 1926 Cossar from

the Grey River Argus and a 1970 press first installed at the Kapi-Mana News and Thames Star, given to the Wellington Printing Museum (formed as the Bedplate Press in 1984) by APN New Zealand in 2008.

Museum secretary Bill Nairn tells us they are still hoping to put the Pahiatua presses on show, despite “long endeavours” to secure premises for them. “Currently we are negotiating with Wellington City Council and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage and these have been positive,” he says.

Nairn says Cossar presses were very popular in New Zealand, with the very first being installed in 1903. “More than 20 provincial newspapers used these presses over the next 80 or so years, the last one in use in 1993 at the Northland Age in Kaitaia.”

Other New Zealand users included Franklin Press (Pukekohe), Hawera Star, Bay of Plenty Times (Tauranga), Wairoa Star, Martinborough Star, Wairapa Times-Age (Masterton), Viscount Press (Palmerston North), Hutt News (Lower Hutt), Sentinel Newspapers (Wellington), Marlborough Express (Blenheim), Evening Star (Greymouth), Timaru Herald and the Oamaru Mail.

In Pahiatua, in the south of New Zealand’s North Island, Steve

Carle, former proprietor of the Bush Telegraph still turns over the presses – used until the late 1980s – for visitors. One installed around 1923 at the Grey River Argus – one of the last Labor-owned newspapers in the country – was later moved to Viscount Press in Palmerston North, where it printed a variety of newspapers including the Telegraph under contract. When Viscount switched to offset, Carle says he decided it was time for the family-owned newspaper to print its own title again… and acquired the press.

A rewind unit and a second Cossar – a lightly-used late 1960s model, possibly the second-last made – came from the Kapi-Mana Argus and were added to the first, along with a heavy-duty P-type folder. It is this press which the Printing Museum seems likely to preserve. The future of the older press is not certain.

The Telegraph team linked the two presses using a duplex chain – timed half a revolution apart to moderate the load on the drive – printing larger papers or spot colour, the latter with a turner bar and modifications to the gantry. In tandem, the presses would print a 32-page tabloid.

Extra pages were pre-preprinted with the webs rewound and inset using a novel device which registered a triangular punch hole using air pressure and eight pins (four to advance or accelerate the drive and

four to retard it).Another Printing Museum

committee member, Terry Foster recalls seeing a Cossar in production at the Hawera Star “some time up to the late 1980s – later scrapped except for its motor – while his brother Ken, a retired printer, recalls machines in the Morrinsville/Matamata area, around the same time. “They were a truly magnificent machine to see in operation,” he says.

At the 140-year-old Gisborne Herald (see main story), managing director Michael Muir told us of the two Cossars, used between 1906 and 1943. The second – this time with a 15 hp electric motor – was installed in March 1924, and printed up to 4500 copies an hour. This had ‘double-decked’ stationary type formes, and a rewinding apparatus enabling it to have three reels of newsprint running through the press simultaneously.

Graeme How at Wairoa Star recalls helping run the 18-ton Cossar B16 acquired from Auckland and later sold to the Opotiki News: “I was 16 years old when I first started operating the press, and as a small country newspaper, we did everything. I had to operate the press, work as a compositor and an Intertype operator, and I’m still here 45 years later operating the latest Adobe prepress systems.”>turn to next page

it was the ‘new technology’ of its day, but only two presses now remain. peter coleman goes in search of the Cossar flatbed rotary

recollections... and mt Gambier’s oilcan incident

Printing history: (opposite page, clockwise from top left) The Poverty Bay Herald announces its ‘forward move’ in 1906, parts of the Crieff press are craned out; the last letterpress pages of the Wairoa Star (with Bruce Fraser, Dick Carroll, Graeme How, Peter Nelson and Stephen Clayton); first print run of the Star in September 1968 (print engineer Alan Biggs, second left with staffers Nelson Harvey Dick Carroll and Barry Fraser); the Star Cossar circa 1970 (with Bib Fraser, Harvey and How)Wairoa Star pictures thanks to Graeme How


Print historygxpress.net


history with two Cossar presses – the first “revolutionising production” from 1912-1938 and the second until 1965 (then sold to the Herald & Weekly Times-owned South Pacific Post in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea). The Standard switched to a six-unit letterpress rotary.

Graham Greenwood helped run a Cossar at the then-triweekly Border Watch as an apprentice, later working as a reporter and becoming the paper’s editor. Installation of the “latest model” B16 press in 1959 – to replace a Duplex installed in the early 1900s – was only just complete when an oilcan was pulled into it and the UK-based engineer had to come out again for repairs. Greenwood says foreman Col Gladigau was oiling parts of the machine while it was in operation when the flexible tip of an oilcan was caught and dragged into the gears of one of the impression cylinders which then came to a grinding halt.

“Staff coming into the pressroom

>from previous pageHow – also a contributor to the

www.metaltype.com website – says the most-hated job on the Cossar was walking round with an oil can trying to find a squeak. “There must have been at least 200 oil holes and I used to climb all over that press while it was printing,” he says. “What would the OH&S people say today if they saw that?

“Loading the newsprint reels and threading the web through to the folder was a job everyone avoided, so being the youngest, I got the job.

“The formes of metal type containing two tabloid pages were carried to the press by hand from the stone (no trolley) and I was not very popular when I dropped one once, spilling type all over the floor. It was quicker to reset those two pages than try to sort out the mess, but needless to say the paper was late that day.”

Graeme How recalls stopping the press when his first son was born to go to the hospital, again making the paper late. Expecting to get fired when he returned and was called into his office, “the manager instead produced a bottle of whisky, poured two glasses and offered me his congratulations”.

“I enjoyed operating the press to get a nice clean paper, and working on the process from Intertype to printing the paper was interesting and challenging… I try to explain it to my grandchildren, but they show no interest.”

Michael de Hamel of the Akaroa Mail and Kaiapoi Advocate recalls “watching with fascination” the Cossar that the Clutha Leader was still using in Balclutha, South Otago, in the 1970s. “Cheerful noises,” he says.

Less is known about installations in Australia – or elsewhere in the world, for that matter – but Goss regional sales vice president Peter Kirwan told us of six newspapers where Cossar were replaced by Goss Community web-offset presses during the 1970s and early 1980s. These are the Warnambool Standard (Victoria), the Border Watch in Mount Gambier, the Port Lincoln Times, Renmark Murray Pioneer (all in South Australia), the Geraldton Guardian (WA) and Barrier Daily Truth in Broken Hill, NSW.

Ian Pech, a former general manager and now chief sub-editor of the now Fairfax-owned Warrnambool Standard on Victoria’s western coast, sent me a cutting from the paper detailing its

the following morning were greeted with the sight of large cylinders hanging by rope from the rafters, with pieces of broken machinery lying about the pressroom,” he says. For the next six weeks, the letterpress formes were driven the 140 km to the Hamilton Spectator for printing.

Gladigau survived the incident, serving out his time as foreman until 1975, but never lived down the day the brand new press was ruined; workers would quip for years, “it was the oilcan’s fault”.

Following a change of ownership, the Cossar was replaced by a Goss Community in 1978 and sold to a Bunbury publisher.

Among others with recollections of the Cossar, David Page – who runs advertising software MediaSpectrum’s Asia-Pacific operation – recalls a Cossar at the Kentish Gazette in Canterbury, UK, where he began his newspaper career. “It had two main printing units plus a re-roll unit, enabling it to print

16 pages at a time with two four-page impression areas per unit one upper and one lower.

“Using the re-roll facility, it could produce a 32pp broadsheet with the additional pre-printed sections integrated into the section being printed at the folder.”

The press was “very particular” about newsprint, working well on Bowaters, but suffering numerous web breaks if fed the Reed product.

“I can’t remember the output speed, but it was slow: The Gazette’s 25,000 print run used to take most of Thursday night and if it was late to press, the guys would still be there when I used to come in at 5.45 am,” he says.

The two main printing units plus a re-roll unit were later sold and added to a press in Watchet in Devon.• A revolution in its time, we reckon the Cossar is worth preserving: Both the Scottish Printing Archival Trust – which dismantled the Govan press and put it into store – and the Printing Museum in Wellington, New Zealand, need support to display their presses working.

You can see a video of the Crieff press – shot before production of the paper was moved to new owners Trinity Mirror – on YouTube, and there is footage of the Bush Telegraph B4 and Dean Forest Mercury’s B8 model press in the UK – which ran until 1995 – on the SWUG New Zealand website. Links to both of these are included in this article on our www.gxpress.net website.

SPrAT is still looking for contributions towards its £15,000 ($26,700) target for the removal, rebuilding and refurbishment (in Govan) and a planned move to the National Museums of Scotland in Edinburgh. Appeal links are on our website.

UK website www.metaltype.co.uk is also a huge resource for those interested in letterpress printing and has various accounts of Cossar installations including a picture of the Wairoa Star’s (New Zealand) Cossar B16 capable of printing up to 16 tabloid pages in run, with a rewind section enabling another eight pages to be added. The press was retired in 1976 when the Wairoa Star changed to offset.

See also James Moran’s book, Printing Presses: History and Development from the Fifteenth Century, accessible at Google Books.• Our thanks to all who contributed to this; more stories would be welcome. nngx

Oldest: The Cossar at the Strathearn Herald (from the July 1907 issue). An additional folding unit was later added.

SPrAT pictures with permission from National Museums Scotland/Scottish Printing Archival Trust

The Scottish press was installed at David Phillips Printers in Crieff in July 1907 – under the supervision of Tom Cossar – and printed the Strathearn Herald weekly from then until March 1991, following the sale of the newspaper to Trinity Mirror. Fearing the press would be scrapped, the third-generation

David Phillips got the Scottish Printing Archival Trust involved and in March 2012 it was removed and stored in Govan, where it is back in working order but as part of Scottish National Museum collection. Fundraising by SPrAT to cover the costs of removal, rebuilding and transport continues, and secretary Helen Williams says it is hoped to display and demonstrate the press.

“There seems to be fairly general agreement that there are very few of any kind left working, and that most have been scrapped,” she says. “I came across a reference to some still working in south Asia and east Africa in the 1990s, but they may also have gone by now. We believe ours is the last working model of the original design and have been calling it the ‘oldest working newspaper press in Britain’.”

As for newer presses, we’d like to hear more: Helen Williams writes of a working Cossar B32 in Somerset which printed the Dean Forest Mercury until 1995, and this features in one of two videos on the SWUG New Zealand website. But engineer Colin Giles says he has no idea what happened to the Dean Forest Mercury press, and that the two Cossars in Williton in Somerset came from Canterbury in Kent, from which he moved them around 1975, “and nearly had a nasty accident and ended up in hospital”. Which, he says, is another story.

UK National Printing Heritage Trust correspondent Paul Nash confirmed the existence of “the Williton Cossar”, which he says is not currently in working condition. Bernard Seward – “the man who has been instrumental in preserving the machine” – has not (yet) responded to an email enquiry from GXpress Magazine.

We’d love to hear... and from anyone who knows of other presses in the world.Peter Coleman nngx

britain cherishes ‘oldest’ press

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I ts role in a digital world, and the need to invest in print were emphasised by newspaper speakers at Ipex’s World Print Summit.

Trinity Mirror group transformation director Rupert Howell said there was “lots of life in newspapers and print” and Ellis Watson of DC Thomson told how the Scottish publisher had spent GB£28 million ($50.4 million) to “prolong the life of my brands and to prove the underlying profitability of my newspapers”.

Addressing the theme of “embracing change to stay relevant and grow your business” at the Ipex event in London, Howell and CityAM founder Lawson Muncaster – two passionate print men – expressed opimism about the future. Howell had established an advertising agency two weeks before the 1987 stock market crash, flourished, sold out in the late 1990s, and spent some time with ITV before joining “the biggest newspaper group in the UK”, Trinity Mirror in 2012. “I have lived through three recessions and learned that new technology is always predicted to kill off the old but never does,” he says.

Trinity Mirror was “in a hole” in 2012 and needed a new strategy, new boss and team, and new content, its costs cut and the establishment of integrated teams to go forward successfully: “We still get the printed edition off-stone at 10pm but now we shape the paper in the afternoon as we see the popularity of our online stories,” he says. “We see mobile as the most important device, and all day we put mobile first.

“We have studios in our newsrooms, focus on video and although it is early days, the results are most encouraging, with 320 million monthly page views and 60 million unique visitors across the group, growing very fast and beginning to monetise.

“We have no choice but to embrace change and new technology because our competition will, digital is a friend of print and TV.”

But he warns there is no shortcut in the process, and all companies and consumers go through the ‘DAFT’ process – denial, anger, fear and transformation. Howell says changes must be led – “you cannot over-communicate” – to make sure everyone is on the same page. “There is lots of life in newspapers and print; the vital issue is how you adopt change and technology, about the skills of content creators and how you monetise it.

“Seven million people visit mirror.co.uk daily, with Twitter very busy early in the morning as readers follow journalists and stories. We use sponsored content, native advertising and try many new things online constantly. If they work well, wonderful, if they don’t we dump them fast and try something else.”

Muncaster – who believes “you need a newspaper or you do not have a soul” – is now entering the digital marketplace on the long road to success. “You

must have unique content in the morning, afternoon and evening to develop a relationship with your customers,” he says.

EarliEr Ellis Watson had tacklEd With gusto the topic of “how to future-proof print in a digital age” on the first day of Ipex. He and Barry Hibbert, chief executive of Polestar group – which is contract printer to DC Thomson’s magazine division – agreed to “cut the hype” and see what digital is doing to print, and that print profits had driven the digital print revolution.

Hibbert says that while the relentless march of digital cannot be ignored, “print is still very relevant in today’s market and industry research has concluded that market players such as IKEA and Next find a combination of catalogues and online advertising to be the most effective promotional strategy”.

Polestar had spent GB£50million ($90 million) on equipment this year, later asserting that “the only way to stay viable is to boost output through technology”, reducing the workforce and taking 28 sites in the UK to six, and cutting 22 sites in Europe.

Watson detailed a GB£28 million spend on new technology, within what he says is one of the biggest suppliers of print in the UK, with two divisions covering five newspaper titles (including a free), and a magazine and comic division. He told how he left school at 16, worked at News International in the marketing of newspapers for a decade, convinced even then that “if newspapers were a competitive

and aggressive success, they would continue to grow”, and seeing the threat of the internet from the angle that advertisers “would not need us any more”.

After serving as “Rupert (Murdoch’s) first head of digital”, he moved into televion and Cellardoor, a company which licensed ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’ to 106 countries and four billion viewers. After four years he joined the Mirror Group as chief executive, where the 20 million readers and between seven to eight million print purchasers indicated that 30 per cent of the (newspaper as a salami sausage) had already been sliced off. “I could see then that digital would do us more harm than good,” he says.

Now as chief executive of DC Thomson at the age of 46, “the digital revolution is changing our industry faster than most of us can predict. I am still a passionate printer and buyer of the printed medium.

“We have some of the best brands in the UK and yet our newspapers were declining by five to six per cent annually. We invested GB£28 million in printing plant, including Goss kit, to prolong the life of the brands and to improve underlying profitability.

As a publisher of content, Watson says he will be “a part of the future, but we must try to understand the punters and what they want. We must be connected consumers too, be part of the revolution and get involved, rather than just reading reports.

“We cannot control how our children and grandchildren will consume news and entertainment, so there are three steps we all must take: We must all get connected whether we understand it or not; we must understand technology for what it does for the consumer rather than the bullshit of the technology salesman; and we must use threats as opportunities.

“DC Thomson’s business depends on cutting down trees, squashing them flat and smearing ink on it, but there are more opportunities in the printing industry than before. Our way was to buy our way through by innovation and enthusiasm, run the business aggressively and there is amazing money to be made.”

He says the printing industry will get smaller – more slices off the salami – “but we must be brave; we are all in the same boat, so make sure you do better than the next guy”.Maggie Coleman nngx

oNliNe tHe PRiNt saViOur

Inkjet stars: Screen Australia’s Keith Atherton (right) with Mark Sherman on one of the two Dainippon Screen stands

Rupert Howell (left) with Lawson Muncaster

iPEX uk

watershed ipex replaces exhibitors with speakers

It’s Ipex, but not as you know it: The UK printing trade show which opened at London’s ExCel Centre in

March bore little resemblance to those of the same name held in Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre in living memory… and of course, none at all to earlier London shows.

Many industry majors who realised a while back that they could save a few

dollars by not bringing any machinery to the show, have opted to give the event a miss altogether. Indeed the cost of the London venue is cited by many as its biggest downside, despite its ready access to the attractions of the capital…. but that so many of those who dropped out more than a year ago were never lured back is the show’s greatest failure.

Challenged with the task of transforming Ipex, event director Trevor Crawford delivered an engaging but not compelling forum with 170 speakers.

Almost half its 22,768 attendance – including 3,532 exhibitors – came from the UK, but it’s hard to see that after this print trade shows, including DRUPA, will ever be the same. nngx


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The letters to the editor section is well read and author Colleen McCullough, who lives on the island, has written some “rip-roaring letters” critical of the Australian Government’s handling of Norfolk affairs.

Electricity generation came to the residential area of Norfolk in the mid-1960s with stringent regulations on what electrical appliances could be used. Tom was restricted to a treadle (foot-powered) printing machine, operated like an old-time sewing machine.

In 1979, the Islander’s printery was torched because of “something we had published” that was critical of the Australian Government’s handling of island issues. The building was soon rebuilt and an offset press flown in.

Since its treadle days, the Norfolk Islander has progressed through Gestetner, Vertical Miehle V36, Heidelberg platen, Gestetner Offset, AB Dick Offset and Heidelberg Offset equipment. “Now, with the advantage of the computer and electronic plate making, we use Risos,” he says.

The Lloyds sold the newspaper and printing business, Greenways Press, to Jonathan Snell and Derek Gore in March 2005. Snell had started as an apprentice printer at the paper in mid-1986. Gore left the partnership 18 months later, leaving Snell and wife Jo in charge.

‘Tim’ Lloyd died on October 30, 2005, while playing the organ at a church service, but Tom has continued as a reporter and co-editor of the newspaper.• Rod Kirkpatrick is editor of the Australian Newspaper History Group newsletter. Email him at [email protected] nngx

news, meanwhile keeping production up to date. As the scope of the paper’s reporting expanded, Tom and Tim found it increasingly difficult to maintain an unbiased view.

Competition has been occasional and not always sustained: Ed Howard, an American public relations consultant who had settled on Norfolk, launched the Norfolk Island News on May 26, 1975, but it ceased publication in October 1980 after 80 issues, resuming as an occasional paper with only a few pages about 1991.

Another newspaper was Dem Tull (They Say). Launched by the proprietors of Photopress International in 1982, it employed two New Zealand journalists and ceased publication the following year.

tHe lloyds did not generally cover court hearings but they did – at the request of the chief magistrate – publish the verdicts and penalties in both the monthly Court of Petty Sessions and the Supreme Court of Norfolk Island.

In 2007 Tom faced a new court-reporting experience, a murder trial, when modern-day Norfolk had its one and only murder. Sydney woman Janelle Patton, a Norfolk resident for two-and-a-half years, was murdered on March 31, 2002, and a New Zealand chef, Glenn Peter Charles McNeill, was tried and found guilty. As a precaution, Tom showed the judge what he had written before publishing.

Over the years he has not written an editorial every week, but as a young editor, he was “red hot and thought I could change Norfolk Island for the better”. He soon realised he was only one voice among many conflicting voices. “Everybody should get fair say in the newspaper,” he says.

secondhand type, squeezing a cabinet-full of type into the separate laundry of their home. For six days a week, it became the newspaper’s composing room.

Two stainless steel washing tubs that Tim had bought in Sydney were mounted under the windows in the “office”, with a sheet of hardboard placed over them when the laundry was not in use. It was on this sheet of timber that Tom used to place the type cases when he hand-set the advertisements or any commercial printing jobs that had to be composed. When he received an order that would strip his type cases, he sent the copy to a trade house in Sydney and had the order back within a fortnight.

As a fully trained monotype keyboard and caster operator, Tom found it frustrating to hand-set type, but there was one plus: He was able to set by natural light because the cases were positioned under the laundry window. On the weekly washing day, the type cases had to be removed and the office vacated so that the makeshift copper could be lit and the washing tubs serve their original purpose.

When the Lloyds started the Islander, they set out to produce a weekly news sheet with coverage of everyday events. Government of the island was at the stage where views about the responsibilities of Australia for Norfolk Island needed to be determined, Tom said.

Tim would report news from the Administration and the Advisory Council and compile a column of social jottings, while Tom followed up sporting and community representatives for their

nEwsPAPEr historygxpress.net


Tom Lloyd’s 83-year-old eyes twinkle as he suggests it was almost preordained that he would one day run a newspaper on Norfolk Island.

Lloyd, who founded the Norfolk Islander in 1965 with wife Edna (always called ‘Tim’), says his great-great-great-grandfather John Buffett (1798-1891) landed on Pitcairn Island in 1823 and started the Pitcairn Island Register, a manuscript newspaper in the form of a diary of events and happenings.

Pitcairn and Norfolk are 6300km apart – the equivalent of from Sydney to Singapore – but are inextricably linked. Nine of the Bounty mutineers settled on Pitcairn in 1790, and 66 years later Queen Victoria granted Norfolk to the nearly 200 Pitcairners who were struggling to survive on their tiny island. The entire community set sail for Norfolk in May 1856.

Buffett had continued recording events and happenings on Pitcairn until mid-1839 when George Hunn Nobbs, a new arrival in 1828, took on the task. Nobbs, who became the community’s leader, continued the Register until the mass departure for Norfolk.

There, the first printed newspaper was the Norfolk Island Pioneer which began on May 18, 1885 and was printed by Henry Menges, printer from 1880-1920 for the Melanesian Mission. Members of the newly-formed Kingston Club had “resolved to issue a monthly periodical”, but the Pioneer ceased publication in October 1886 when the only compositor refused to print it.

Records suggest no newspaper of any regularity was published on Norfolk again until the 1930s, but from February 1926 the Prime Minister’s Department in Australia issued a daily radio bulletin of about 200 words. It was received on a six-valve radio installed in the office of the Norfolk Administrator and posted on notice boards.

Between 1926 and 1935 Norfolk people agitated about what they saw as shortcomings in how the Australian Government was treating the island. Two newspapers launched in the early thirties appear to have been vehicles for expressing that agitation. They were the Norfolk Island Weekly News (May 17, 1932, to December 9, 1932) and the Norfolk Island Times (February 8, 1933, to October 16, 1935).

Norfolk Island News Edition) on June 10, 1949, which continued until May 4, 1951.

In 1964, Norfolk’s Administrator Roger Nott, suggested to his secretary, ‘Tim’ Lloyd, that “what the island needs is a newspaper”. He knew she had been a court typist in Sydney and that her husband, Tom – a native of Norfolk – had worked as a compositor on daily newspapers in Sydney and Auckland.

The Lloyds agreed and the Norfolk Island Council repealed the restrictive 1935 newspapers law. Tom and Tim obtained a personal bank loan of $10,000 and launched the Norfolk Islander on August 6, 1965, printing 1000 copies for the first issue – the island population was 875 – and selling all copies. The Lloyds settled into a print run of 650, now increased to 1100 for the island’s population of about 2,000.

Tom had bought a Challenge treadle platen as well as a number of fonts of

The Times “damaged the tourist traffic and held the Territory up to ridicule”, the Administrator said in a letter to the Prime Minister’s Department in 1936. The Commonwealth had already acted, passing legislation in June 1935 to ban the publication of any pamphlet, newspaper or newsletter on Norfolk Island without the express permission of the Australian Administrator. It did this through the Norfolk Island Printers and Newspapers Ordinance, which required a bond of £200 ($400) be paid once approval had been given.

The Norfolk Island Weekly appears to have begun in late 1936 and was printed and published by B. Grubb (nee Quintal) and then continued by A.S. Gazzard in 1937. The Administration published official notices in a ‘Gazette’ section of the newspaper from March 1937 until it ceased publication about 1943.

Max S. Reynolds launched NINE (the

AN island tRADitioN

Now 83, tom lloyd tells rod kirkpatrick of the family connections which led him to run the Norfolk island’s newspaper

Island tradition: (clockwise from top left) A headstone marks the grave of John Buffett; an old picture of Tom and Tim Lloyd; part of the front page of the first issue of the first Norfolk Island newspaper; Tom Lloyd with the filing boxes that hold nearly 50 years of back copies of the Norfolk Islander; Tom Lloyd (pictured last October) founded the newspaper in 1965 with his wife, Tim; Jonathan Snell who owns the Norfolk Islander with his wife Jo (photos Tom Lloyd, Rod Kirkpatrick) This page: Kingston (photo Norfolk Island Tourism)

trays of loose type – bought with a treadle platen – had to be put away on wash days


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Pride in Print: it’s Horton Media 6-4 over APNin cOntrast with the Australian event, awarded on the same night, there were medals aplenty for newspaper printers in New Zealand’s Print in Print competition, presented at the Sky City Convention Centre in an event attended by 700 people.

Horton Media’s six-medal haul included Valley Voice Rural Lifestyle, Silo Theatre Season 2013, Platinum Sports Co, Corso De Fiori, NZ Aviation News, and the Howick & Pakuranga Times. APN Print won gold for Chinese Herald 2/4/13, Freedom Farmers, Wairarapa Midweek, and Weekend Sun. Fairfax Media’s two gold medals came from its Christchurch print site for The Timaru Herald and The Press.Pictured are Fairfax’s Marie and David Race

Pearl of a project strikes only bronze in NPAsHOnOurs were few and far between for Australia’s web and newspaper printers in Australia’s National Print Awards.

A pearl of a campaign for Paspaley drew only a couple of bronze medals for Offset Alpine, for books and multi-piece productions. They were one of three gold winners in heastset web-offset – the other going to Inprint and Adelaide’s Cadillac Printing – and took gold for web-offset publications with a cover price, and bronze for direct mail. Imprint also won a gold for the saddle-stitched Carla Zampatti Spring Summer 2013 catalogue; and bronze for a packaging project for the Herald & Weekly Times.

In the coldset categories, two Fairfax Media print centres took the only medals awarded – an Oil & Gas Review supplement winning gold for Rural Press Mandurah, and the Examiner Print Centre in Launceston taking silver for Rural Wit & Wisdom. nngx

Making of a talent magnetR ethinking its physical

workspace as part of “a comprehensive culture

change” has won Australia’s Fairfax Media INMA’s first-ever global innovation award. The company’s Real-time working project – which involved a combination of physical, behavioural, and technological strategies – was honoured during an awards presentation at INMA’s World Congress in San Francisco.

Executive director and chief executive Earl Wilkinson says it represents “the kind of comprehensive culture change that is happening in the media industry worldwide as companies retool for multi-media consumers and

advertisers. “The company re-thought its physical workspace in a way that promotes collaboration and makes the workplace a magnet for talent in the competitive Sydney area.”

Regional winners in the Global Innovation competition were Times of India publisher Bennett, Coleman and Co (for ‘Transforming print media sales culture through technology’), USA-based Gannett for its innovation grants programme, and Sweden’s MittMedia (for ‘FutureWorks: Accelerating innovation and building personal capacity for learning and change’).

Fairfax submitted a metrics-focused series of technological strategies which it claims enable

more efficient and flexible work by individuals and teams. In implementing Real-time working, it aimed for more agile and responsive business operations and an inspiring and collaborative workplace that embodied the brand. Strategies enabled more flexible and efficient work, while recognising that there was a spectrum of work styles and demands where people would have different activities to complete. “This, in turn, requires varying levels of concentration, collaboration, and innovation,” said the submission.

Staff were encouraged staff to have “a choice and a voice”, to challenge the status quo and define the way they work. nngx

Presses and stresses: New categories for NoY

Entries for a simplified Newspaper of the Year awards contest have

opened for Asia-Pacific members of The Newspaper Works.

Criteria abandon newspaper circulations in favour of readership as defined by the group’s EMMA metric and segments split instead into national/metro, regional and community.

The Sunday category has been replaced by a new Weekend Newspaper of the Year, and a Print Centre of the Year will also be named. Another new category honours the Young Rural Journalist of the Year.

Entries close on June 20, with the awards to be announced at a dinner on August 21 following the Future Forum in Sydney.

Technical excellence entries

are categorised for single-width and double-width presses and for preprints and supplements, with the same audience criteria – community/local, regional, and national/metropolitan – set.

Judges in the new Print Centre of the Year award will consider a written summary of operations – including outstanding achievements and innovations – as well as “expansion and efficiencies“ covering both new and refurbished presses.

Criteria are designed to cover key facets of print operations and highlight important work undertaken in stressful, time-constrained situations every day, organisers say.

Entry in all categories is limited to paid-up members of The Newspapers Works. nngx

twenty regional newspaper companies in iNCQC listfifteen Asia-Pacific and five Gulf publishing and printing companies are among the 76 accepted for this year’s WAN-Ifra International Newspaper Color Quality Club.

Nine of these – ABP, Express Publications (Madurai), Hindustan Media Venture, HT Media, Jagran Prakashan, Kasturi & Sons, Malayala Manorama Company, The Mathrubhumi Printing & Publishing Co and The Printers (Mysore) – come from India.

The others in the region are Apple Daily in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and Mediacorp Press and Singapore Press Holdings in southeast Asia, APN Print (NZ) in New Zealand and West Australian Newspapers in Australia.

From the Gulf region, the five accepted are Al Nisr Publishing, Masar Printing and Publishing and Galadari Printing & Publishing (Khaleej Times) in Dubai, Al Jarida in Kuwait and United Printing & Publishing in Abu Dhabi. nngx

tHOmas JacOB is to head a new WAN-Ifra Services division as the organisation moves to new waterfront offices in downtown Frankfurt. The global group, which has more than 18,000 members, has sold the former Ifra headquarters in Darmstadt, Germany, which it has occupied since 1966. WAN-Ifra was created by the 2009 merger with the World Association of Newspapers, based in Paris, where the press freedom, innovation hub, advocacy and media development will continue to be based.

The new WAN-Ifra Services will deliver business and technology related services, moving in July to Frankfurt, which will also be the base for a new Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) team. This will be headed by Manfred Werfel who continues to lead print production initiatives, and will roll out Newsplex and Adplex training programmes.

In Paris two new departments – for innovation and for public affairs – will be led by Larry Kilman, who has been named secretary general. Chief executive Vincent Peyrègne says the move to Frankfurt will put WAN-Ifra in the centre of an important international business hub, “providing an opportunity to revitalise the organisation”.

Regional offices including Asia-Pacific in Singapore and South Asia based in Chennai, continue and WAN-Ifra plans a “formal presence” in Latin America by the end of the year.

press peripHerals manufacturer Technotrans Technologies has appointed Stephan Peters’ Pegras Asia-Pacific business as its sales agent for Australia and New Zealand. The Sydney-based Pegras team will have technical and service support from the technotrans technical team in Melbourne and Asia Pacific general manager Thomas Lengowski.

Peters, who is managing director of Pegras, has worked in the Asia Pacific newspaper industry for many years, most recently as regional sales manager for German blanket maker ContiTech. In Asia, he was the joint founder of SEANG, the regional newspaper association later to be reformed as ASEAN Newspaper Printers.

Pictured: Peters (left) and Lengowski

WHile next year’s digital imaging and print focussed IDEA Australian Digital Show will be staged in Melbourne, it will move to Sydney in 2017, and is supported this year by a smaller show in the harbour city.

Date of the Imaging and Digital Entertainment Association’s Digital Show has been set for October 16-18, 2015, at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre, following the change to a biennial cycle after last year’s show. It will move to Sydney for 2017 when the new Darling Harbour Exhibition Centre will be completed. Meanwhile Sydney’s Digital Playground at Luna Park from September 12-14 is a ‘sold out’ event, professional vice president Robert Gatto says.

stOryful fOunder Mark Little has joined the roster for the Future Forum in Sydney this August.

The News Corp-owned company – which describes itself as the world’s first social media news agency – provides a news feed to a new Facebook service for journalists.

Little’s Ireland-based team discover

and verify content on social media platforms such as YouTube and Twitter. The business was acquired by News Corp last December and plans expansion in the USA and Asia this year.

Organised by The Newspaper Works, the Future Forum is being held on August 20-21. Other speakers include New York Times senior vice president and chief consumer officer Yasmin Namini, Pit Gottschalk (content management managing director of Axel Springer) and World Newsmedia Research Group managing director Martha Stone.

Australian chief executives Julian Clarke (News Corp Australia), Greg Hywood (Fairfax Media), Michael Miller (APN News & Media) and Chris Wharton (West Australian Newspapers) will again take part in a panel discussion. This year’s moderator is advertising agency and Gruen Transfer personality Russel Howcroft, who is a Channel Ten executive general manager.

fairfax is endinG its three-year-old sub-editing contractor with Pagemasters, The Newspaper Works has reported.

Pagemasters, the design, editorial and listings service acquired by AAP in 2002 and built up by current chief executive Bruce Davidson, provides production services for the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the Canberra Times and their weekend editions. The current contract – known as Moonlight –was established in 2011.

Pagemasters managing director

Peter Atkinson says that since the time of the Moonlight deal, “the publishing industry has changed substantially”. Pagemasters is talking to other publishers in Australia and overseas to “grow and diversify” its business base. AAP is owned by News, Fairfax and Seven West, which are also shareholders in The Newspaper Works.

BrOadBand scenarios in Australia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Myanmar will be explored at the CommunicAsia2014 Summit in June.

Among speakers are Celcom Axiata chief corporate and operations officer Suresh Sidhu, Tran Tuan Anh, head of the Vietnam Telecommunications Authority’s policy and regulation division, Telstra executive director for networks and access technologies Mike Wright, and Ross Cormack, chief executive of Ooredoo Myanmar.

Strong subscriber growth in fibre broadband in the Asia Pacific – responding to increased demand and an explosion in online gaming and video streaming – is also covered in a track on June 19, the third day of the conference.

The CommunicAsia2014 Summit is being held at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore from June 17-20. More details of the event and supportiung exhibition from www.communicasia.com

australians spend more time using their smartphones now than watching TV as we dive into the age of multiscreen. A report from research company, Millward Brown, examined multiscreen use and behaviour across 30 countries and explored consumer receptivity to advertising on TV, smartphones, laptops and tablets in the 2014 AdReaction Report.

According to the study, Australians spend about six and a half hours each day staring at a screen, however 113 minutes of that time is usually spent consuming another screen at the same time, resulting in a typical daily screen time of just under five hours (or 285 minutes).

Only 11 per cent of consumers consume screen time which is “meshed” – meaning the use of a TV and a second screen for related content – behind the 14 per cent global average. They’re tops at “stacking”, however, with 28 per cent of consumers “stack”, meaning they watch something on TV, and use a second screen for unrelated content. nngx

initiative targets small and medium-size media

A ustralian Rod Kenning will lead a networking lunch for small and mid-size publishers at next month’s World Newspaper Congress in Turin.

Organiser WAN-Ifra has scheduled a session – entitled ‘One size does not fit all: maximising results with limited capacity and smart approaches’ – on June 10, recognising that independent publishers, family-owned newspapers, small scale and mid-size media operations can be more creative, flexible and responsive.

Speakers will be Dagsavisen (Norway) chief executive and editor-in-chief Eirik Hoff Lysholm, Ernst-Jan Pfauth (publisher of online journalism venture De Correspondent in the Netherlands and a former editor-in-chief of NRC Media) and George Nimeh (chief digital officer at Kurier in Austria).

Kenning is group general manager of Polaris Media – the privately-owned publisher of the Australian Jewish News and Melbourne-based Property Review Weekly – and a newly-appointed WAN-Ifra ambassador for small and medium independent news media. “Our key aim is to ensure ongoing networking opportunities after the Congress and to have our voices heard in the new media landscape so we can shape the future of news,” he says.

The 66th World Newspaper Congress, 21st World Editors Forum and 24th World Advertising Forum take place from June 9-11 and are expected to draw more than 1000 publishers, chief editors and other senior newspaper executives to the Italian city. nngx


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A wharfedale goes up the wall, pasta and flatbed rotaries, and the days the news got f**t, as peter coleman wraps it up

Researching the Cossar history which appears in page 30 was a time-consuming but amazing journey, coloured by numerous anecdotes.

Steve Carle – who worked at his family’s Bush Telegraph from the age of ten – told me of the days when the newspaper was printed on a Quad Crown Wharfedale until an accident befell it: Dressing the belt from a wall-mounted shaft had the effect of glueing it to the pulley, so that when the shaft started turning, the old flatbed press was winched up towards it.

Their Cossars were used until the mid 1980s, some pages printed from photopolymer plates originated using equipment modified from an old flong oven and a washing machine.

Some nostalgia here: I’m old enough, incidentally, to (just) remember the gas-driven Wharfedale which was “back-up” to the L&M Centurette which printed the Kent, UK, newspaper my parents bought when I was four.

As it would, the feature took way more time than was planned, and even as we go to press, there are still loose ends. And given my background, I was surprised that we were the ones tracking their history: Were there two installations in Canterbury, for example; what happened to the Dean Forest Mercury one, obviously valued enough to be the subject of a video?

I’m sure we shall hear more. I hope so.

in darwin for australian swug (see pages 22-26), honorary member Bill Kemp – who at 84, is only a year older than the crocodile in our picture – told me he was much more familiar with the Cossar’s arch-rival, the Swiss Duplex.

Again, installations – including some in Queensland – ran until they were displaced by Community and V15A offset presses.

Which, incidentally, is how I got into all this. Jean Claude Pautrat, my host at Goss in Shanghai in March, had started his career with French press maker Marinoni, which has a claim to being the first rotary press maker, and built single-width offset presses until being merged into Harris Web.

It would be good to hear now from afficionados of the Duplex – built by a company which made pasta-making equipment – after a pause to catch my breath, please.

it’s strange to tHink tHat soMe of tHose old Cossars were still running when the first of Rupert Murdoch’s manroland Newsman presses went in. In Murarrie in Queensland last month, I toured the 1995 presses which are still there.

forwardplanning2014

Jun 9-11 66th World Newspaper Congress and 21st World Editors Forum, Turin, Italy (www.wan-ifra.org)

Jun 17-20 CommunicAsia2014 Summit, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore

Aug 20-21 INMA South Asia Conference, New Delhi, India (www.inma.org)

Aug 20-21 The Newspaper Works (PANPA) 2014 Future Forum, The Ivy & Establishment (Merivale), Sydney (www.thenewspaperworks.com.au)

Sep 3-6 Indoprint (with Indoplas and Indopack), Jakarta International Expo, Kemayoran, Indonesia (www.indoprint.net)

Sep 17-18 WAN-Ifra India 2014 annual conference (including Newsroom, Printing and Crossmedia Advertising Summits), Hotel Le Meridien, New Delhi (www.wan-ifra.org)

Sep 28-Oct 1 Graph Expo, Chicago, Illinois, USA (www.graphexpo.com)

Sep TBA ASEAN Newspaper Printers annual conference, Philippines (aseannewspaperprinters.com)

Oct 13-15 WAN-Ifra World Publishing Expo and conference, Amsterdam, Netherlands (www.wan-ifra.org)

Nov 14-17 All In Print China 2014, Shanghai, China (www.mdna.com)

Nov 18-20 WAN-Ifra Digital Media Asia, Singapore (www.wan-ifra.org)

2015May 13-15 PrintEx15, co-located with Visual

Impact, Sydney Olympic Park, Homebush, NSW

2016May 31-Jun 10 DRUPA Print & Crossmedia

Solutions trade show, Düsseldorf, Germany (www.drupa.com)

Contact the organisers for fuller information about any of the above events and to confirm dates. nngx

Except that in a sense, they’re not. The heavy metal and blue cabinetry is still in evidence, but all the electronics which controls the presses has gone, replaced with brand new systems, plus some more which takes over the thousands of adjustments which the lot of a typical press operator... if he (or she) will let it.

Yes, or she: Nicole Clarke, who helps run the News Corp Australia presses at Chullora in Sydney was prominent at SWUG. Hard to miss, in fact with the orange hair, and it was good to consider the extent to which her time with News has empowered her.

In an industry segment still dominated by men, more women would be welcome... the only problem being that there is little enough recruitment of any sort.

i BrougHt Back after last year’s ifra expo, a copy of the UK Daily Telegraph my sister had carefully kept for me, a page of its sports section filled with dummy headlines and placeholder text.

Nothing, however, to compare with the edition of the Australian Financial Review issued to WA readers in late April. The collectors’ item product of pushbutton publishing has developed a life of its own, including now-famous #worldisfukt hashtag.

A talking point at SWUG of course, where some printers were heard to mutter that they “weren’t proofreaders”.

All of which leads to the point which is the cause of the industry’s despair: “People don’t read newspapers any more.” Perhaps they should. nngx

dic anZ WeB business manager Meredith Darke moves to New Zealand as country general manager in July. She succeeds Steve Parker who is taking early retirement in

late August after ten years heading the NZ operation and a total of 38 with associated companies Coates Brothers and Sun Chemicals in the UK.

Darke joined DIC Australia in January 2006 after 15 years in the graphic arts industry, and has been web business manager for the last five of these. (See also page 24)

Jason Kent moves to the new position of general manager of the offset division, where he adds responsibility for heatset and coldset web to the sheetfed and graphics portfolios. He joined the company in November 2007 to run the graphics division, moving to commercial business manager in October 2009.

One-time rip pioneer Steve Peck has joined Fujifilm Australia as its graphics systems project and marketing manager.

He spent more than a decade with Kodak – and previously the Heidelberg-Kodak – involved with the NexPress digital press ranges. During the 1990s, he brought the

Hyphen RIP to Australia as sales director of Hyphen Asia-Pacific, having trained in the UK with Marconi Electronic Instruments.

Peck lives on Sydney’s northern beaches and is a keen pilot among other interests.

amOnG seVeral changes at KBA in Germany, Mathias Dähn has been named chief financial officer, replacing Axel Kaufmann, who has is leaving to pursue “new professional challenges”.

Dähn worked for Bosch and telecoms group debitel before moving to MAN Group where duties included involvement in the sale of manroland.

KBA’s supervisory board has elected Dr Martin Hoyos (left) as its new chairman, following the resignation of Heinz-Joachim Neubürger as member and

chairman. Hoyos had been appointed to the board by the register court in Würzburg, Germany, last October following the resignation

of chairman Dieter Rampl. The Würzburg register court has followed shareholders’ recommendation, appointing Dagmar Rehm to the KBA supervisory board, filling the vacancy left by the departure of Heinz-Joachim Neubürger. She is the first woman shareholder representative since the company’s listing 20 years ago.

GuidO Van der scHueren has been appointed the chairman of Global Graphics, taking over from Johan Volckaerts who has held the position since 1996.

Van der Schueren co-founded Artwork Systems in 1992, and from 1996 to 2007 served as its managing director and chairman. He was vice chairman of EskoArtwork Group from 2007-2011. He is board member of ADAM Software and chairman of the Board of Readz, Hybrid Software and Packz Software.

Jeff clarke has taken the reins at Kodak, while maintaining roles at Orbitz, Red Hat and Compuware.

Following his appointment as chief executive and board member, Antonio Perez has become a “special adviser”.

Clarke (52) was a managing partner of technology-orientated private investment firm Augusta Columbia Capital, which he co-founded in 2012, and previously chairman and chief executive of travel technology firm Travelport, sold to Blackstone Group for $4.3 billion in 2006. During this time, Travelport launched an IPO for Orbitz. Kodak chairman James Continenza says Clarke is “the right person” to lead the company forward: “His combination of strengths and experience in technology, transformation, finance, operations, and international business is precisely what we set out to find in the next leader.”

neWscycle has promoted Trent Schoonmaker to vice president of sales operations. He will report to chief revenue officer Dan Paulus and manage global sales operations from the company’s Utah office.

Previously director of sales operations, he joined Newscycle through the Vista Equity Partners’ acquisition of Digital Technology International last year. He had joined the company nine years before as a project coordinator. He was promoted to director of sales operations and senior director of cloud operations and contracts in 2012. nngx

New board roles follow iNMA electionsN ews Corp Australia’s Damian

Eales and Changhee Park of South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo

have been elected to the board of INMA, with D.D. Purkayastha to head the group’s South Asia division.

Purkayastha – managing director and chief executive of ABP in Calcutta, India – succeeds Jagran Prakashan editor and chief executive Sanjay Gupta as president of the

regional board, on September 1, with Gupta then joining the international board.

News Corp Australia group marketing director Eales (left) and Park

(chief financial officer of JoongAng Ilbo) were among 12 INMA members elected to board terms.

The othrs are Chris Blaser (Advance Central Services, USA), Eduardo Garces Lopez (El Espectador, Colombia), Pit Gottschalk (Axel Springer, Germany), Kirk MacDonald (Digital First Media, USA), Sandy MacLeod (The Toronto Star, Canada), Jim Moroney (A.H. Belo Corp, USA), Grzegorz Piechota (Agora, Poland) and Fergus Sampson (Media24, South Africa).

The other new division presidents are Harold Grönke of Verlag Dierichs in Kassel, Germany (Europe), and John Newby of The Times in Ottawa, Illinois, USA (North America). nngx

Just a year after The Monthly’s Paola Totaro was writing about Rupert Murdoch “dangling the keys to the Roller that is News Corp”, eldest son Lachlan has slipped into the driving seat alongside his ageing father.

He has been named non-executive co-chairman of News Corp in a move his father says is “a sign of confidence” in the group’s growth potential and a recognition of his son’s “entrepreneurial leadership and passion for news, digital media and sport”.

Lachlan Murdoch will also be non-executive co-chairman of 21st Century Fox, while brother James becomes co-chief operating officer of 21st Century Fox. Lachlan Murdoch has resigned from the chairmanship of Ten and has “unwound” the agreement he had with James Packer under which the two jointly controlled about 17.6 per cent of the Australian TV network. nngx

simons steps down as APN brings NZ units closer

J ane Hastings – who has been leading APN’s The Radio Network – has moved to a new

role as chief executive of APN New Zealand, where she is responsible for New Zealand publishing, radio and digital businesses. Martin

Simons is stepping down from his role as chief executive of the company’s New Zealand publishing business to take up a trans-Tasman consultancy role. He

has been with APN for more than 40 years and in his current role since 2006.

APN chief executive Michael Miller says Hastings’ appointment will enable more strategic collaboration across the New Zealand businesses, including greater cross-selling opportunities for media brands.

Hastings joined TRN in 2012 from Amalgamated Holdings – where she was ANZ entertainment general manager and the Sky City Entertainment Group. nngx


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