More Added Value: Many Possibilities For Newspapers

MAN Roland's annual kick-off event for the German-language trade press was held in Augsburg in February. The press conference focused on “New value-adding possibilities in newspaper printing” and the MAN Roland speaker was Anton Hamm, Executive Vice President Newspaper Printing Systems Business Unit. MAN Roland is the world market leader in web offset.

New markets, new readers

Daily newspapers all over the world are currently trying hard to gain new markets and new readers with new products. The demands placed on newspaper production are in particular full four-colour editions, higher productivity, and greater topicality to combat the competition from TV and the Internet; a higher level of economic efficiency, plus better and more consistent quality. Anton Hamm clearly identified some important trends: newspapers are becoming more attractive and easier to read and are aiming more closely at young people and women. By adopting tabloid and compact formats, newspapers are becoming smaller. A growing number are printed in selected-commercial quality or contain selected commercial sections. And automation in areas such as closed-loop quality control, workflows and logistics systems are gaining in importance.

Smaller formats

There is a worldwide trend towards tabloid and compact formats. The large-format papers are no longer dominant, especially in Europe, parts of Latin America, China and Australia . These new formats are often linked with concepts to gain new readers. An outstanding example is Metro-International which, with 130 titles and a circulation of 15 million copies, has meanwhile become the world's third-largest daily paper.

Creativity to attract more ads

Creativity is also needed for gaining advertising business in the future. Super-Panorama ads, small ads placed in the otherwise free Panorama area, new types of folds or small ads printed heatset are additional possibilities for adding value to the daily newspaper. And with small ads presented in a coldset magazine with a heatset cover, newspapers are getting back some of the business lost to the Internet.

Customised printing systems

MAN Roland offers customised newspaper printing systems for these new value-adding concepts. The REGIOMAN in 4/1 design has been a great success since it was launched in 2000 and has well and truly arrived on the international newspaper scene. One of its main advantages is that, with only half the number of printing plates, the REGIOMAN has the same output as a conventional 16-page press. Also with the COLORMAN in XXL format, product costs are between 20 and 25 percent lower even though productivity is higher. And the format XXL COLORMAN will soon be available with a new reel splicer for reels with a diameter of up to 150 cm, and a jaw folder with a 4:7:7 cylinder ratio. On top of this, DICO technology provides solutions for digital newspaper printing which can be utilised for low-circulation, decentralised production or combined with conventional printing.

Workflow and LifeCycleManagement ever more important

A very important factor for keeping developments in the newspaper business positive is newspaper workflow which must move away from manual or “island” solutions and instead comprise total networking of all publishing and production tasks. printnet, the production management system from MAN Roland and its subsidiary company pp i Media, is a customised tool which can do just that. MAN Roland will also in future be paying even closer attention to pressline operating costs – over the entire life cycle. This LifeCycleManagement approach is based on the fact that the costs for running a pressline for ten years are five times higher than the initial investment sum. Potential savings of up to 20 percent are possible when the costs for paper waste, energy, maintenance, consumables and floor space are viewed as a whole and systematically reduced.