Hyperlocal publishing is just one of a raft of opportunities created as digital newspaper printing becomes viable.
The concept is seen as one - perhaps the only - future for print newspaper publishing.
In the UK, a year-long experiment by Sir Ray Tindle's South London Press series has seen a reported sales increase of 35 per cent since the 147 year-old paper Friday paper was split into seven hyperlocal editions.
In essence a smallish suburban newspaper - audited sales were already down from almost 19,000 in 2008 to under 15,000 in 2011 - is being split into a group of very focussed community titles for Streatham, Brixton, Wimbledon, Wandsworth, Dulwich, Deptford & New Cross and Forest Hill & Sydenham. Tindle has since announced the launch of a further hyperlocal title as an offshoot of another 180-year-old London suburban series.
The thinking goes against a trend of recent years of reducing the number of geographical editions... but then it may also be bucking a trend of falling paid circulations.
Against the naysayers who believe printed newspapers will have completely disappeared within ten years, there are many who believe that daily titles may morph into weeklies or biweeklies, and that there will be a growing divide between massmarket titles and the local or hyperlocal.
Whether or not you would print a couple of thousand newspapers offset or digital is a moot point - many publishers have smaller editions, especially in regional and remote communities - but certainly inkjet digital printing has emerged as a viable option for these and much-smaller circulations.
Recent improvements in print quality and speed, coupled with better finishing options and more flexible cost models have meant that the 'window of opportunity' is properly open.
And the anticipation in the vendor community is palpable.
Yet with very few exceptions, hardly a newspaper publisher in the world has made the plunge to install its own digital printing equipment. Contract printers abound - especially those serving the niche expat, holiday and business traveller market - but their locations typically determine the segment in which they operate.
Centro Stampa Quotidiani in Italy (see page 14) - a shared production facility owned by two daily newspaper publishers - is an exception. A large offset-anchored facility, it uses an HP inkjet web to digitally print local sections for its parent titles as well as other short-run newspaper work.
Much talked-of - because it had originally been expected to be the first user of manroland's new 'fully variable' pin-type VPF211 folders, (with each of two Océ JetStream 4300s) - the cooperation between communist daily L'Echo and newspaper printer Rivet Press Edition in Limoges in regional France has been delayed, and manroland expects its first two customers will be a newspaper in Germany and a book printer in Italy.
The stalled Limoges project would see the regional daily - currently with a circulation of 36,000 copies - producing editions with targetted editorial and advertising content to an audience within 90 minutes of the production plant. Rivet is currently an offset newspaper printer with equipment including manroland Uniman and Heidelberg Web 16 web presses plus sheetfed and mailroom.
By contrast, RotOcéan in the Indian Ocean island of Réunion, is remote in the extreme. Another joint venture - it is part owned by local newspaper Temoignages - it installed a Kodak VL4200 in 2010 to print a variety of local (French) national and international daily and other newspapers.
British newspaper printing entrepreneur Malcolm Miller figures prominently in the application of digital print technology to newspapers in Europe. A shareholder in one of the UK's largest newspaper printing businesses - offset and digital-equipped Newsfax in Stratford, east London - Miller is also owner or partner in digital sites in Malta, Cyprus, Greece, Spain and Italy. Newsprint Italia - a joint venture between Miller Group and a German magazine and newspaper distributor - in Rome and Milan has two VL4200s at each site, bringing his tally to nine of the Kodak inkjet presses.
Last year they were printing 60 different titles with circulations varying from 20 copies to 3000, but he says (in a WAN-Ifra report) that publishers are slow to take advantage of the technology's unique possibilities, including content updates, local advertising and personalisation.
The technology which was "not ready" when Miller was a member of an Associated Newspapers team looking at remote sites in 2006, may be increasingly inappropriate for newspaper readers in 2013 who can readily access digital editions on their tablets and laptops. Delivery systems such as DTI Solutions/NewspaperDirect - and the spread of onboard wireless - are also beginning to cater for inflight readers.
To say that the potential offered by digital print is not fully evolved would be an understatement, but it seems likely that distributors such as Miller, or distribution partnerships are likely to play an essential part.
Whether it is to deliver timely printed newspapers to a remote locality such as a mining town, or to segment a city audience for hyperlocal or even personalised publishing, there's likely to be a need for publishers to get together to support and share print facilities, distribution and even door-to-door customer delivery knowledge.
In Australia, one might imagine that News Corp Australia's (currently suspended) T2020 plan to urge newsagents into larger home-delivery businesses might seed such a structure, were it not for the difficulty the major publishers sometimes have with working together.
In Europe and especially Nordic countries, it's not of course unusual for newspapers to go out overnight through the normal postal system.
Miller says the 'à la carte newspaper' - based on the interests of an individual reader - may still be some years away, but sees potential in personalisation. The prospect of the 'audience-of-one' in a print publishing context is a tough call, but there may be a place for it. Digital imprinting (personalising offset-printed copies 'on the fly' and at high speed) offers some of this potential, but again requires relevant delivery infrastructure for its full use.
So it may not be a question - as Miller suggests - of digital offerings developing and becoming more sophisticated, but of increased sophistication and flexibility in delivery systems.
Jack Knadjian, Kodak's business development director for the digital newspaper segment, says there's an opportunity for low volume, highly-targeted "and maybe even personalised newspapers delivered directly to the reader". And new advertising applications that can make use of the variable printing. "What we need now is creativity and imagination in the advertising world to make use of it," he says.
A start would be something on the lines of Benny Landa's 1996 'Ask for Indigo' campaign - which used bus sides and other advertising to stimulate interest in digital printing - to bring these new opportunities to the attention of advertisers and creatives. Perhaps inkjet press vendors, like newspaper publishers, need to learn to work together to promote the potential of digitally-printed news publishing to the people who will ultimately be paying for it.
When digital print could create the opportunity
-so you want to get close to your readers and advertisers? Digital printing allows you to focus... down to an audience of one if the marketing objectives and dollars add up... which they can on premium products. Use it to deliver hyperlocal advertising and editorial content to a geographically or demographically targetted community, either in a special section or a complete newspaper. Hand-delivered personal newspapers with premium or upmarket auto advertising are a great attention getter.
-in a remote town or city where print is still in demand (and internet not ubiquitous) digital is ideal to produce a small number of newspapers within hours or even minutes of the last page being closed, without the time and cost of trucking or airfreight. A distributor or publisher cooperation could see a mix of different titles produced consecutively, even to the extent of presorting for delivery runs. Might help restore paid circulation to 'uneconomical' remote areas, especially with local advertising.
- when an existing (and perhaps underutilised) offset press is reaching its end-of-life, or perhaps needs an expensive upgrade to meet OH&S requirements. manroland Australia managing director Steve Dunwell suggests an inkjet web-plus-folder line would be an economical alternative requiring fewer and less-skilled staff... although others might suggest a modern replacement such as Goss's highly automated Magnum Compact would be a better option.
-international newspapers for expats, business travellers and holidaymakers remain a substantial market for newspaper printers with digital equipment. Advertising can be changed for the local market, although limited numbers mean this option is rarely taken up. Promotional material, booklets and niche magazines - which may require different offline finishing equipment - can help fill presstime.
Don't try this at home?
-a couple of digital print ideas that haven't lasted are the free afternoon edition Handelsblatt News am Abend and print aggregator niiu. Between 20,000-30,000 copies of the Handelsblatt edition were printed at 14 sites distributed to first class rail travellers and other at premium locations until 2009. Berlin startup niiu offered subscribers the opportunity to nominate the pages (from European regional dailies) they wanted in their digitally-printed newspaper the following morning. Both are now emailed PDF editions, niiu driven by an innovative app.
Peter Coleman