Steve Brown, who runs Stroma – pioneer and probably the best-known of the world’s digital newspaper printing sites – with his brother Rob, says that although it has been a springboard to other things, he has “never really made any money” from the market segment.
Beyond planned redundancy to ensured client expectations are met, there are plenty of slots he would like to fill on the two-shift, 24-hour operation at his Southall plant, strategically a quarter of an hour from London’s Heathrow airport.
When I call in on my way back from the PrintCity event in Munich, there’s a newspaper job running on the Océ JetStream 1000 inkjet web. But it’s mostly mono.... not what he upgraded from a toner-based mono system for.
And the four-page political newsletter running to the Hunkeler finishing line – seven versions across a 10,000 print order – exploits the digital print capability rather than the drum collating technology of the new-generation line.
An earlier VarioStream 7450 stands ready for bookwork, and Brown says he could get 50 per cent more work through the plant if it would fit schedules.
Such is the lot of the digital newspaper printer: The plant will begin to burst into life shortly, of course. As international editions successively close for press around the world, the files come in for Stroma’s base newspaper business... Starting with the likes of Australian Fairfax metros ‘The Age’ and the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’, it will successively produce editions of the world’s best-known and most-respected newspaper titles, mostly for very timely ‘Day One’ publication.
Around the globe, digital printing delivers on the demand for ‘home from home’ papers for ex-pats and others. Other specialist printers, among them Malcolm Miller’s units in Malta and Cyprus, make a living from a product which is hard to value. Stroma was early into the business, printing Swiss financial paper ‘Neue Zürcher Zeitung’ before joining Océ’s Digital Newspaper Network. These days, although it holds a licence for digital distributor Newspapes Direct, most of its contracts are direct with publishers.
However Brown accepts this business – perhaps the production segment’s low-hanging fruit – has a limited window of opportunity.
Many of the Fairfax dailies will be presented as a tangible reward to passengers at the front end of the Qantas flights home. The complimentary premium editions are still relatively expensive, however, and for many passengers, being progressively superseded by iPad editions downloaded in the lounges before departure.
Fairfax has flagged the possibility of cutting “expensive to deliver” editions to remote areas, but not made clear whether it has digitally-printed international editions in its sights.
A decade-and-a-half down the track, the digital newspaper printing segment continues to evolve. Full-colour inkjet is meeting expectations in a colourful world, breathing new life, but is effectively subject to the same limitations (with regard to paper choice and gloss) as coldset offset.
Brown accepts the need to look for additional markets and has chosen books over transpromo and variable data printing, because of the volume and a better fit with the firm’s ‘green button’ policy (any of the team can run a job without specialist training) and doesn’t call for additional data processing expertise. Inline-finished products would also bring specific investment and skill requirements.
Newspapers are in any case, only a part of the business he started in 2001 after the timely sale of a repro shop in 1998. A range of sheetfed equipment – all of it digital – including Océ’s CS650 toner-based colour machine, already complements the two webs with covers and the like. The toner product is “six to ten times as expensive” as that on the inkjet web.
Brown sees regional and community newspapers, perhaps with microzoned advertising, as the next growth area, but has yet to land a regular contract. He’s just completed a 5000-copy newspaper job on which he says pricing was competitive, “with Océ’s support”.
The price is “down to the bare bones” and certainly at the top end of digital’s breakeven threshold against offset… competition Brown says he had always tried to avoid. The night before, I’d been at the manroland-equipped and highly-automated plant of two German regional dailies, where editions as small as 700 copies were being produced on a double-width press. Not that they would have been pitching for contract work of that type.
The problem with volume is flatline costing: “For the digital print model to work,” he says, “the price will have to come down. Then we’ll see more publications coming through.”
The political flyer is a good example of what city-based plants such as Stroma are good at, albeit preferably with higher pagination products. Brown is also exploring advertising opportunities, but has had to recruit a specialist salesman to promote the medium’s potential.
As per-copy costs come down and quality increases, the prospect of remote digital print sites becomes more viable, and Brown’s operation has already been under scrutiny from those with such thoughts, including his Sydney-headquartered customer. Like its Murdoch-owned rival, Fairfax currently trucks newspapers many hundreds of kilometres to agents and distributors in remote areas.
The PrintCity event I had attended earlier in the week was very much dedicated to the idea of promoting print, with the obvious self-interest of its alliance members, which include both manroland and Océ.
They argue the case for print over online and mobile digital products such as iPad and other tablet editions. Printed newspapers still command impact and attention but sales in most developed markets are suffering.
However, digital newspaper printing brings several new opportunities to the table – including the concept of the ‘audience of one’ – and is increasingly affordable.
Yet to make it work, partnerships with businesses such as Stroma, and/or cooperation between publishing rivals, will be essential.
• Peter Coleman visited Stroma as a guest of PrintCity and Océ.
Opportunities: Steve Brown (top) with Stroma’s Océ colour inkjet