As publishers well know, mergers and acquisitions can leave newspapers searching for replacement equipment, software and consumables. The Lastra (Western Lithotech) LY8 negative-working YAG plate, for instance, was a casualty of a series of events that commenced with Lastra America’s 2002 acquisition of Western Lithotech and ended with Agfa’s subsequent acquisition of Lastra in 2004.

The New York Post, a longtime LY8 user, locked into a three-year plate deal with Fujifilm USA in January. Through Enovation Graphics, Fuji will supply The Post with LP-NN2 negative-working plates for use on the publisher’s four Western Lithotech DiamondSetter computer-to-plate units. The DiamondSetters have been in use at the Post (daily, 672,731; Saturday, 477,558; Sunday, 425,273) since it opened its current production facility in the Port Morris section of the south Bronx in September 2001.  

Elimination of the LY8 plate, led to a yearlong plate evaluation by the Post to find a replacement, according to Kris Socia, director of production.

Only two choices

“As far as a visible YAG, photopolymer plate, Fuji and Agfa are really what’s out there,” he said. “Before committing to one of those two vendors, we decided to test - and thoroughly test - because that’s what we do here at the Post.”



Kris Socia, director of production at the New York Post, said his newspaper conducted a yearlong plate test before signing a three-year deal with Fujifilm.
Photo: Newspapers & Technology

To that end, the Post ran Agfa plates on two of its CTP lines and Fuji on the other two.

Socia said not only cost, but also quality of the plates, was key.

“We wanted to see how well this plate images, how well it processes, how well it performs on press, and (we also looked at) customer service,” he said. “Those were the big issues we concentrated on.”

In terms of pricing, Socia said, the Post is satisfied with the contract it received from Fuji.

The Post has an eye on updating its CTP foundation in the future, Socia said.

“Down the road we’ll continue to look at new technology, but right now we’re committed to this with Fuji,” he said.

When the Post begins to test new CTP technologies, Socia said, volume of plate output will be a key factor.

“We have to get a high volume of plates out in a short period of time, and we need to have a plate that can be imaged in a similar timeframe to the YAG plate.”

Keeping up with demand in Dallas

Like the Post, The Dallas Morning News uses Fuji’s LP-NN2 plates, also on Western DiamondSetters, which the publisher first rolled out in 1997. The newspaper (daily, 465,469; Sunday, 640,744) replaced its Lastra LY8 plates with the Fuji plate in September 2002.

“The negative-working with our technology was really our only choice,” said Jimmy Morton, pressroom manager, referring to the paper’s seven DiamondSetters.

Prior to the Fuji deployment, Morton said The Morning News was having problems getting volume shipments of plates - a key necessity for the daily, which uses approximately 120,000 plates each month.

“Fuji came to us with a proposal they were ready to give to the newspaper market and we gave them a pretty extended three-month test of about 2,000 plates a month, and since then we’ve increased them dramatically each year.”

One of The Morning News’ platesetters runs Agfa plates.