


Held in Kansas City, Missouri, the 2007 ING Annual Conference was the first ING event I have attended. Let me start off by saying that I was pleasantly surprised by the smooth program, the issues discussed, the tour of the Kansas City Star plant, and the turnout from vendors and publishing companies. Due to time constraints I was only able to attend Wednesday September 19th. Much happened on this day though, so all was not lost. I’ll lead you through the program as it occurred on Wednesday. I am paraphrasing so don’t assume the following is verbatim.
The Conference opens and quickly gets down to business. On Wednesday morning the topic of discussion was “publishing challenges in Kansas City (Kansas City Star)”.
President and Publisher Mac Tully begins with the market challenges and trends emphasizing that newspapers have a very difficult future ahead but that we are not as bad off as television (I guess that is a positive). In their efforts to embrace change within the newspaper industry Mr. Tully went on to mention the redesign of the newspaper and the completion of their new 199 million dollar printing plant. He also expressed his opinion that newspapers are factual and fair media channels which serve as “watchdogs” for their community. He also emphasized the idea that “total readership” and not circulation should define their reach, a reach he stated which is bigger than that of Television (in their geographic area I am assuming). It was a feel good speach which was met with applause.
Peter Ricker VP Advertising focused his presentation on ROI, ROP advertising, simplifying the advertising rates and procedures, and the increase in color capacity at the new plant.
C. Christian VP Circulation explained how the paper handled the redesign and the completion of their new printing facility. Both of these projects are huge undertakings and for them to occur and come on line on the same day is an amazing feat of planning and teamwork. The campaign theme was “Brighter, Bolder, Better” and it was used to emphasize the increase in color capacity, the redesign, and the new plant. Starting in March of 2006 the KC Star first told its employees, and then conducted TV and radio interviews, followed by speaking engagements. These continued along with heavy print and online promotions until June of 2006 when the new paper was printed on the new presses. The total print readership is now higher than that of 1999-2000 levels.
Randy Waters VP Production spoke about the new plant and equipment. Expansion and retooling were not feasible construction from May 12, 2003 to June 2006. Some of the highlights: 4 KBA Commander presses consisting of 9 towers and 10 reel stands. 48″ web with 21.5″ cut-off. 80 pages straight 40 process color (48 pc on a 72 page run). 6 folders and 3 stitchers. (I thought this was a great feature allowing saddle stitching at press speed, think of the possibilities, TV guide, special sections, bringing advertising back from commercial shops, etc…) The paper handling was equally impressive. Using computer controlled cranes and conveyors; a human never touches the rolls of paper from the time they are delivered minimizing damage, error, and variation.
Break………….
When we returned the subject moved to photo toning. The following concepts and software programs were presented and discussed: Automated preflight and photo toning, OneVision’s Asura and InkSave, Morris DigitalWorks BluMunkee, and Agfa’s IntelliTune.
I was especially interested in the OneVision software. As the company states on their website, “PlugINKSAVEin is a Plugin for Asura and Asura Pro which has the ability to reduce a significant amount of ink”. It works by taking customers’ images and re-separates them to boost black ink usage and conserve expensive CMY inks. The software was reported to save 6 to 24% in ink usage. Imagine that your ink costs are 2million dollars a year, assuming a conservative 10% reduction in ink usage, one could save $200,000! Sounds like a no brainer to me. This could not have been timelier as Flint Ink and others have announced they are raising ink prices.
The last few hours at the conference was spent discussing the ING internship program and predictive maintenance but I was in and out for meetings so I won’t go into detail here. The ING website should have powerpoints of the presentations up soon.
Lastly, and the part I was most looking forward to, we headed to the new Kansas City Star newspaper printing plant. The plant utilizes four KBA Commander presses consisting of 9 towers and 10 reel stands each operating up to 80 IPH. Although quite tall, the presses were very nice and quiet. The glass walls of the plant were nice too, as most printing presses are housed in buildings with no windows. I was most impressed with two features of the plant. One, the folders have a saddle stitcher enabling the press to produce a bound tabloid format publication at press speed. Two, the paper roll storage, delivery, and loading is completely automated leaving little room for human error.
Looking to the future I wish the Kansas City Star my best and thank them for taking us on a tour. I hope that their expanded capabilities in the new plant enhance the publication and its reach into the community.