| It
began as a trickle.
The
February 2005 announcement that Copley Press Inc. would
shutter presses used to print the Daily Breeze in Torrance,
Calif., and transfer printing and packaging to Southwest
Offset Printing was among the first tangible indications
that outsourcing and plant consolidation would be a potent
weapon with which publishers would corral costs.
Almost
four years later, that trickle is a flood, with newspapers
from coast to coast closing — or getting ready to
close — their printing facilities as they race to
control expenses.
Those
closures include plants operated by some of the industry’s
largest newspapers, including The New York Times, Los Angeles
Times and Boston Globe. The Los Angeles Times shuttered
its San Fernando Valley plant in late 2005 just months after
Tribune Co. spent millions of dollars upgrading the facility’s
presses.
No
slowing
Today,
the torrent shows no sign of abating. Within the next 12
months, dozens of other plants will print their last newspapers,
including those now operated by the San Francisco Chronicle,
Palm Beach (Fla.) Post and (Boise) Idaho Statesman.
And
shutting press and packaging facilities is only part of
the equation. Publishers are also looking at ways to share
other resources, including distribution and, most recently,
newsgathering — even if that means partnering with
rivals.
Just
recently, the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times and Miami Herald
said they’d work together to staff a Tallahassee bureau
and even the arch-rival Dallas Morning News and Fort Worth
Star-Telegram are exploring ways to more efficiently deploy
their respective reporting staffs.
“Publishers
are looking at everything because they have to cut costs
and/or increase revenues,” said Dario DiMare, president
of Dario Designs Inc. DDI is involved with more than a dozen
projects that span consolidation, outsourcing and partnering.
“They range from the story to the porch,” DiMare
said.
DiMare
said his discussions with publishers show they are willing
to evaluate partnerships they never would have considered
before.
“Look
at what’s happening with sharing news,” he said.
“If you have a centralized news desk (among rival
papers), then you’d be able to take some reporters
and let them cover local news in their own communities instead
of sending everyone to cover the same event.
More
money
“The
end game is not only is the paper saving money, it’s
also producing a better product, and potentially generating
some new revenue by exploiting their ability to cover local
events, and that translates to better coverage,” DiMare
said. “That’s a much better option than just
cutting people.”
Even
as publishers attempt to rein in costs, others are reaping
the benefits. Tribune, for example, will make money and
fill press capacity when the South Florida Sun-Sentinel
in Fort Lauderdale begins printing and packaging the Palm
Beach Post, Palm Beach News and La Palma, publications owned
by Cox Newspapers Inc.
The
same is holding true at The (Baltimore) Sun, which began
printing the rival Washington Times earlier this year; and
at Dow Jones’ Chicopee, Mass., plant, which now produces
the Boston Herald.
Pioneer
Newspapers Inc. will also see its revenues grow when it
starts printing rival McClatchy-owned newspapers in Boise
and Bellingham, Wash.
|
Each
of the papers that decided to silence its presses made a
decision that printing is no longer a core competency, a
conclusion more publishers are reaching, DiMare said.
“They’re
saying they will consider whatever it takes to save money
or generate revenue, including partnering, outsourcing or
becoming the major printer for others in a region,”
he said. “In other words, it’s either go big”
— and have the advanced presses and postproduction
necessary to print commercially as well as produce the core
newspaper — “or go home.”
Shipping
printing to an outside site, even if the same publisher
owns it, brings with it other factors publishers have to
assess.
Press
times, and depending upon distance, transportation of the
finished editions from a remote site, could put a damper
on anticipated reader benefits and cost savings, respectively.
The
Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) Journal, for example, acknowledged its
deadlines will be moved up after it moves printing and packaging
to The Journal News in Westchester, N.Y., 45 miles distant.
The Palladium-Item in Richmond, Ind., is almost 75 miles
from The Indianapolis Star, which will begin producing the
paper next month.
And
The Baxter Bulletin in Mountain Home, Ark., is being printed
more than two hours away on the press operated by the Springfield
(Mo.) News-Leader. Tom Tate, who serves as both general
manager of The Bulletin and production/IT director at the
News-Leader, told Newspapers & Technology he didn’t
think the quality of the Mountain Home paper would be compromised
by the daily journey. On the contrary, he said, the color
and printing capabilities of the News-Leader’s manroland
press would make The Bulletin an even more attractive option
for readers and advertisers.
Dollars
and sense
“It’s
all about economics,” said Ken Harding, president
of Harding Consulting Alliance, of the factors driving consolidation.
Harding
said 70 percent of his business involves consolidation studies,
including one just completed for McClatchy in which The
News-Tribune in Tacoma, Wash., began printing the nearby
Olympian in Olympia, Wash.
“Publishers
are beginning to give up some things, so we’re seeing
a greater compromise” in terms of rolling back deadlines
and other considerations, he said.
“They
don’t necessarily want to do it, but to drive revenues,
they’re willing to do what they need to do,”
he said, adding that he knows of one publisher evaluating
whether or not to roll back deadlines by one hour. Another,
he said, is mulling a 9 p.m. deadline of the main sheet
with a later deadline to accommodate late sports scores.
An
earlier deadline would give carriers more time to throw
papers and also enable publishers to reduce the number of
carriers needed for distribution.
Harding
said plant-closing decisions don’t come easily. “It’s
really difficult to make that move,” he said, even
when a publisher is evaluating shifting production to a
sister newspaper. “Once you make a decision to shut
down a press, it’s intractable. You’re not going
to be firing it up again.” |
| Dow
Jones to close more plants?
Dow Jones, which
earlier this year closed a suburban Denver printing plant
and is the midst of shuttering a suburban Chicago facility,
could close another 10 of its 17 existing production plants
over the next 15 months.
News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch told financial analysts
last month that outsourcing printing and delivery of The
Wall Street Journal and related publications to other printers
and newspapers is likely as the company examines ways to
reduce costs.
“Our plan
over the next year, maybe 15 months, would be to close 10
of those and outsource that printing to other newspapers,
both the printing and delivery,” Murdoch said.
Each closed
facility could net Dow Jones annual savings in excess of
$3 million, Murdoch said.
Murdoch also
said the company is realizing savings by merging certain
back-office functions at the New York Post and Wall Street
Journal.
Dow Jones transferred
printing of the Colorado edition of The Journal to the Denver
Newspaper Agency while the Chicago Tribune reportedly will
begin printing The Journal once the Naperville, Ill., print
site is closed this month.
While the publisher
is looking for ways to cut costs, it is upgrading operations
at its South Brunswick, N.J., plant. It tapped Ferag and
Goss International Corp. for postpress systems that will
allow the publisher to place inserts in papers slated for
delivery in the New York metropolitan area.
— Chuck
Moozakis
Shutting
down
Among newspapers
that have said they will close, or have already closed,
production plants, since 2005:
•Citizen-Times
in Asheville, N.C.
•Boston
Globe
•Boston
Herald
•New York
Times (Edison, N.J.)
•Los Angeles
Times (SFV)
•The Times
in Trenton, N.J.
•North
Jersey Media Group (Hackensack, N.J.)
•Star-Ledger
in Newark, N.J.
•Dow Jones
(suburban Denver and suburban Chicago)
•The Daily
News Journal in Murfreesboro, Tenn.
•Leaf-Chronicle
in Clarksville, Tenn.
•The Daily
Breeze in Torrance, Calif.
•Palm
Beach (Fla.) Post
•Atlanta
Journal-Constitution (downtown plant)
•Denver
Newspaper Agency (former Denver Post plant)
•The Courier
in Waterloo, Iowa
•San Angelo
(Texas) Reporter-News
•The Baxter
Bulletin in Mountain Home, Ark.
•Poughkeepsie
(N.Y.) Journal
•The Beaumont
(Texas) Enterprise
•The Olympian
in Olympia, Wash.
•The (Boise)
Idaho Statesman
•Bellingham
(Wash.) Herald
•The Recorder
in Greenfield, Mass.
•Northwest
Florida Daily News in Fort Walton Beach, Fla.
•Stevens
Point (Wis.) Journal
•Washington
Times
•The Modesto
(Calif.) Bee
•The Gleaner
in Henderson, Ky.
•The Daily
Progress in Charlottesville, Va.
•Muskegon
(Mich.) Chronicle
•Bradenton
(Fla.) Herald
•Detroit
Newspaper Partnership
•Santa
Cruz (Calif.) Sentinel
•San Francisco
Chronicle
•Patriot-Ledger
in Quincy, Mass.
•Brockton
(Mass.) Enterprise
•The Times-News
in Hendersonville, N.C.
•Community
Press (Cincinnati suburban weeklies)
•Palladium-Item
in Richmond, Ind.
Source:
Newspapers & Technology |
