Software: a major focus at
World Publishing Expo 2014
Largest number of countries ever
in the history of the show gathered in Amsterdam
Around 7,000 visitors from exactly 100 countries – the largest number of countries ever
recorded in the history of the event – attended the World Publishing Expo 2014 held from
October 13-15 at Amsterdam RAI. SM Dutt, technical editor, All About Newspapers
recounts here a brief account of the 44th annual expo of WAN-IFRA which drew a host of
delegates from the leading news media companies across the globe, including many from
India who witnessed the values in innovations staged by a chunk of world innovators.
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World Publishing Expo 2014 set
a platform where 225 exhibitors
from 29 countries comprising
printing press manufacturers, editorial and
advertising system providers, new media
providers and other suppliers to the industry.
The 7,000 visitors at the show represented
a slight decrease from the 2013 edition in
Berlin, but the number of chief executives
and decision makers remained high. “I am
really pleased with this year’s show,” said
Vincent Peyrègne, CEO, WAN-IFRA. He
asserted that the expo this year witnessed a
lot of positive and creative thinking. “The
vendors not only showed their products and
services, but they shared their visions of
the future of news and news publishing,”
he stated.
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The expo brought suppliers in the industry
together with thought leaders and decision
makers. In addition to the myriad of exhibits
were the string of latest technologies
and the expo featured about 100 speakers
sharing their success stories, three Media
Port stages focusing on the power of print,
new revenue sources, and content, and
three premium conferences on tablets and
apps, newsroom issues, and the future of
printing news products.
Indian delegates
Predominantly the Indian delegates at
World Publishing Expo 2014 were from the
newspapers headquartered in South, such as
Malayala Manorama, Daily Thanthi, The
Hindu, Mathrubhumi, Decan Herald, Dainik
Bhaskar, The Indian Express, Dinakaran as
well as conglomerates like Times Group,
ABP, Jagran and others.
Media Awards winners
Excellence knows no borders as the World
Digital Media Awards showed that with
a selection of the best of the best from
around the globe. WAN-IFRA honoured
seven news media companies with the
inaugural World Digital Media Awards,
which recognised publishers who have
created ground-breaking digital products
that engage readers while increasing
their online business. This first edition of
the awards which were presented at the
7th Tablet and App Summit during the
World Publishing Expo 2014 honoured
winners, namely. The Guardian (Best News
Website), BBC News Team (Best Use of
Online Video), Apple Daily NGA – Apple
Daily (Best Mobile Service), The Age -
Fairfax Media (Best in Tablet Publishing),
among others.
Newsroom Summit
Key themes and challenges currently facing
by content producers were identified at the
13th International Newsroom Summit in
Amsterdam. Julie Posetti, research editor of
World Editors Forum and research fellow
of WAN-IFRA stressed on a series of
contemporary topics. Other keynote speakers
at the summit who delivered persuasive
addresses included La Stampa’s Marco
Bardazzi on ‘Innovate and Contaminate’;
Alison Gow from Trinity Mirror Group on
‘You Need an Audience-First Newsroom’;
Change Your Newsroom Profile by Didier
Hamann from Le Soir and many others.
Digital domain
The world of digital printing gets magnifying
and importance of the new trend found a
spotlight at the World Publishing Expo 2014.
Since offset quality can be achieved or
even exceeded in many digital applications,
what all highlighted at the expo from
a number of digital press manufacturers
such as Hewlett Packard (HP), Kodak,
Canon/Oce, Hunkeler and others offered
a vital view of the ongoing dynamic in
digital printing. Hunkeler AG at its stand
during the expo brought in advanced pre
and post-solutions for high performance
digital printing systems, print on demand,
data centers and direct mailing. This Swiss
company boasts of employing some 280
professionals around the world.
Landmark showcases
Among the big brand exhibitors who marked
landmark presence at the World Publishing
Expo 2014 include Q.I. Press Controls and
EAE, Ferag, ABB, Agfa, Canon/Oce, ppi
Media, Protecmedia, WoodWing, among
the other major crowd pullers. Q.I. Press
Controls and EAE, two specialists in the
field of print automation, revealed their
latest innovation in quality automation for
the first time at the expo. The colossal
stand of ABB also set a focus on its latest
innovations on newspaper production that
included the latest modular press retrofit
solutions being tailored to the need of
any press type.
Goss International focused on the new
landscape of today’s newspaper publishing
environment during the expo. With unrivaled
command of the single-width
industry and a solid footing
in growing markets, the
company unpacked
unique capabilities
for the most vibrant
newspaper printing
arenas, underlining
projects across
Asia and Africa
that continue to
confirm standard
Goss Community and
Magnum presses as
the models of choice for
performance and value in
traditional single-width applications.
Magnum Compact press, highlighted on the
Goss stand, is the world’s first 2x1 with
automatic plate changing.
Things were really busy at ppi Media’s
stand (distributed in India by Basis Systems,
Delhi) at the expo where
old friends and new faces
of the company were
attracted to get an insight
into new products,
discuss the dynamic
requirements of the
market and find out
first-hand how these can
be met. Many discussions
focused on the question of
how publishers can publish
efficiently in all channels so as
to expand their print services to include
digital media. And ppi Media’s answer to this
was Content-X, a simple and cost-effective
editorial solution for entering content in
a media-neutral manner before it is used
online, for tablets, smartphones and print.
Every day over 520 million newspapers are
sold globally. One could hardly aware about
more than one in two printed or mobile
newspaper publications are produced with a
product from Agfa Graphics, be it printing
plates, imaging equipment or software for
prepress workflows or mobile publishing.
At the World Publishing Expo 2014, Agfa
Graphics highlighted its state-of-the-art
solutions for sustainable platemaking, as
well as its Arkitex prepress workflow for
printed publications, its cloud software
solutions, and the latest version of its
Eversify mobile publishing service.
Ferag did not miss impressing visitors
around at the expo. The company’s showcase
revealed the competence to create inserting
line with up to 40 hoppers, 30,000 cph, all in
one system: commissioning, inserting, tape-
fixing, addressing, packaging, zoning and
controlling. Also in the showcase included
Ferag’s high-speed MultiSertDrums perfect
the entire spectrum of modern newspaper
production and HPC (High Performance
Conveyor) is designed for the transport
of newspaper products from A to B at the
speeds up to 90,000 cph.
A wide portfolio of high productive colour
digital solutions from Canon/Océ occupies
the current graphic art market. This was
what the JV of the two digital majors
put up their products based on the Océ
ColorStream family, Océ JetStream family,
ImageStream 3500, Océ Prisma workflow
components and many others. Another big
attraction at the show was PressReader which
compiled more than 4,000 publishers from
over 100 countries. PressReader connects
local, national and international newspaper
and magazine publishers with readers around
the globe and across all platforms including
web, iOS, Android, Android for Amazon,
Windows 8 and BlackBerry 10.
Another big attraction at the expo surfaced
at Protecmedia stand (distributed in India
by Newstech India, Mumbai) where the
company presented the convergence and
efficient workflows to encompass all main
processes that modern media company
demands: cross media booking, ad-sales
and advertising production system, full
integration with editorial products, planning
of editorial agenda, management of contents,
editing, workflow control, etc. In the similar
way, showcase from WoodWing showed the
way where independent news publishing
companies succeed in their transformation
process, increase their business, and perform
their crucial role in open societies.
The stand of EidosMedia S.P.A flaunted with
the latest release of its innovative editorial
platform, Méthode, which is designed to feed
editorial from a common content
store to traditional publishing
formats (newspapers and
magazines, syndication),
as well as e-channels
(web, mobile, iPad, tablet
devices, etc.) without the
need for repurposing or
revision. Felix Böttcher
on the other side of the
show floor showcased
productivity, economy and
process stability: these key
factors were at the heart of
Böttcher’s presentation at the expo.
Fujifi lm, leading suppliers of high quality
pre-press equipment and consumables for
newspaper printing, showcased its 3rd
generation Luxel News VMAX modular
plate setters, which are capable of outputting
high quality plates faster than any other
system on the market, together with its
Brillia PRO-VN ‘lo chem’ plate. In the
meanwhile, Kodak Graphic stand highlighted
digitally oriented growth strategy focusing
on helping the industry better use of
meaningful images and information. And
the product spectrum presented at Koenig
& Bauer’s stand included the highly
successful, extensively automated compact
Commander CT web press, Cortina for
coldset and heatset printing, Commander
CL which can be optimally configured for
individual requirements to the high-volume
digital KBA RotaJET.
Further, manroland web systems continued
to consequently follow the path towards
automated newspaper production. At the
expo, the company presented new features in
the areas of operation, in-line control systems
and controls for newspaper web offset and
digital printing. And attraction from NELA
at the show included pre-press automation
solutions and their modular systems for
newspapers of all sizes. On the software site,
OneVision Software revealed its software
solutions ensuring quality, save time and
reduce costs in data and image-intense
pre-media operations. Similarly, workflow
solutions from New ProImage
marked a good exhibit as
the company’s Proimage
Eversify, a cloud-based
mobile publishing system
providing automatic
delivery for a wide variety
of mobile devices, pulled
huge crowd.
Prime UV Systems put
up on showcase its UV
curing/drying systems for
single and double-wide UV
printing newspaper presses at
speeds up to 80,000 IPH. On the
other side, Tolerans AB carried out an
impressive exhibit of its advanced in-line
stitching systems for the newspaper and
commercial printing industries.
Youth revolution
Twelve newspaper and news publishing
associations have been designated as
‘Centers of Youth Engagement Excellence’
by WAN-IFRA during the expo, in
recognition of their long-term commitment
to engaging young people with news
and helping teachers to use news in the
classroom. “One of our core values is
assuring that new generations understand
the importance of free, credible and
independent news, and are able to
identify it, and seek it out, among the
vast amount of information that bombards
them each day,” remarked Larry Kilman,
secretary general, WAN-IFRA. Receiving
the awards were the national newspaper
associations of the US (Newspaper
Association of America); Denmark (Danske
Medier); Finland (Finnish Newspapers
Association); Norway (Mediebedriftenes
Landsforening); The Netherlands (NDP
Nieuwsmedia); France (SPQR, SPQN
ARPEJ); Brazil (Associacão Nacional
de Jornais); Germany (Bundesverband
Deutscher Zeitungsverleger); Japan (Nihon
Shinbun Kyokai); Colombia (Andiarios);
Belgium (Les Journaux Francophone
Belges); and Korea (Korean Association
of Newspapers).
What exhibitors say
“This exhibition has been more than fantastic. We, both EAE and Q.I.
Press Controls, were able to close a total order volume of more than five
million euros at the show. We signed so many orders at the Expo that for us it’s
been the best show ever. We will be there next year.”
–Menno Jansen, chairman,
Q.I. Press Controls (which acquired EAE earlier this year)
“The stand has been full. Our sales staff said we established good contacts
and the quality of visitors was high.”
–Richard Elmer, director of communications, Ferag
“This is my 20th consecutive expo and I have to say that this year we have
had better one-on-one engagement with our customers than I can remember
in several years.
–Peter Marsh, VP of marketing, Newscycle Solutions
"I was concerned about attendance coming into the show, but it has definitely
been better than I expected. The conversations have been relevant and good.”
–Eric Bell, director marketing services, GOSS International
“The show has been better than we expected. We had an extremely
positive reaction to the new software feature we presented, Méthode
Swing, the new app, and the social media integration that we showed here for
the first time.”
–Massimo Barsotti, chief marketing officer, EidosMedia
“I think it’s been a very good show this year – especially Monday and
Tuesday – because we had a lot of demos at our stand, and good contacts
about possible projects.”
–Fernando Pérez, corporate communication consultant, Protecmedia
“The good thing in this expo is that visitors you receive are the professionals
you need to talk to, decision-makers, people with a real need for new
things, are really looking for new investments.
–Pierre Hame, director international sales, alfamedia
“Based on experiences from previous years, we expanded our presentation
areas, and it was a good thing we did.”
–Sebastian Eiden, manager of marketing and product panagement, red.web
Decade of growth for newspapers waterless
A new Czech manufacturing facility for waterless plates
responds to a fivefold increase in demand. “2014 has
been a big year for waterless printing,” says Mitsunori
Hayashi, sales and marketing manager of Toray, Czechoslovakia.
He adds “Ecological printing is no longer seen as an expensive
luxury, but as a profitable business.” The new plant is a response
to increases over the past decade and makes plates more readily
available to customers in Europe and Americas. Toray produced
a new edition of its waterless journal displayed at the company’s stand at the World
Publishing Expo 2014 for waterless newspaper users. The journal was printed on a
KBA Cortina press by Rheinisch Bergischeon.
German daily Trierischer Volksfreund has recently installed a new KBA Cortina
and is looking to the increased quality delivered by waterless printing to expand
its printed offerings beyond newspapers. “Printed products produced on the Cortina
using Toray waterless plates deliver unprecedented quality,” says Franz-Josef Hirsch,
chief executive of DHV, the company which prints the daily newspaper. In the
Netherlands, Rodi Media – which was the first Cortina user – prints waterless 26
of its own daily and Sunday newspapers as well as work for other publishers. In
addition to improved quality and reduction in water consumption, Mitsunori says
waterless printing also reduces waste and eliminates the need for toxic chemicals
in the printing process.
