Primera instalación mundial de impresión para periódicos digitales en Suiza

Mengis Druck AG, based in Visp in the Swiss canton of Valais, is setting a milestone in the graphic arts industry by installing the world's first digital newspaper printing press for a daily newspaper. The Walliser Bote, Mengis' flagship publication, will be printed digitally from July and finished in the mailroom using an AlphaLiner from Muller Martini

‘Digital printing and its potential applications’ was the title of the thesis that Nicolas Mengis wrote at the Technical College of the Graphic Arts Industry in Basel in 1997 and which was later also published as a book. Eighteen years later he is in charge of the world's first digital printing press as chairman of Mengis Group's board of directors.

In July the Walliser Bote, which has a print run of six times 22,000 copies per week, will become the first daily newspaper worldwide to be printed using an HP T400 Color Inkjet Web Press. The new digital printing system, which will replace an older web offset printing press in the summer, will also print commercial products.

The ‘flagship project’, as Alois Hochstrasser, director of Muller Martini marketing, described the pilot system at a small celebration of the signing of the supply contracts at Mengis, comprises a folding system from Manroland Web Systems and a mailroom from Muller Martini in addition to the HP T400. The core of Muller Martini's mailroom is the AlphaLiner inserting system featuring an automatically fed main section feeder and two insert feeders, as well as an inkjet addressing unit, a PrintStack compensating stacker, a TABA-S top sheet applicator, a cross strapping unit and the Mailroom Production Control (MPC) system.

Martin Seematter, managing director of Mengis Druck AG, explained that there were three main benefits of the Muller Martini solution, ‘First, the price-performance ratio of the AlphaLiner is optimal. Second, it's very compact, which benefits us since space is scarce. And third, unlike with our previous solution, we can control the PrintStack compensating stacker. That's of great benefit to us in terms of route-specific distribution and zoning of inserts.’

La expansión de plantas de impresión en Pennsylvania genera nuevos espacios para clientes

Work continues on the PA Media Group presses in Mechanicsburg, Pa., Jan. 29, 2015, to expand printing capacity to start printing the Lancaster newspaper May 4. Greg Smith readjusts the press for a narrower paper width. Mark Pynes | Esta dirección de correo electrónico está siendo protegida contra los robots de spam. Necesita tener JavaScript habilitado para poder verlo.

The towering white press plant looming over I-81 in Hampden Twp., where the Patriot-News is printed, is undergoing a major expansion.
Advance Central Services Pennsylvania, the company that owns the production facility, is investing in new equipment, adding as many as 20 jobs, and taking on more customers in addition to its current work printing The Patriot-News.
ACS PA announced the $3.6 million expansion in conjunction with the company's new contract to print LNP - Lancaster's daily newspaper - beginning in May. The deal with Lancaster involves printing some 60,000 additional newspapers every weekday and 80,000 more on Sundays.

Kurt Hower, ACS PA Operations Director, said Lancaster is the company's first seven-day-a-week print client. Currently, ACS PA prints six regional weekly publications, along with serving various retail print customers, including Kohl's and Boscov's. ACS PA prints The Patriot-News every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.

Hower said a four-story Goss-Metroliner tower, a newsprint folder, more conveyers and enhanced press controls will be added to the building, which opened in 2001 as one of the first businesses in Cumberland Technology Park off Wertzville Road. 
To better enable printing outside contracts, ACS PA struck an agreement with Pennsylvania Media Group, which publishes The Patriot-News, to narrow the width of the newspaper. About an inch will be trimmed beginning this Sunday in a resizing that aligns with industry standards.

D. Lee Carlson, PA Media Group President, assured readers the new width will not affect the amount of content in the paper. PA Media Group provides the news, sports and entertainment coverage, sales and marketing to both PennLive and The Patriot-News. 
The newsroom is taking advantage of the format change to add several new features. An 8-page puzzle section, expanded weather page and improved TV Week are among the items that will debut in this weekend's Sunday Patriot-News. Also being revamped are easier-to-read Classified and Obituary sections.

Perhaps the most noticeable change takes place in Sports, which is reverting to a broadsheet section from its current tabloid form. The change will provide more display space for stories and especially photos.
"We have such great sports photography. That was the No. 1 thing propelling the move back to a broadsheet," said Cate Barron, Vice President of Content for PA Media Group. Barron said the change was also made in response to positive reader reaction to the broadsheet Penn State section published during football season.

Thursday's GO! entertainment section is also converting from a tab to a broadsheet.
Patriot-News subscribers surveyed in several focus groups were satisfied with the easier-to-handle size. "We thought they would push back," said Carlson. "They didn't. They really liked it."
Carlson welcomes the press plant expansion. "This fits with our current strategy of being digitally focused, but at the same time, serving those readers who like their print product, all while growing our commercial printing business regionally," she said. "It makes us more of a well-rounded organization.

Two years into PA Media Group's conversion to a digitally forward operation, PennLive is getting stronger, too. Its audience grew by 20 percent in 2014 and the website now averages more than 1 million page views a day, making it one of the largest news and information sites in Pennsylvania.

The newsroom recently added a reporting position to its Capitol Bureau and three additional positions to cover news beyond the paper's traditional circulation area. Barron said PennLive and The Patriot-News are continuing their commitment to watchdog journalism, in-depth enterprise and investigative reporting statewide and in local communities. She noted this weekend's Sunday Patriot-News will include the launch of a two-part series on the charter school movement in Pennsylvania and several opinion pieces on Gov. Tom Wolf's firing of the state's Open Records Office chief. 

Barron credited the improved business climate, which includes the robust growth in PennLive's audience and advertising, as enabling the newsroom to add reporters at a time when many media companies are cutting staff.
"These past two years have been challenging for everyone," she said. "But solid business decisions have insured the continued vitality of this news operation." 
Paul Thomas, ACS PA Vice President and General Manager, said the investment in the 177,000-square-feet press plant will make it one of central Pennsylvania's leading printing facilities. It is a member of the IFRA International Newspaper Quality Club and has been the recipient of numerous awards for print quality and distribution.

"We have tremendous capacity in both volume and color," Thomas said. "We care a great deal about quality reproduction. This increases our capacity for even more pages, more copies and greater speed. And we are currently in discussion with other regional clients."

Discovery Print invierte en cabezales de impresión digital de KODAK

Discovery Print, the printing arm of DC Thomson, is to install a Kodak digital print head, becoming one of only two businesses in the UK to invest in the technology.

Kodak Prosper digital print head. (Image courtesy of Kodak)
Kodak’s Prosper S-Series Imprinting System (digital print head) is expected to be fitted in February 2015. The digital print head will provide Discovery Print with the ability to produce bespoke newspapers capable of featuring unique advertising and marketing content.

It will also allow the business to produce micro-promotions using geocoded maps, barcodes and coupons and localised information including personalised text and images.  The innovative solution will operate alongside the company’s existing full press running speed of 90,000 copies per hour.

Discovery Print and DC Thomson Head of Operations (Newspapers), Guy Forester said, “The digital print head is an exciting proposition for the business and its clients who can combine print with web and mobile based marketing and advertising which, in turn, allows for enhanced measurability.

“In terms of what it offers our own titles, we print DC Thomson’s regional and weekly newspaper titles and the print head provides us with the ability to produce tailored marketing and advertising initiatives and campaigns via uniquely printed barcodes and coupons or more targeted campaigns for our advertisers.

“The addition to our print facility sets us apart from competitors allowing us to offer additional services to current and prospective contract print clients that are relatively rare within the UK marketplace.”

Kodak Newspaper Sales Manager, UK & Ireland, Mark Humphreys adds, “We’re delighted that Discovery Print has chosen to install Kodak’s Prosper S-Series Imprinting System. The installation will provide Discovery Print with valuable hybrid options to its lithographic press, which can change the dynamic of its market offering enormously. The potential that the Kodak Prosper heads has in terms of increased diversification and overall profitability is a particularly exciting one and we look forward to seeing Discovery Print go from strength to strength.”

DC Thomson & Co Ltd is a private company and one of the leading publishing houses in the UK.  The company’s headquarters is in Dundee, Scotland, with a London base in Fleet Street.  The company publishes newspapers, magazines, comics and books.  It also has interests in radio, printing, retailing and online services. 

New York Times lanza nueva serie de videos de real estate

The New York Times is launching a monthly real estate video series, spotlighting particular neighborhoods around New York City.
The goal of the series is to "help both readers and people searching for real estate understand what it is like to live in a specific neighborhood," a spokesperson said.
The series, called “Block by Block,” will supplement editorial pieces.

The first installment in the series focuses on Bedford-Stuyvesant, and can be found here. 

MORE ON CAPITAL

• Brian Williams pulls himself off ‘NBC Nightly News’—for now
• NBC News considering ‘best next steps’ with Brian Williams
• NowThis scraps its website, goes all-in on social

The approximately five-minute-long video includes interviews with local residents, business owners, realtors and historians, who discuss the appeal of living in Bed-Stuy, along with shots of the neighborhood. (Councilman Robert Cornegy, who represents Bed-Stuy, is also featured in the video.)

The Times has focused on upgrading its digital coverage of real estate, and in mid-November 2014 launched an updated version of its real estate app, for iOS devices.
The upgraded real estate app includes several new functions, including a mortgage calculator and streamlined functionality for easily communicating with real estate agents.

Nuevo nozzle de alta definición para rotativas digitales de HP

Today HP held a briefing for media and analysts to announce a significant technology breakthrough for HP Inkjet Web Presses.  High Definition Nozzle Architecture, or HDNA, is a field upgradable improvement (no forklifts!) that will be available in beta this year and commercially in 2016.  It effectively increases speeds in Performance Mode up to 800 fpm for a 33% speed increase (Quality Mode up to 400 fpm) with a native resolution of 1200 dpi, with 2400 nozzles per inch.  HP sent us print samples in advance, and WOW, they are amazing. 

You will be able to see samples for yourself at Hunkeler Innovationdays, Jetcomm and DscoopX. The existing installed base will be able to benefit from an upgrade to this technology, and new presses will start to be manufactured with it in the 2016 timeframe.  An important aspect of these heads is that they are the same form factor as existing heads, making field upgrades much easier.  HP indicates upgrades will require a combination of hardware, software and firmware that will be able to be accomplished with minimal disruption to productivity on the floor

A key element of this technology is the placement of nozzles BETWEEN nozzles on the existing printhead that allow a dual drop weight and doubles the number of nozzles to 21,120. Dual drop weight enables smoother color transitions, lower grain and a greater number of addressable colors within the color gamut, as well as 5 different gray levels in a pixel, which cannot be achieved with a single drop size.

While this is a significant technology breakthrough, HP was careful to point out that it is just one of the innovations in the HP pipeline for Inket Web Press owners.
Watch for more technical detail on WhatTheyThink on Monday with an article from David Zwang.  I’m sure if I got any of this wrong, someone will correct me!

Times of India reconfigura sus rotativas

Print facilities at the Times of India have been upgraded with the relocation and reconfiguration of towers in Delhi and Mumbai.
The group - which is the largest user of manroland web presses in India - has Colorman, Geoman, Regioman and double-width Cromoman presses at sites around the country.
Recently two Geoman towers from Mumbai to the Times of India print site in Sahibabad - which is in northern India near Delhi - and an existing Geoman expanded to include six towers. As colour advertising becomes an increasingly popular option, especially during festival season, the upgrade enables 48 pages of colour, and print editions of 40 or 48 pages. Engineers TOI worked with colleagues from manroland India to cut the conversion time to a minimum.

In Mumbai, two Colorman presses have been linked to increase flexibility in terms of page numbers. An additional web path guides two webs from one system through the balloon-former to the folder on the second system. This enables the printing of products with up to four 16-page sections or 64-page newspaper copies. In addition to additional web leads and turner bar levels, manroland web systems installed a new register control system.

Project lead Ralf Schädlich says the challenge was to keep the entire system available for daily production. "TOI could only offer to take a short break from using the system for three days," he says. "During this time, we also needed to do all testing and commission the system. At night, the presses kept running at full capacity."
The actual conversion process took place in less than three weeks.

Trucos de los medios para atraer a los lectores hacia la suscripción

Errores y aciertos a la hora de vender un muro de pago

Los principales periódicos del mundo han optado en su mayoría por implementar algún tipo de paywall. Convencer a los lectores de las bondades de la suscripción no es una tarea nada fácil. Muchos son los factores que intervienen en el proceso y no todos los medios saben cómo vender su producto. La compañía Econsultancy ha analizado de qué forma presentan sus muros de pago varios diarios para poner de relieve sus puntos fuertes y débiles.
Una de las máximas comerciales es que da igual lo bueno que sea tu producto, si no lo sabes vender, no llegará al consumidor final. Esta fórmula es igualmente válida para los paquetes de suscripción de los periódicos.

El redactor jefe de Econsultancy, Graham Charlton, ha analizado la forma en la que varios medios estadounidenses y británicos presentan sus muros de pago. ¿Cuáles son los errores y aciertos a la hora de perfilar y dar a conocer a los lectores sus paquetes de suscripción?

ACIERTOS
--Adoptar un paywall suave como el del “Daily Telegraph”, que permite leer 20 artículos gratis al mes desde cada dispositivo. Con un modelo híbrido, Google puede indexar los artículos y los usuarios de redes sociales compartirlos. Los lectores se van familiarizando con los contenidos y es más fácil que acaben pagando una suscripción.
-- Presentar claramente el tipo de paquetes que se ofertan. El precio debe estar bien visible, al igual que los beneficios de cada producto para poder compararlos.
--Suscripción personalizada. “The Times” es el único que realiza unas preguntas previas para ayudar al lector a seleccionar el paquete que mejor se adapte a sus preferencias.
--Incluir un chat en vivo para contactar directamente con el lector y resolver sus dudas, como hace “The Sun”.
--Ofrecer promociones especiales a los suscriptores. “The Sun” informa de las ventajas de hacerse socio, como por ejemplo conseguir camisetas de fútbol retro o descuentos vacacionales.

ERRORES
--Requerir registrarse para poder leer varios artículos al mes de forma gratuita. Tener que introducir datos personales, como obliga “Financial Times”, puede ser una barrera que disuada a los usuarios. En el caso de “FT” no es algo malo, porque ése no es el público que les interesa, pero otros medios no se pueden permitir una desbandada.
--Los paywalls duros de “The Times” o “The Sun” impiden el intercambio en redes sociales.
--No añadir un apartado con preguntas frecuentes y no facilitar un número de teléfono al futuro suscriptor.
--Incluir demasiados detalles de cada producto puede tener el efecto contrario al buscado: que los lectores se pierdan entre tanta información y la compra no acabe materializándose (“The Times”). Medios como “FT” y “New York Times” confían en el conocimiento que tienen sus lectores de sus contenidos y se pueden permitir incluir menos detalles de cada producto. Al final, esta táctica resulta ser más eficaz.

En cuanto a las cifras, los paywalls duros experimentan tasas de retención de usuarios de tan solo un 15 o 20%, mientras que el de los más blandos llega al 58%. Las suscripciones digitales de “Financial Times” aumentan un 23% al año, llegando a 476.000, más de dos tercios de su audiencia total. Telegraph Media Group reportó un beneficio en 2014 de 55 millones de libras, con un incremento de los ingresos digitales.“The Times”, por su parte, llega a los 291.000 suscriptores digitales (54%), “The New York Times” a los 875.000 (44.000 solo en el cuarto trimestre del año, el mayor crecimiento en dos años) y “The Sun” duplicó la cantidad llegando a 225.000.

Washington Post lanza nuevas secciones de energía y medio ambiente

The Washington Post’s long-anticipated energy and environment section anchored by former Mother Jones correspondent Chris Mooney launched Thursday.
In the section’s inaugural post, Mooney laid out his ambitions, noting that coverage of environmental issues has “never mattered more.” The Post will aim its coverage at “consumers, policymakers, executives and scientists” and turn its eye toward both international and domestic news.

We are now upping our environmental focus and launching this new coverage to bridge the gap between the urgency of environmental and energy problems and a public that too often finds them mystifying, off-putting, daunting and dizzying.
When The Post announced Mooney’s hire in October, the paper forecasted the rollout of “a standalone blog” that would feature work from environment and energy writers across the newsroom.
The Post’s investment in environmental coverage mirrors a similar move made late last year at The New York Times. In September, Adam Bryant told Poynterhe had been appointed environment editor for the paper, and that The Times was adding more reporters to cover the topic.