2005 might be remembered as the year when pundits and some financial analysts began writing obituaries for the ink-on-paper newspaper industry. But publishers and vendors were busy rolling out new products and making multimillion-dollar deals, as Newspapers & Technology’s annual review of the past year reveals. The month refers to when our article appeared and not when the actual event occurred.

January

Detroit Newspapers revs up its computer-to-plate foundation, tapping Agfa, Burgess Industries and ProImage as technology providers as the agency’s $177 million plant expansion motors its way to the finish line.

Newspaper publisher A. Beig Druckerei and Verlag GmbH & Co. becomes the first printer to go on-edition with a MAN Roland Inc. ColorMAN XXL press.

Goss International Corp. Chief Executive Officer Bob Brown says he remains encouraged by what he’s seen in the heatset and newspaper side of the business, five months after Goss formally acquires Heidelberg’s web offset and high-speed postpress operations.

Dauphin Graphic Machines executives complete their buyout of the firm from Pamarco Technologies Inc.

The Daily Breeze in Torrance, Calif., begins outsourcing its printing operations to Southwest Offset Printing in Gardena, Calif.

WIFAG sells four evolution 371 presses to Trinity Mirror and Guardian Media Group Regional Newspapers in the United Kingdom.

The Herald-Mail Co. in Hagerstown, Md., purchase an Americolor tower from Inland Newspaper Machinery Corp., becoming the first newspaper publisher to buy the press since Inland took over marketing the machine from George R. Hall Contracting.

The News Herald in Panama City, Fla., orders a 28-unit single-wide press from Goss International Corp.

Evergreen Printing and Publishing Co. purchases a 32-unit model 440 press from Dauphin Graphic Machines.

The (Oklahoma City) Oklahoman begins installation of a new workflow system anchored by software from ppi Media Inc. Meantime, Axel Springer Verlag, one of Europe’s largest publishers, wraps up its deployment of ppi Media’s production planning software.

Freedom Communications says it will install Nela punch bending equipment at the majority of its newspapers.

The Brunswick News in Muncton, New Brunswick, Canada, deploys a ProVision V2 punch bender from K&F International.

February

The Los Angeles Times $45 million press upgrade project concluded on schedule, less than a year after crews from Masthead International Inc. begin the mammoth task of bringing more color to the newspaper’s presses.

The Maui (Hawaii) News says it will install a Dauphin Graphic Machines press to improve print and color capacity.

The Advocate in Baton Rouge, La., signs a letter of intent to purchase a 4-by-1 MAN Roland RegioMAN press.

Nela acquires the punch and bender business Agfa purchased with its 2004 acquisition of Lastra America Corp.

News Limited Group in Australia purchases five blanket cylinder cleaning systems from Baldwin Technology Co. Inc.

Eastman Kodak Co. moves to acquire full ownership of Kodak Polychrome Graphics by buying out joint venture partner Sun Chemical Corp. in a deal worth $817 million.

Leading black media placement firm Amalgamated Publishers Inc. and Ninestars Information Technology Ltd. partner up to begin digitizing reams of back issues from more than 200 black newspapers throughout the United States.

Freedom Communications Inc. says it will convert 22 of its newspapers to thermal computer-to-plate by year-end with a mix of technology from myriad vendors.

March

Fort Wayne (Ind.) Newspapers Inc. taps TKS (USA) to supply it with a Color Top 7000UDH press to anchor its new $35 million 47,000-square-foot production facility.

The Toronto Star on Sunday begins printing full color on every page, becoming the first major North American broadsheet to have that capability.

The Reno (Nev.) Gazette-Journal and Florida Today in Melbourne say they will add color towers from Goss International Corp.

Aecom Technology Corp., parent of design firm McClier, concludes its acquisition of the Midwest and Southwest operations of rival The Austin Co.

Schur is providing The Kansas City (Mo.) Star with a palletizing system consisting of eight Winrob palletizers, four PSW stretch wrappers and a pallet conveyor system.

April

The Journal and Courier in Lafayette, Ind., becomes the first North American newspaper to adopt the Berliner format when it agrees to purchase a press from MAN Roland Inc. that will be installed at a new $23 million production facility.

The Fredrick (Md.) News-Post says it will purchase a CT 4000 3-by-2 press from TKS (USA) for its new production facility.

Post-Newsweek Media Inc. says it will build a $42 million, 90,000-square-foot production plant to house a new DiamondStar press from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

The New York Times agrees to a second phase of press upgrades from Goss International Corp. The upgrade includes press controls and digital inking at six NYT national printing facilities.

Goss International Corp. begins selling and representing Ferag Americas in North America under terms of a marketing agreement announced by the two companies.

May

The New York Times signs a 10-year contract with Canadian printer Transcontinental Inc. to produce national editions slated for Toronto and upstate New York.

The University of Missouri School of Journalism wraps up a 10-week project at the Columbia Missourian aimed at evaluating a new format, dubbed EmPrint, for electronic newspapers.

The U.K.’s Guardian Newspapers Ltd. purchases three ColorMAN presses and an Aurosys reel-handling system from MAN Roland in a $97 million project to support conversion of its Guardian and Observer newspapers to the Berliner format.

June

The Bismarck (N.D.) Tribune trims its paper width to 46 inches as the web-width reduction trend gains new traction.

The (Denver) Rocky Mountain News debuts a grassroots community news site, www.yourhub.com, and weekly companion print editions.

Goss International Corp. sells 15 Universal four-high towers and one Community four-high tower to Turkish publisher Hurriyet Gazetecilik ve Mattbaaslik.

The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch picks CCI Europe to upgrade its legacy editorial management app. Singapore Press Holdings, meantime, taps CCI Europe to outfit advertising operations at its 13 publications, including The Straits Times, Singapore’s largest English-language daily.

Goss International Corp. bolsters its Magnum pressline by offering a two-around version of the single-width machine.

The U.S. Commerce Department launches a “changed circumstances review” of Tokyo Kikai Seisakusho Ltd. to investigate whether the company concealed or falsified information stemming from its sale of presses to The Dallas Morning News in the mid-1990s.

The New York Times adds Presteligence’s Xtreme ink presetting app at several of its newspapers following a move to upgrade its presses.

The South China Morning Post goes live with Atex advertising software, thereby consolidating the group’s major titles onto a single platform.

July

The New York Times plans, along with other group publishers, say they are switching to lighter basis weight newsprint in order to trim expenses.

Newsquest Media Group pumps up its color and commercial printing capability with a tower from Printing Press Services International.

The Rockford (Ill.) Register Star picks Ferag Americas to supply a gripper conveyor to support its new production facility.

Eastman Kodak Co. completes its $988 million acquisition of Creo Inc.

Agfa sells more than $7 million in violet computer-to-plate systems to newspapers in China, India and Latin America. Meantime, the vendor unveils new CTP processing chemicals, which it touts as a more economical foundation for its N91 and N91v photopolymer plates.

H. Howard Flint II, chairman of Flint Ink Corp., dies after a brief illness.

The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa., launches a compact edition of its broadsheet daily.

Landmark Community Newspapers Inc. begins deploying thermal CTP units from Creo, now a subsidiary of Eastman Kodak Co.

Gannett Co. Inc. and Knight Ridder end their 16-year JOA in Detroit after Gannett pays $262 million to acquire Knight Ridder’s Detroit Free Press before selling The Detroit News to MediaNews Group and creating a new JOA. Mark Mikolajczyk is named president and chief executive officer.

West Hanover-based Graphic Developments Inc., a Massachusetts newspaper printer, becomes the first company to install a Newsmatic 250 violet computer-to-plate unit from ECRM Imaging Systems.

The Spectrum in St. George, Utah, and The Desert Valley Times in Mesquite Nev., select violet FasTrak CTP units from alfaQuest Technologies.

The Kansas City (Mo.) Star selects bender and conveyor systems from K&F International to complete the new plate production room at its future $199 million downtown facility.

September

The newly formed Detroit Newspaper Partnership LP begins printing the Detroit Free Press on its new MAN Roland Inc. presses, capping a 30-month $177 million production facility upgrade.

The Seattle Times Co. rolls out a predictive analytics tool to get a better handle on its readers.

Quipp Systems Inc. acquires postpress vendor Newstec Inc. in a deal valued at $4 million.

Gulf Coast newspapers are put to the test following twin hurricanes that raked the area. The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune is forced to abandon its downtown headquarters after floodwaters begin to encircle its building. Papers in Alabama and Mississippi also suffer significant damage to their plants.

The Kansas City (Mo.) Star becomes the first U.S. newspaper to inspect its digital plates for quality using technology from Swiss-based PQCS.net.

Newsday in Long Island, N.Y., selects Discus circulation software from Neasi-Weber International to improve its circulation management.

MacDermid Printing Solutions announces plans to offer computer-to-plate systems for flexographic presses. The company says that it is building machines based on parts and technology it purchased from PerkinElmer.

The Asbury Park (N.J.) Press and papers owned by Easton Publishing Co. and NJN Publishing roll out Live Pagination from Mindset Software to boost their ad marketing efforts.

October

Gulf Coast newspapers were struggling to get back on their feet following Hurricane Katrina, which decimated parts of Louisiana and Mississippi.

Flint Ink North America and Sun Chemical both raise the price of their coldset black inks 12 cents per pound.

Advertising losses related to Hurricane Katrina are estimated to top $1 billion through the end of 2006.

The (Minneapolis) Star Tribune taps Ferag to upgrade its postpress operations.

Quebecor Inc. says it will spend more than $185 million over the next 18 months to standardize and modernize its newspaper printing and production capabilities in Montreal and Toronto. The publisher picks MAN Roland to supply six ColorMAN presses as part of the upgrade.

Eastman Kodak Co. says it will close a manufacturing facility in Middleway, W. Va., it acquired through its purchase of Creo Inc. earlier in 2005.

Screen (USA) unveils its PlateRite News 2000 CTP system, which sports a 64-channel laser diode imaging head and can image up to 80 plates per hour.

New York Times Regional Media Group selects Presteligence Inc. for electronic tearsheets and invoice delivery opting for a three-year hosted service agreement to bring all of the of the group’s 15 newspapers up on the adinfinitum app by the end of the year.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution becomes the first newspaper to connect to car dealer Manheim’s new AdStar Inc.-powered Dealer Advertising System.

The U.S. Commerce Dept. says it will re-evaluate whether it should again assess an antidumping duty against Tokyo Kikai Seisakusho Ltd., leading a TKS counsel to remark that the company is concerned that the long-running legal battle is hurting the company’s U.S. sales efforts.

November

Dow Jones & Co. says it will trim the width of The Wall Street Journal from 60 inches to 48 inches in a $43 million capital improvement project to be completed in January 2007.

The Denver Newspaper Agency selects MAN Roland Inc. to supply it with five GeoMAN presses to anchor its future production.

Clarity Media Group says it will add a third Examiner to its stable of free papers, this one in Baltimore.

The South Bend (Ind.) Tribune chooses Quipp Systems Inc. and Goss International Corp. to upgrade its postpress operations.

Xsys Print Solutions completes its acquisition of Flint Ink Corp.

The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa., pulls the plug on The Patriot, the compact version of the broadsheet it launched in June to bulk up readership.

Goss International Corp. sells four Newsliner 90 presses to Shenzhen Press Group in China.

The Rockford (Ill.) Register Star installs wNewsNet workflow software from EAE Ltd. in conjunction with its upcoming conversion to computer-to-plate and a new press commissioning.

Konica Minolta Graphic Imaging USA Inc. completes its acquisition of American Litho Inc.

The (New York) Daily News announces plans for a project that will bring all of its advertising production operations in-house with help from Mediaspectrum Inc.’s EngineBridge production software.

Saxotech acquires the assets of CKP Newspaper Systems Inc. and retains the company’s employee base.

December

The staff of the (New Orleans) Times-Picayune is back at work printing papers but still searching for the predictability it enjoyed before Hurricane Katrina.

The New York Times Co. and News International each commit to violet computer-to-plate technology to handle their plate processing, picking Agfa to supply them with hardware and software.

Two Florida newspapers, The Tampa Tribune and The Daily Sun in Lady Lake, upgrade their postpress operations with equipment from GMA Inc.

The Eureka (Calif.) Reporter commissions a single-wide press from Tensor Group Inc. to support its expanded publication schedule.

Seacoast Media Group says it will install press and postpress equipment from Goss International Corp. for its new 70,000 square-foot production facility being built in Portsmouth, N.H.

Nela and Masthead International said they would team up to sell and install locks and associated equipment in conjunction with web-width reduction projects in North America.

Fuji Photo Film announces plans to build a second production line dedicated to the manufacture of offset CTP plates at its facility in Tilburg, the Netherlands. The $48 million investment is the company’s largest for offset plates since the original construction of the Tilburg facility in 1991.