An upgrade of its red.web system will enable Nordbayerischer Kurier to manage working hours as well as expanding cross-media publishing.

The publisher from Bayreuth in Germany is adding modules to an existing system to allow media-independent content management, including production of digital and multimedia editions on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.

Says red.web’s Bernhard Sänger: “In this respect they are a pioneering client, working with our layout system in an exemplary fashion.”

The company is already producing 20 print products with the system, using several publication channels. He says crossmedia working, operating social media and maintaining digital contact with readers are not strange concepts for the paper’s editors.

“The printed newspaper as we know it is a discontinued model in economic terms,” says Bayreuth editor-in-chief Joachim Braun. “Journalism is not. It’s getting another chance in the digital channels.”

But he says the need is not only for new, reader-friendly content, but also new tools and a new way of thinking in order to produce in print and online equally. “At the Nordbayerischer Kurier this is organised at the news desk and practised by all the reporters – online first in our dialogue with the reader.”

The publishing company produces a 38,500-circulation six-day daily as well as numerous supplements, Kinder-Kurier for children and official journals.