Prepress Editor

There’s good news waiting at breakfast for frequent flyers and occasional vacationers who like to keep up with the happenings back home while they’re on the road.

They can now get a same-day printed version of their favorite metropolitan newspaper while they’re away from home.

PEPC's sleek print-on-demand vending unit, developed in conjunction with IBM, dispenses newspapers from around the globe Photo courtesy PEPC

The 11-by-17-inch A3 pages are a bit smaller than their newsprint counterparts’, and are mostly black-and-white, although some display impressive color on the front page. The papers cost US$2 or more, which is about the same price as any newspaper sold outside its country of origin, even if it is days old. For business and leisure travelers, it’s a definite improvement on trying to scroll through news snippets and stock quotes on a cell phone screen less than half the size of a credit card.

Large newspapers have struggled with the prohibitive aspects of delivering printed versions of their product to international destinations in a timely manner, requiring evidence of strong market demand before opening remote print sites or spending thousands on shipping copies to foreign locations.

Several software and hardware providers, including PEPC and IBM, NewspaperDirect and Hewlett-Packard Co., and PressPoint, Vio and Xerox, have teamed up to make hometown newspapers available on demand at hotels, airports and major events worldwide. While each of these companies has its own unique distribution and revenue models, for newspapers, it’s just about the easiest thing in the world they could do to expand readership, reach and revenues with minimal investment.

PEPC — Vending newspapers -not cola

IBM entered into a partnership with PEPC (pronounced pep-see), a start-up company based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, which has developed a print-on-demand newspaper application using vending units that accept credit card payments and print newspapers as they are ordered.

PEPC has entered into agreements with newspaper publishers to provide content, and with major hotel chains and international airports to provide placement of the kiosks.

IBM helped PEPC develop the software and hardware for the kiosks. Inside the machine is an IBM printer. IBM also hosts PEPC’s Management and Control Center in the Netherlands, and services the kiosks around the world.

PEPC started the final test at the Holiday Inn in Amsterdam, and plans to officially launch the kiosk application this month. PEPC currently offers about 20 newspaper titles from around the world, including De Telegraaf of the Netherlands, Spain’s El Pais, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The company is in talks with more than 30 additional newspaper publishers to offer their publications.

PEPC hopes to place more than 150 kiosks in 26 major cities around the world by the end of the year.

Customers select their choice of newspaper at the kiosk using an interactive touch-screen video menu. The newspapers are printed in black-and-white on high-quality, stapled white paper. During the print-idle time of approximately two minutes, customers are “entertained” with local commercial videos and general information in their native language.

This advertising gives PEPC another revenue stream, in addition to the newsstand retail price of the newspapers, which varies by publication, depending on the number of pages, but averages US$2.90 per newspaper.

The publisher receives a royalty payment of 15 cents to 25 cents from the single-copy sales price. The amount of the royalty payment is based on the circulation of the newspaper — the higher the circulation, the higher the royalty payment.

The service is free to newspapers, which, in turn, determine how the content will be laid out in the correct format, and provide PEPC with the paginated content.

PEPC receives the latest edition of newspapers from around the globe, following the sun on a 24-7-365 basis to each time zone. Newspapers send their content, within the allotted 40-page limit, to PEPC in Amsterdam via dedicated, terrestrial leased lines to a virtual private network based on Internet Protocol.

A satellite multicast service then simultaneously distributes all the available content from Amsterdam to the vending units. Management Information System and purchase data is uploaded from all the vending units once each day.

Four-star delivery service

NewspaperDirect has taken a slightly different approach, targeting its print-on-demand newspaper service to upscale hotels, cruise ships and airlines.

For newspaper publisher partners, the service is a cost-free way to expand reach and increase audited circulation. All a newspaper has to do is send its pages to NewspaperDirect each day in a Portable Document Format file over an FTP site on the Internet, or via e-mail. NewspaperDirect collects, processes and distributes content from its Network Operations Center in New York.

NewspaperDirect already has more than 20 newspapers on board, including Financial Times, The Washington Times, El Pais in Spain, and Folha de Sao Paulo in Brazil, and aims to have several others join this year.

With NewspaperDirect’s print-on-demand newspaper service, readers must place their newspaper order the previous day. The company then transmits only the newspapers that were ordered to print stations located in luxury hotels around the world via the Internet.

The print stations receive files of the ordered newspapers, then print the editions on both sides of quality paper using a high-speed HP 8100 printer, which collates, stitches and personally addresses each copy.

NewspaperDirect supplies distribution partners with all the necessary hardware and software to receive and print the newspapers, as well as initial installation of the print station and ongoing equipment maintenance. Hotels pay NewspaperDirect between US$2 and US$5 for each newspaper ordered, and then either provide the newspapers to guests as a complimentary service, or charge travelers for the newspapers. Participating hotels include Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, Radisson, Four Seasons, Sheraton, and Canadian Pacific.

The print station is monitored and controlled remotely by the Network Operating Center, but hotel staff is responsible for replenishing the HP printer’s paper supply daily, replacing its toner cartridge weekly, and for delivering guests’ requested newspapers.

NewspaperDirect has entered into an alliance with Hewlett-Packard, a key print station hardware supplier, as part of HP’s printing e-services strategy aimed at aligning with other companies to drive the development of Internet-based printing services, applications and infrastructures.

“We have had a valued relationship with HP from the inception of NewspaperDirect,” said Newspaper-Direct President and Chief Executive Officer Miljenko Horvat. “As we continue to expand our global operations, we can move forward with confidence, knowing our service is supported by HP’s extensive technical support, and global product availability.”

NewspaperDirect, which was founded last year plans to expand its distribution to include cruise ships, airlines and libraries, as well as a home delivery service.

PressPoint delivers at the Olympics

Founded in 1998, New York-based PressPoint is making same-day, printed versions of more than 40 newspaper titles from 20 countries available in 15 cities around the world, including Sydney, Australia, in time for the Summer Olympics.

PressPoint also offers its print-on-demand publishing service to newspapers for free. The newspaper publisher is solely responsible for collecting, paginating and transmitting content to the PressPoint hub, and then receives a royalty payment from PressPoint for each copy sold.

PressPoint prepares the files for printing and transmits them to print production centers worldwide, where they are printed on Xerox DocuTech 6180 printers. The production center prints the global editions based on reader demand, and local distribution partners deliver the copies to SalesPoint channels throughout a particular city.

PressPoint is using file transfer services from Vio Worldwide Ltd. PressPoint and its publishing partners previously used the Internet to distribute files, but speed and reliability were problems that drove PressPoint to seek alternatives.

“Our product is time-sensitive. We have a specific window in which to be able to print our partners’ newspapers worldwide,” said Matthew Benner, senior vice president of technology for PressPoint. “The Vio service delivers the reliable file transfer we need on a global basis, and its job ticket, e-mail notification and straightforward interface makes it easy for publishers to work with us and for us to keep track of our production operation.”

There are four SalesPoint channels: travel, prestige, executive and retail. The travel channel includes hotels, airlines, convention centers, trains and cruise ships; the prestige channel covers foreign embassies, consulates and government offices; the executive channel targets corporations, academia and expatriates; and the retail channel delivers papers to newsstands and residences.

Readers place their order over the phone, and online ordering is expected to be available soon, said PressPoint.s

PEPC

+31.20.679.744.4

www.pepcnews.com

NewspaperDirect

212.896.3909, 877.980.4040

www.NewspaperDirect.com

PressPoint

877.295.4455 — United States

800.773.7776 — International