Ifra South-East Europe Conference -- ntSummaries
Summaries by Ifra Senior Editor Klaus von Prümmer
Ifra’s second South-East Europe Conference, the region’s international forum for newspapers, started Wednesday afternoon, 19 September, in Belgrade, Serbia. In the business centre of Hotel "M", Birke Becker of the Ifra events department and co-organiser Stevan Krisko welcomed 110 participants from 19 countries.
The group then went off to a plant visit of the APM print d.o.o., where General Director Natasa Vuckovic Lesendric explained the rapid changes from an outdated legacy to up-to-date production facilities, serving as contract printer for several newspapers. The printing house runs a MAN Roland Colorman 300 and has recently invested in mailroom equipment from Schur and a powerful CTP installation with an Agfa Polaris X ev, producing an average of 850 plates per night. The installations were explained by Michael Gyberg Knudsen from Schur (Denmark) and Igor Novosel, Agfa (Croatia).
On Thursday, moderator Manfred Werfel, director of research and deputy CEO of Ifra, thanked the sponsors for making the conference possible, principally Agfa, as well as Adobe, Goss International, HSM Informatica, Kodak, NetCom, Sava Print, Schur, Siegwerk, Tera digital publishing, UPM, and Woodwing.
Welcome by main sponsor
Rainer Kirschke, Regional Manager (Central Europe), Agfa, Germany
Kirschke outlined ideas about the evolution of going digital in all production processes. While Germany is already saturated with CTP installations, south-east Europe is just starting the conversion. Learning from one another will help to master the same challenges. For the future, the issues are the same, Kirschke said: quality, ecology, automation, and globalisation. Newspapers need to enhance their power to compete against other media. Agfa has joined the "VaPoN" activities (Value-added Printing on Newsprint) and sees new possibilities to print newspapers in a semi-commercial fashion and sell magazine-like publications on a daily basis. Workflow and process tracking can be installed with modules, step by step.
Kirschke referred to "chemistry free plate making" and to ink saving technologies that Agfa will present for the first time at the IfraExpo in Vienna, following successful introduction at Mediaprint (Austria).
New screening technology make newspapers look like magazines, Kirschke said. Components to enhance pictures automatically may be implemented gradually.
Keynote: Newspapers in South-East Europe – Future Prospects
Mario Milosevic, Director of Print Projekti d.o.o. consulting,
Tiskara Zagreb d.o.o., Croatia
Milosevic sees a trend to outsourcing printing because of the growing pressure of costs for publishers to intense investments for competitive equipment. While the publishers stay independent, their printing contracts may go to shared facilities. A growing customer demand for quality and many other factors require strong actions. While the coldset newspaper market seems to be saturated, new weeklies, free dailies and the substitution of heatset with coldset products offer opportunities. Growth may also be expected through heatset printing, either for clients from abroad (based on savings in comparison with neighbouring countries) or supplements and prospects. The revenue figures show that heatset is growing rapidly.
Prepress Production – Planning and Cost Reduction
Slaven Milos, CEO, Novi List, Rijeka, Croatia
The printing house Novi List was the first CTP user in the region four years ago. Milos reported that Novi List could reduce the time for making plates from 20 hours with the former procedures to three hours. The company uses two Agfa CTP lines. With the excellent CTP experiences, Milos did not see a need to maintain computer-to-film for backup.
Quality input of blankets in print production
Iztok Burdych, General Manager, SET d.d. and Voja Jevtic, Managing Director, Savatech d.o.o., Program Print, Slovenia
SET printing house was founded 15 years ago and is still expanding, said Burdych. Today it publishes three papers on a daily basis, while its focus is on heat-set printing for many magazines. A key technology, printing blankets, comed from Savatech, a company that once produced tyres and other rubber products and has now started to make offset rubber blankets.
Jevtic, along with Jani Japelj, technical support, from Savatech’s Program Print division, explained the special procedures for industrial testing of the blankets that were carried out in partnership with SET. Savatech can compete on the worldwide market, according to their presentation. The Slovenian blankets are made to tight tolerances and can be used in high-speed printing, they said.
Running Waste Reduction Projects
Moritz Schwarz, Consultant, Ifra/iMedia, Germany
Since newspapers always struggle with the immense cost of materials, Schwarz described strategies to avoid expensive waste. About 50 per cent of production costs are related to newsprint. Therefore, waste reduction is actually not only a topic of ecology, but has tremendous financial implications. Schwarz demonstrated how to increase efficiency at every stage, from the manufacturer to the printing press. Waste depends on many factors, such as number of pages, colour pages, editions, inserts, and so on.
As an ongoing challenge, a waste minimisation project needs the support of top management. It should start with the big reasons, but many small steps are required, as well as quality improvements in other areas, such as picture handling.
Regionalisation of Newspaper Production
Marjan Jurleka, CEO, Vecernji List d.d., Zagreb, Croatia
Jurleka presented himself “as the incorporation of the techncians’ nightmare”: Always complaining about printing quality and delays. People in his position would like to get rid of these losses of time and labour. He is ready to invest if the publisher gets a better product -- not average, but excellent is required.
To comply with this request, Vecernji List sees local content as key. According to Jurleka, the evening paper is known to about 98 percent of the population, but the readership tends to get older. As a response, the paper started to strengthen its nine regional editions throughout Croatia to reach new market segments and to fight the competition of radio and television. Editors were re-located from the centre in Zagreb to regional offices. The nine locations are connected by 2Mbit/s lines of the metropolitan area network. Also in online publishing, Vecernji List is the biggest portal in Croatia and has started an SMS service with news.
On the front pages, the paper presents both national content and individual local coverage. The layout looks very much like a magazine, with a cover that shows headlines and images only, referring to the full stories inside. As a result, Jurleka expects circulation growth by 15 percent in 2007 and even more in the next two years.
Technological Solutions for Changing Market Conditions
Marijan Beljan, Board Member, M.C. Glas Slavonije d.d., Croatia
Since its introduction in 1920 the newspaper in Ossiek, Croatia, has changed many times from Hungarian traditions to a most modern installation with a focus on commercial printing, using a KBA Compacta press and Kodak Thermal CTP. The newspaper, too, had growing demand for more page capacity and full colour. "Going new ways without fear" was the motto of all slides of Beljan's presentation. Printing quality has been improved with Staccato FM screening, which has received very favourable reactions from advertisers.
Printing According to ISO-Standards – Project ‘CHAMPION’: Quality Improvement, Quality Standard
Mario Milosevic, Director of Print Projekti d.o.o. consulting, Tiskara Zagreb d.o.o., Croatia
In his second speech, Milosevic reported on results of projects carried out with the Graphical University in Zagreb and Ifra. The goal is an industrial-like production process for the daily newspaper. Automation includes reliability, press mangement and control, presetting of data, connection of various providers and operating systems, multitasking, networking. His company has been commissioned by Ifra to print test forms that result in standard definitions for the industry in general. The participating newspaper Veernji list has received the Ifra ISO quality certificate based on ISO 12647-3:2004.
Plant visit
After this conference day, the participants spent the evening at the newspaper Novosti and the printing house Borba, both located in the heart of Belgrade. Manojlo Vutotic, general manager and chief editor of Kompanija Novosti, and Branislav Filipesko, technical director and development manager of Stamparija Borba, guided the group through the production floors. Printing and mailroom fill several stories of a tower situated between busy streets in the city centre. The big newspaper was privatised recently and is still in the process of change. A new printing facility will soon be erected in a location suitable for expansion. In the meantime, Novosti has invested in three lines of Memostick equipment. During the visit, they were used for coupons of the state lottery.
Successful Cross-media Publishing
Ralf Geisenhanslüke, Deputy Editor in Chief, Verlag E. Holterdorf GmbH & Co. KG, Germany
Geisenhanslüke, representing one of Ifra’s Cross-Media-Award winners in 2006, gave examples of successful cross-media publishing activities. Geisenhanslüke is deputy editor-in-chief of the German regional paper “Die Glocke” (The bell), which reaches 60,000 subscribers daily. For the world soccer championship in 2006, Die Glocke had built all kind of services around its printed product. The editors re-designed the print product to use as much material from the digital publications as possible and to explain the cross-media services. They conveyed the same look and feel throughout all media, including SMS announcements, the real-time live ticker (powered by the German press agency's dpa infocom stream), infographics and picture galleries.
They presented not only professional images, but also reader-generated content and internet chats, both of which were extensively exploited for the printed edition as well. Die Glocke also attracted attention with raffles and competitions. Players had to use the paper to get into the game and to see the results.
At a fixed time every day, Die Glocke published an “m-paper” with news and pictures to mobile phones. As an outcome from these experiences, Die Glocke continues to publish a live ticker of the German Bundesliga, breaking news via SMS, and the “m-paper” as a picture and text portal (soon to be followed by a video portal). Local events are already covered by a professional video team and some of the editors for “Glocke TV”. Geisenhanslüke also presented mobile portals of other German newspapers. The most important task, according to the speaker, was to implant the idea of cross-media thinking into the heads of the journalists. The feedback from readers was great: 5000 readers participated in contests.
Optimised Editorial Workflow
Dalibor Pinjuh, Managing Editor, Vecernji list d.d., Croatia, and Zdenka Starcevic, Sales Manager, NetCom d.o.o., Croatia
Pinjuh described the central data repository in a corporate environment. In addition, Starevic talked about the requirements for efficient editorial workflow along the principle “Create once, publish many times”. All incoming files from the editorial system, wire services, photo desk and other sources are stored in a central T@RK database. The newspaper used CDs and DVDs for long time storage. This content, too is now easily accessible on the T@RK database. Each photograph is tagged with information on content and copyright. From the database, photos may be published on the internet without duplicating any data. The physical configuration makes it easy to backup the data and to protect it against illegal access.
Inserts and Supplements for Editional Revenue
Iwona Grochowska, Director of Advertising Development and Promotion, Agora SA, Poland
Grochowska said she is certain that advertisers don’t like standards; to the contrary, she said, offering a variety of opportunities unleashes creativity. In Poland, strong competition from other titles and cheap TV spots does not allow newspapers to remain static. Agora, winner of INMA’s award as a “trendy medium”, offers aggressive formats, such as half-page wraps for the tabloid format, a series of ads in various and irregular shapes throughout an edition, graphic elements that project a shadow over the neighbouring page, island ads in the middle of a page, or ads surrounding the editorial text area of a page. The weekly entertainment section may present the customer's logo and promotion throughout all pages.
According to Grochowska, a survey among young readers has shown a very positive response. The printed ads can be transferred to the internet. In addition, the electronic version gets all possible interactivity. The idea of irregular shapes has obvious implications for the editors, too, Ms. Grochowska added. Two years ago, this might not have been thinkable. As moderator Manfred Werfel said: after 400 years, the publishers finally listen to what the readers like.
Cooperating Successfully with Customers
Bela Papp, Managing Director, Ringier Publishing, Hungary
Papp praised how Agora makes the daily newspaper “sexy” and complained about discrimination by traditional patterns of media buyers. In cooperation with Unilever, a campaign for a rather old-fashioned ice cream proved that newspapers (in Ringier’s case, combined with magazines) can deliver sales to the customers. Unilever agreed to a press campaign with Ringier media only. All other aspects did not change (except that the weather was rainier than in the same period a year previously). Unilever confirmed “dramatic growth” of awareness. The sales objectives were overachieved, the repositioning of the brand succeeded. Newspapers must approach those companies that otherwise spend most of their money on TV, and build attractive packages with competitive prices for big campaigns, said Papp.
Serbia’s First Free Sheet
Jelena Drakulic, Publisher - Newspaper division and Jovan Protic, Distribution Manager, Blic Press d.o.o. Ringier, Serbia
The first Serbian free daily newspaper, 24 sata (24 hours), published by a Ringier company, was presented. Drakulic described the concept to attract young urban readers and to establish new ways of distribution in Belgrade. It focuses on the most populated places with 180 distribution points. The paper is also handed out to automobile drivers during the rush hour.
To advertisers, 24 sata offers unusual formats and the option that one client may use all advertising space available on a specific day. The product has up to 24 pages in colour. Other major cities in Serbia such as Novi Sad may follow. While in Belgrade, 24 sata is designed for young urban professionals, the focus of the audience may be shifted in other cities. Asked whether the free paper would jeopardise the sales of Blic, Ringier’s paid newspaper, Drakulic did not see a real impact for other publications, since the target is young readers. Protic was sure that the cost of distribution are under control.
Distribution Organisation of Single Copy Sales
Pierre Wruck, Information Research Specialist, Ifra, Germany
Wruck said in the former Eastern Europe region, newspapers may still have room to grow. For single copy sales, the challenges are time management, route planning, finding the right sales points and making use of unsold copies.
Summary of the conference
Manfred Werfel, Director Research and Deputy CEO, Ifra, Germany
Werfel saw very dynamic markets in south-east Europe, both for print and for the integration of other media and new technical solutions. Publishers are always looking for new solutions to increase the newspapers' business. “There is a bright future ahead,” Werfel said. Ifra would certainly go a long way together with the publishers.
Next year, the conference will be held in Ljubljana.
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