Newspaper Redo Takes Imagination

A marketing manager for a West Coast utility complained to me of her local newspaper's declining print quality. “Why has my ad started looking so bad,” she asked? “It's reflecting poorly on us.” Guessing, I suggested the publisher may have reacted to market pressures by changing papers, and then had not adjusted production processes—imagesetter color curves, inks, etc., to make the best of the paper he is now working with.

The invisible hand of the marketplace is becoming pretty visible—for airlines, auto manufacturers, restaurateurs and, of particular concern for commercial printers, for the U.S. newspaper business. That segment of our industry, where publishing is vertically integrated to manufacturing, needs an extreme makeover.

Newspapers drive billions of dollars in local and national commercial print work—think Sunday inserts and their impact on folks like Valassis, Vertis, RR Donnelley, Quebecor World. Newspapers also spell a great market opportunity for commercial printers to take over the papers' print operations. Newspapers themselves produce billions of dollars in commercial jobs. Some of them have divisions devoted to it—Gannett Offset, Tribune Direct, Intelligencer Printing—the latter a unit of Steinman Enterprises, which also publishes three Pennsylvania newspapers.

As newspapers reinvent themselves, they must think creatively. What is a newspaper in the age of the Internet? What content should it carry? What should its websites be? How should it be delivered?

Some newspapers are adding new webs to cut waste and add color, adding CTP, even outsourcing to commercial printers. But some choices being made by publishers and industry groups may not serve the long-term interest of newspaper publishers or their friends in commercial printing.

Reflective of the problems plaguing newspapers is Nexpo, a trade show that, as a conference, is great. If there is one thing newspaper people can do, it's write and talk. It was at Nexpo four years ago I first learned of the start-up Craig's List, the free online ad service that has since eroded the classified ad gravy train in hundreds of U.S. towns and 60 countries.)

But Nexpo as a venue for technology is, well, yesterday's news. The Newspaper Assn. of America, which runs it, should merge the show with Graph Expo. Exhibitors turned out in April for Nexpo in D.C. And the show certainly carries much more in the way of web presses than does Graph Expo. But just 1,500 attendees showed up—most more focused on content and marketing than manufacturing.

The failure of the show reflects insular, inward thinking. The association has been unable to respond inventively to years of overtures for joint ventures with other groups. We hope this truly doesn't reflect the character of newspaper operators. But we are much more impressed by outsiders like Sam Zell, who acquired the Tribune Companies, or Cablevision, which battled two other high rollers to pay $650 million for NY Newsday. Or News Corp., now owners of the Wall Street Journal, who quickly added a London edition (printed by a commercial plant) that closes with the New York version, and easily delivers at sunrise in the U.K.

There are good reasons these high rollers have pledged faith, and money, in the newspaper market. Cablevision sees an opportunity to integrate newspaper deliveries to its cable subscribers on Long Island. Steinman pursues a strategy linking Intelligencer's growing mailing operations to reach beyond Pennsylvania newspaper audiences. For commercial printers, let's hope the news segment follows such visionaries, so there will still be a news business for which to provide print services.

Editor-in-Chief bill.esler@reedbusiness.com