Newspaper Printing and Online Media Marketing

I blog about innovation within the newspaper industry here at metaprinter and this is truly an innovation. At Drupa 2008 Hewlett Packard unveiled a new 36.5-inch wide inkjet web press. The press is capable of running 400 feet per minute and utilizing various impositions executing jobs ranging from broadsheet newspaper to standard size letter.

What can be done with such a piece of equipment you might ask? Well, Editor & Publisher summed it up nicely as such:

“Possibilities include: newspaper products other than the core daily edition; moving late-breaking news out from a national paper’s newsroom and page-assembly hub to remote print sites to augment the main print runs; production of larger papers’ local sections at distribution centers rather than trucking them from central plants, reducing their cost, stretching their deadlines and creating more advertising opportunities at lower price; production of the local paper with a national or nearby metro daily, or the weekly addition of a certain section of the larger paper to the local paper for certain subscribers.” Editor&Publisher 

To see and hear the press running check out this YouTube video here and below:

No quiet room needed for this bad boy and a far stretch from the presses I am used to working on.

Then again, this type of equipment can print 70k to 90k impressions per hour, which is 12 webs at roughly 2,100 to 2,700 feet per minute given a 22″ cutoff. This is 60 times faster than the HP.

Just for fun lets say you are printing a 96-page Black Friday newspaper on the TKS press above. You would need 12 webs running at 70k impressions per hour for 5 hours to print 350,000 newspapers.The same job on the HP would require 24 HP Inkjet Web Presses running 25 hours! or 120 HP Inkjet Web Presses running 5 hours!Moore’s Law, if it applies here loosely, suggests that the HP will be able to print a complete newspaper as fast as the offset web presses in 12 years… see you in 2020.

We try like crazy to give our readers content that is relevant to their lives, and give them other services in any way that they want them in order to help them live their lives better and be more informed.

And do it all in entertaining and interesting ways that keep them coming back.

We’re going to Vegas, baby!

Excerpts from Rob Curley’s response to a recent Wall Street Journal article entitled, “Big Daily’s ‘Hyperlocal’ Flop”.

My Take

Lawrence.com is an awesome site that is intuitive and engaging. I live in New Jersey and I still visit the site regularly, that’s how interesting the content and features are. Extrapolating that interest to a “general population” site like LoudonExtra.com is difficult. I give Rob and his team credit for trying like hell to do something innovative. There are too many haters and doomsday watchers in our industry right now.

May 20th 2008 Robert Ivan was the guest speaker at the Matawan-Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce monthly meeting held in Matawan, New Jersey.  He spoke to a group of small business owners and presented them with information regarding Search Engine Marketing and Web Optimization.  The goal was to bring awareness to the small business community about where online advertising is going and how they can prepare to succeed in the current operating environment. A warm thanks to the Chamber and attendees for hosting Metaprinter.

A PDF of the information presented is available HERE. 

Newsday is worth about 400 million dollars.Murdoch was willing to pay 580 million dollars.The Daily News is also offering 580 million dollars. Cablevision is offering 650 million dollars. It is only because these companies have a local interest in the market that they are willing to pay above the 400 million dollar mark for a floundering newspaper.    

There are so many ways to advertise, is it any wonder that newspapers are losing money?  I put together the below chronology just too give my self a better idea of what is going on in the advertising world.  Pretty incomplete I know, but It shows the major trends here.  

Earliest - Word of mouth, Flyers, Hand-held signs, Calling cards

Early 1700’s Newspaper ads appear, Business cards

Mid 1700’s Magazine advertising appears

Early 1800’s Posters, Human billboards

Mid 1800’s Roadside billboards, Building billboards

Late 1800’s Yellow pages 

Early 1900’s Radio, Coupons, Skywriting, Theatrical ads

Mid 1900’s Television, Telemarketing, Clothing ads, Electric signs, Corporate sponsorship

Late 1900’s Direct mail, Mobile billboards, Internet websites, Product placement, More corporate sponsorship, Electronic billboards, Bus wraps

Early 2000’s Viral marketing, Pay per click advertising, Email marketing, RSS feeds, Podcasts, Banner ads, Search engine optimization, Pop-up/under ads, Craig’sList, Angie’s List, Yelp, Yahoo locals, Google ad sense, Digital signs,  Digital Billboards 

Email or comment to add anything to this list. 

Newspapers get a bad rap on a lot of fronts in this internet age of instant gratification.  Let’s pause and take a few moments to appreciate some of the finer qualities of a newspaper business. 

When a newspaper serves its local market it can stay relevant.  Two days a week I’m in Manhattan and you can’t help but trip over a NY Post or NY Daily News.  These two publications are designed and executed to better suit their fast paced commuting readers.  The tabloid style format and flashy photos, short stories, and bold, catchy headlines are just some of the features drawing people to these publications.  Now take this idea and extrapolate it out to the area your paper is operating in and serve your content to that end.

   Brand recognition is high among  newspapers, mostly because they have dominated their communities for decades before the internet came along.  Newspapers need to build on this recognition.  A strong brand is an essential thing to be successful and a difficult thing to attain.  My recent article in which the Shelby Star is highlighted shows how a community paper uses its strong local brand combined with a little technology to grow readership.  Members of that community know exactly where to go for their local information, whether they like it or not, the paper and the website are their destination for knowledge and discussion.

Innovation!Eco-Cycle recyclable plastic newspaper bags.   I don’t know why this is big news now.  I’m pretty sure the bags that the Wall Street Journal uses have had the recycle symbol on them for a year now.  Now all we need to do is get people to recycle!        

ProImage OnColor ECO  This software works to save on CMY ink costs by applying UCR or Under Color Removal to 4 color images.  The end product is a process image that uses a smaller percentage of expensive CMY inks.  Here is yet another innovation which cuts costs, reduces waste, and improves image quality, that I swear I’ve seen before.     

Apture:  This hyperlink technology uses a mouse over to reveal websites, pictures, video, etc… without clicking through.   This might get annoying, however there is a delay built in so it not as bad as it sounds.  Go to the Washington Post’s Celebritology website to see it in action.

I recently received my Presstime Magazine from NAA.  In it, the Newspaper Association of America announced their new incoming Chairman would be Gary Pruitt.  Gary is the CEO of The McClatchy Co.  As reported on Yahoo finance,

“Its newspapers include The Miami Herald, The Sacramento Bee, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Kansas City Star, The Charlotte Observer, and The (Raleigh) News & Observer. As of December 31, 2007, the company owned 30 daily newspapers and approximately 50 non dailies located in 29 markets.”

A $100 stake in MNI purchased on April 23, 2005 would today be worth $12.40.  This represents an 87.6% decline in shareholder value.  Here is how other newspaper publishers have fared during that same time span: 

•  NYT     -40.3%
• WPO     -19.6%
• GCI      -64.2%
• BLC       -45.9%
• SSP       -14.1%
• MEG -77.4%
• GHS -77.0%
• JRN -62.8%

In his bio, Mr. Pruitt has been CEO of MNI since 1996.   From then until 2005 he increased shareholder value almost 600%  But the times have changed.  The paradigm has shifted.  McClatchy needs a new LEADER not a lawyer to lead and inspire in this new media landscape.  For him to be the choice for NAA Chairman speaks volumes about how out of touch and lost that organization has become.  I wanted so much for someone from forward thinking organizations such as Scripps or Washington Post to be the next chairperson.  Oh boy.  Where is the innovation?  How is your organization adapting to the market expectations?