MCLEAN, Va. - With the newspaper industry’s migration to narrower web width all but completed, production managers are now evaluating the pros and cons of lighter basis weight newsprint.

The implications are significant, said speakers at last month’s Newsprint Symposium, sponsored by Technical Solutions, the joint venture of the Newspaper Association of America and Ifra.

The New York Times said it plans to make the switch to lighter basis weight newsprint in order to trim expenses.
Photo: The New York Times

At issue: Whether American newspapers should follow the lead of European dailies and drop the weight of newsprint from today’s prevailing 48.8-gram (30-pound) to 45-gram (27.7-pound) paper.

Some groups, such as Knight Ridder Inc. and a major regional publisher in the Northeast that declined to be identified, already have done so, experiencing few problems.

But others, such as The Washington Post, are less sure of making a move, citing concerns about print quality, bleed-through and consumer and advertiser resistance.

Not the way to go

“This is not the way to go,” said Kevin Sean Conner, quality assurance manager at The Post, citing spikes in show-through of up to 30 percent in tests the paper conducted to evaluate the lighter-weight grade.

“I have a major concern,” he said. “It does compromise quality and that has to be taken into account.”  

Plunked in the middle is just about everybody else, including Gannett Co. Inc., E.W. Scripps, Tribune Co. and others, all of which are evaluating their future plans.

Gannett, for example, is still unsure how it will proceed, according to Annette Giaco, director of print quality. “We’re not there yet,” she told Newspapers & Technology. “We need more testing.”

A lightweight basis newsprint test conducted earlier this year of 10 Gannett papers yielded mixed results, she said, with some dailies meeting the publisher’s corporate quality guidelines while others fell far short, particularly in areas of bleed-through and runnability.

“We did realize savings,” Giaco said, “but keeping our quality is important,” adding that two of the papers suffered declines of more than 10 percent when measured against Gannett’s print quality standard.

Other problems Gannett encountered during the two-month trial included wrinkling, moisture welts, curling and stacker issues, with two of the dailies reporting bad copy counts. Web breaks, meantime, increased at three test sites.

“It concerns me,” Giaco said of Gannett’s experience with 45-gram paper. “If we move to lightweight newsprint, then we have to address quality” considerations.

Few issues

By contrast, Knight Ridder’s conversion to lighter basis weight paper yielded fewer quality issues, said Rich Danze, vice president of operations and transportation at Philadelphia Newspapers Inc. Danze oversaw The Miami Herald’s switch to 45-gram newsprint in late 2003 as part of a Knight Ridder initiative to shave production costs group-wide.

Since then, 29 of the publisher’s 31 daily newspapers have switched to lower-weight newsprint. Twenty-seven are printing on 45-gram paper while the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News and Contra Costa (Calif.) Times dropped to 43-gram (25-pound) paper - allowing Knight Ridder to trim more than $4 million from its annual newsprint bill. The Kansas City (Mo.) Star will also make the switch to 45-gram newsprint once its new presses are commissioned over the next several months.

“There is show-through. No doubt about it,” Danze said, but stressed that Knight Ridder’s newspapers received very few complaints from advertisers or readers. Moreover, other advantages, such as reduced postage and material handling costs, further offset any minor deterioration in print quality, he said.

Still, Danze said, “You have to be committed” to make the move, Danze said. “Don’t sell short the newsprint suppliers. Use them for advice.”

Papers switching to 45-gram newsprint also have to optimize their press operations, he said, recommending that papers standardize their ink, plate and consumable vendors.

“It’s not just paper, it’s also changing predictive maintenance and other areas of your operation,” he said. “Rely on your press operators.”

NYT going forward

The New York Times, meantime, is “going forward” with its plans to convert to 45-gram newsprint, said Alisa Chang, quality assurance director.

The company’s timetable calls for all of its properties to migrate to lighter basis weight paper by the end of the third quarter, following the lead of The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, Calif., which switched in April.

The College Point, N.Y., and Edison, N.J., plants, which print the metropolitan edition of The Times, will convert by July 1 as well as a “majority” of national print edition sites.

“We have determined that we can make a business case” in moving to 45-gram paper without compromising quality, Chang said, adding that the publisher is working closely with mills to produce paper that minimizes show-through.

Chang said The Times closely tracks quality through its Press Analysis Monitoring software and other tools provided by vendors such as newsprint supplier Abitibi Consolidated Inc. (see Newspapers & Technology, September 2004).

The paper also took other steps to shore up quality, such as converting to US Ink’s high-strength black ink at its College Point and Edison plants (see Newspapers & Technology, April 2005). The ink’s formulation lets press operators increase the black density of the ink without increasing the ink film thickness on the web.

Chang said The Times expects 45-gram newsprint will translate into an 8 percent spike in yield, a key consideration for a company that runs through more than 200,000 metric tonnes of newsprint each year.