The left-of-centre solution to added value newspaper print comes from KBA’s Claus Bolza-Schunemann, and was supported by some pretty respectable samples at an World Publishing Expo press conference today (writes Peter Coleman).
One of the good things to come out of the depressed state of the newspaper market has been increased innovation, and the German press maker had two good examples to show.
The other was a complex gatefold, featuring glued and perforated elements, and produced on KBA’s Commander CT customer the ‘Main Post’ in Wurzburg, Germany (pictured).
The eyecatching product was developed inhouse using KBA press elements, with the publisher then taking it to an impressed advertising agency. ‘Wow’ was both the response from the Mercedes Benz agency, and also the copyline.
“It pretty well guarantees the reader will trip over the advertisement and react with with it,” says Bolza-Schunemann.
The coated coldset product isn’t for everyone. It was produced by waterless printing pioneer Freiburger Druck on a Cortina press fitted with KBA’s post-print coating module, which only works with the waterless technology.
The print quality – delivered at between 23,000-28,000 cph – is impressive, but “not a replacement for conventional heatset,” marketing director Klaus Schmidt says.
• Who’s biggest? KBA web press engineering, sales, marketing and service Christophe Müller says the company scored 46 per cent of newly-awarded newspaper contracts in 2012. It’s a statistic challenged by its rivals including manroland web systems – credited by KBA with 17 per cent – and Goss International, credited with five per cent. At its own press conference, manroland web systems sales and marketing vice president Peter Kuisle said the Augsburg-based company was the market leader in web press sales, including orders from the “much more active” heatset press segment.
Both could be right.
At a press conference at WAN-Ifra’s World Publishing Expo in Frankfurt, Germany, today, Kuisle joked that this was manroland Web Systems’s first Ifra… a reference to the company’s reorganisation following last year’s administration. However, he says the first nine months of trading as a part of the Possehl group have been “exciting, busy, and very rewarding”. Financial results are expected to deliver a profit.
Projects have included the first Coorman e:line installation – due for a January start-up – and the market introduction of a new 4x1 Cromoman press, designed to suit Indian conditions.
Digital developments include integrated inkjet imprinting at Axel Springer in Ahrensburg and Spandau, and the first fruits of the company’s renewed partnership with Océ with two presses to be installed in France.
Manroland has its new operating system at the show, with elements including iPad-based controls and two mobile-style devices.
Apart from the News Queensland order, manroland is adding controls to 1999 Geoman and 2005 Regioman presses, and a new press at the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong.