Newspapers & Technology November 2009 27
www.newsandtech.com
The Houston Chronicle tapped
Harland Simon to install Prima Esprit
and Prima ColorWare to provide color
impositioning capabilities across its six
Goss International Metro presses.
The deployment, to be completed
later this month, is the latest in a years-
long project aimed at upgrading the
1976-vintage machines.
"We expect a big benefit," said
Mike Daniel, The Chronicle's director of
printing. "We won't have to negotiate
back and forth with the ad department
regarding the location of color and
we'll know the best position in which to
place color."
Daniel said 65 percent of the
paper's ads can run in color during the
week with 100 percent of ads capable of
running in 4-color on Sundays.
The software automatically calcu-
lates the best way to print a particular
form, defined by the press' capabilities
and press operators' preferred printing
methods.
The software will be integrated
with The Chronicle's existing Agfa
computer-to-plate and ProImage work-
flow foundation, Daniel said.
"The imposition software already
has the press' configuration built it, so
there will be less manual intervention,"
he said. "Operators can't make mis-
takes, and that fits in well with our pro-
cess improvement and internal press
performance operation standards."
Ink savings
In addition to the Harland Simon
deployment, Daniel said The Chronicle
is also ready to add Agfa's Opti-Ink
ink optimization software. He said he
expects the software will reduce by
more than 10 percent The Chronicle's
consumption of color ink.
The Chronicle began upgrading
its presses years ago in a multipronged
project that included replacing con-
trols, installing digital page packs and
reducing web with to 46 inches.
At the time the paper began the
upgrade, its main goal was to improve
print and color capacity of The Chron-
icle. But now the retrofit is seen as a
necessary ingredient supporting the
paper's commercial printing activities.
In addition to the flagship paper, The
Chronicle now prints its sister daily, the
Beaumont (Texas) Enterprise as well as
USA Today and other area periodicals.
Last year, The Chronicle completed
a major chunk of the upgrade, includ-
ing the Goss-managed web reduction
and the installation of Goss' DigiRail
digital inkers across the press' 181
printing couples. It also added Rock-
well Automation's soft proofing and
ink presetting modules to its existing
PrintLogix press control software.
Finally, it installed four Goss digital
RTPs on the presses used to produce
USA Today. Daniel said he hopes to
upgrade some of the press' other RTPs,
but a decision to do that will have to
wait until the investment can be justi-
fied. A proposal to purchase a fleet of
automated guided vehicles to shuttle
newsprint to the Goss presses remains
under consideration as well.
By ChuCk Moozakis editor in chief
Houston Chronicle taps Harland Simon, Agfa
When Philly.com first set out to pump
up its revenues, the site had one other
important goal in mind: maximizing ad
profits.
To that end, Philly.com, which
encompasses the Philadelphia Inquirer
and the Philadelphia Daily News, last
year tapped AdMeld, a company aimed
at helping publishers increase online
ad network profits, reduce operating
costs and protect their brands from
unwanted ads.
"We were prompted by a need
to eke out the highest yield from our
network in a fashion that was easy and
intuitive to use," said Joe Friend III, ad
operations manager for Philly.com.
Prior to partnering with AdMeld,
Philly.com's ability to get the most value
from its unsold ad inventory was held
hostage by a complex systems of redi-
rects within its ad server.
"Creating, monitoring and adding
network providers almost required a
degree in astrophysics to plot out the
ad call redirects to system defaults, not
to mention the time it took our already-
at-capacity team to perform campaign
and relational management, and billing
and reconciliation," Friend said.
Top of the heap
The bulk of Philly.com's paid adver-
tising is sold by a dedicated team of
in-house online reps. Any unsold inven-
tory is passed on to AdMeld. Friend
said once he began turning unsold
inventory over to AdMeld, the results
were immediate, with a 30 percent
jump in revenue.
"We've also seen a fill rate that
so far, has not failed to accommodate
whatever amount of inventory we
throw at it," he added.
The partnership also opened previ-
ously untapped revenue streams for
Philly.com.
"By and large, the advertisers that
run in newspapers are part of national
campaigns," said Michael Barrett, CEO
of AdMeld.
"We are bringing national advertis-
ers to local sites."
By providing fill, AdMeld has also
helped the publisher deal with spiky
traffic patterns.
"News sites are blessed and cursed
by their traffic patterns," Barrett said.
"When it's a big news day, site inven-
tory is likely to triple, but that is hard
to predict for newspapers and if you
can't foresee and presell then you are
left with a lot of inventory and you can't
match it up by yourself, so AdMeld
helps level out those spikes -- and it
doesn't matter to the platform what
happens to the spike because we have
the sellers and buyers set up."
Bidding for space
The partnership operates as a bid
network where Philly.com is part of
a newspaper consortium. From the
advertiser's perspective, the ad buy is
double blind and the advertiser doesn't
know what network it may get when it
places a bid for ad space.
"They don't know if they're going to
get Philly.com," Friend said. "But we are
one of the larger Web sites in Pennsyl-
vania at the national level."
The publisher has a corresponding
portal that tracks
ad inventory and
other consider-
ations, based on a
query and param-
eters set by Friend
and his staff.
Although
the partnership
between AdMeld
and Philly.com
has thus far been
lucrative, Friend
said the value
AdMeld provides
newspapers could
be diminished if
publishers find a
way to success-
fully provide this
type of service themselves.
"The value that an (outside) pro-
vider gets is not the same as a rep," he
said. "That will be a tough spot. Pubs
will either shut themselves off to those,
or decide to do it natively and there is
bound to be a paradigm shift."
As for Philly.com, Friend said he
has no intention of eliminating any
in-house sales staff in favor of the out-
sourced alternative.
By Tara MCMeekiN editor
Philly.com aims to profit from ad inventory
adMeld markets philly.com's unsold inventory to advertisers that bid on space.
briefs
Flint Group said its K+E, Arrowstar and Starbase sheetfed series of inks and its
Arroweb heatset formulation earned bio-renewable content certification from the
National Association of Printing Ink Manufacturers.
www.flintgrp.com
The Erie (Pa.) Times-News was named Pennsylvania Newspaper Association Founda-
tion's 2009 Newspaper of the Year. This is the second time in the past six years the
publisher has received the award, which recognizes outstanding newspaper work,
with emphasis on overall excellence.
www.goerie.com

Page 1Page 2Page 3Page 4Page 5Page 6Page 7Page 8Page 9Page 10Page 11Page 12Page 13Page 14Page 15Page 16Page 17Page 18Page 19Page 20Page 21Page 22Page 23Page 24Page 25Page 26Page 27Page 28Page 29Page 30Page 31Page 32Page 33Page 34Page 35Page 36Page 37Page 38Page 39Page 40 Produced by PageSuite