An act of faith underpins Le Télégramme’s 20 million Euro (A$32.9 million) decision to buy a new double-width press to produce the French regional daily, when others are scrapping equipment and moving out of print.
But it is not one that has been taken lightly.
“All print newspapers are decreasing in circulation, all over the world and France is no different,” technical director Olivier Berthelot tells me, “but not all are falling at the same rate. And not all have the same strategy.”
With circulation being lost at between four and five per cent a year, the paper is better placed than national newspapers which have to compete for audience with radio.
And Berthelot points to the defeatist strategy of some publishers which have increased cover prices and cut editions in order to balance their books in the face of increased paper, energy and labour costs, “Excel is making this perfect,” he adds in a reference to spreadsheet cost management. Some newspapers, with cover prices as high as three Euros (A$4.94) have found readers restrict themselves to one copy a week.
What’s noticeable at Le Télégramme is the commitment to content, with a large editorial staff and a four million Euros renovation of its premises including installation of EidosMedia’s Méthode content management system.
The family-owned newspaper is committed to its current 19 local editions and would like to have more, a contrast to newspapers that reduce editions to cut print costs. “You can (lose circulation) slowly or quickly, depending upon what you do,” Berthelot said.
He joined the group seven years ago from robotics experience with car-maker Citroën and 24 years with neighbouring regional Ouest-France.
“The first thing I was told was that we could not continue to produce the paper with the Wifag presses, as the cost was becoming higher year-by-year,” he says.
The high-end presses had no reel handling, and no closed loop systems for register or ink density, let alone plate automation, and Berthelot says the first option was a retrofit to “take care of the obsolescence”; the second to “look at what you can do for new”.
Post-COVID and with the start of the Ukraine war, there was the added complication of a huge increase in the cost of energy and paper.
With a requirement then (seven years ago) for 72 people for press, prepress, mailroom, and maintenance, options considered included extending print times – with an earlier start and later finish – to make it possible to shut down one press and modernise the other, but this proved impracticable for the high edition count.
“The target of M. Coudurier (president of the Télégramme Group) was to stay with same number of editions or maybe more, our hyperlocal status and ability to talk about what is happening in each village being a big differentiating factor,” he says.
“Most French newspapers when they think about saving costs, they think about firing people, and then they do not have enough to change the plates, and they have to think about cutting editions; the more they cut editions, the more circulation shrinks, as they get close to a national model.”
An option was to replace one of the Wifags with a new press, but “taking care of the obsolescence” was costly and complicated by the exit of the Swiss press maker (now Polytype) from the market, and the reduced involvement of the maker of its press controls.
“A retrofit would allow us to continue, but we would be investing to stay with the same number of people, and the costs would remain the same,” says Berthelot.
But as ideas evolved – if they were to invest in one new press, it might carry them to the stage where that alone would be sufficient – hopes rose of a better plan.
And with president Édouard Coudurier supporting an investment, they began to explore the potential of a new press that might ‘change the model’ – despite its higher capital cost – and modelling best and worst-case scenarios past 2030.
“Refresh the old or invest in the latest technology – c’est pas la même chose*,” Berthelot tells me.
Vendors are lined up, visits arranged, and detailed proposals invited from the two German manufacturers remaining in the market (Mitsubishi had announced their decision to stop making newspaper presses the week before my visit). Meanwhile, a management decision was also taken to ration the amount of paper used in a year, leading to pagination not exceeding 64 pages, instead of 72.
“A direct factor is the views of the owner, and also of the management team,” he says. “Either you think the newspaper will disappear in maybe five to seven years – then cheapest is best – or you think that as 95 of revenue is tied to print, you must stay with it as long as possible – ten, maybe 15 years with a plateau; then the best solution is the one that addresses the long term vision.”
And yes, the cost of the latter is, perhaps double.
“We did then look around, and were presented presses that are ‘catalogue presses’, fitting to what you can find in France at the moment,” Berthelot says. “What was presented was mainly the 4x1 format popular in France now, with its saving in plates, but requiring more towers, and even with higher speed, not having the capacity to produce 19 editions within the accepted time.”
A ‘desirable’ was the ability to split the edition into sections – when I had seen Le Télégramme run the previous night, the split was 24 tabloid pages stitched, plus four and another 20. And with transport and delivery outsourced, there were fears that a late finish would mean some readers didn’t get their paper until midday.
“After visiting sites in Europe, we decided the solution was in fact, 4x2,” he says, “more adapted to our wishes but with some other problems”. One issue journalists have had to come to terms with is an eight-page page jump.
In the end, Berthelot says the more tailor-made solution was that of manroland Goss, and the order for a four-tower, two-folder Colorman e:line – capable of printing two 64-page tabloids – was announced in October 2021.
It has the maker’s PECOM controls including ink key positioning SlidePad and tablet-based MobilPad, but importantly inline control closed loop systems covering automatic ink density control and fan-out for quality and waste control, presetting and automatic alignment in the reelstands, and APL automatic plate loading using pivoting robot arms in the print towers. Plus a raft of other automation technology and the cost advantage that some of the systems come from manroland Goss’s subsidiary Grapho Metronic.
Timed with the installation has been faster Schur mailroom equipment, and upgraded prepress using Nela tech and ProImage’s Newsway which drives plate sorting, and Kodak’s Sonora ‘process-free’ plates.
Oliver Berthelot and, we understand, his boss, are well pleased with the outcome, which includes a reduction in staff requirement from 72 to eight.
Immediate savings were achieved by stopping recruitment and timing retirements, and the two Wifag presses – still located on either side of the new Colorman e:line – are idle, added to a collection of print ephemera that includes Linotypes and an old autoplate caster. Valuable only for their hard-to-source components, it will of course, cost money to remove them.
Of the overall investment, 15 per cent – about three million Euros – would have in any case been needed for renovation of the building, cooling, and roof, “plus obsolescence”.
Looking back on COVID-19 and the energy crisis, it’s clear that had they not moved as they did, they would have been forced to stop both the Wifag presses and the 19 editions.
“Having a plan, taking a decision was ‘useful’,” he says with modest understatement.
Peter Coleman
Pictured (from top): Olivier Berthelot and the new Morlaix press and prepress facilties
* pas la même chose – “it is not the same thing”