LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Journal & Courier in Lafayette has attracted “double-digit” increases in retail advertising and stabilized circulation in the 11 months since it debuted as a Berliner-sized daily.

“Our biggest success has been in retail advertising,” said Gary M. Suisman, president and publisher of the paper. Where retail revenues were falling more than 10 percent in the period before the paper underwent its radical design, the Journal & Courier’s retail ad revenues grew in the “double digits most months” since the migration, Suisman said.

The Journal & Courier (daily, 36,034; Sunday, 42,908) last July 31 printed its first edition in the 18.5-inch-by 12-inch Berliner format, in the process becoming the first North American daily to convert to the smaller size.

Photos: MMMS
Left, Keith Hockenberry, vice president of sales and marketing at Muller Martini Mailroom Systems, with Ron Sams, vice president of newspaper sales at MAN Roland, as Gary Suisman, president and publisher of the Journal & Courier in Lafayette, Ind., shows off a clock the newspaper received as a thank you from the companies.
 

The paper in 2005 purchased a MAN Roland GeoMAN 4-by-2 offset press to anchor a new plant, which also features polywrapping and associated postpress equipment from Muller Martini Mailroom Systems. Prior to the new press, the Journal & Courier was a 54-inch broadsheet produced on a decades’-old letterpress machine with limited color.

Today, the 75,000-copy-per-hour GeoMAN allows the paper up to 24 pages of color in straight production. The paper typically runs collect, with 48 pages of color, in four sections.

Color revenues soar

In addition to healthier retail ad revenues, Suisman said the Journal & Courier is enjoying triple-digit growth in color advertising, as area marketers take advantage of the press’ new capabilities.

Daily circulation, meantime, increased about 1 percent to 2 percent to 36,034 since last July, Suisman said, adding that single-copy sales also rose, albeit slightly.

As expected, the smaller size helped the Journal & Courier trim its newsprint expenses, with the paper cutting about 12 percent off its annual bill. Prior to the switch, the paper’s newsprint costs were rising at about a 4 percent annual clip, Suisman said.

“Looking back, we would do it again,” Suisman said. Concerns that readers would abandon the paper because of the smaller size have evaporated. “Readers have embraced the paper; we’re not worried about reader reaction,” he said.

The Journal & Courier was the first U.S. paper to employ
Muller Martini Mailroom Systems’ PowerWrap polywrapping system.


Gannett Co. Inc. invested more than $24 million to construct the Journal & Courier’s new facility, and worked with MAN Roland and Muller Martini to incorporate press and postpress systems that were new to U.S. newspapers.

To that end, the GeoMAN is located on a single level, with the reelstands on one end of the machine. While MAN Roland has used that design in Europe, the Journal & Courier was the first to employ that configuration in the United States. The paper was also the first to buy Muller Martini’s PowerWrap system, which is used for Sunday production.

Bagging inserts

The system links an SLS-3000 inserter with a polybagger from Italian vendor CMC, and processes up to 30,000 packages per hour. Two CombiStacks are used to wrap the finished papers in weather resistant bundles.

The Journal & Courier is one of a handful of small to medium-sized papers rolling out polybagging systems to wrap their inserts. The News-Gazette in Champaign, Ill., (daily, 41,035; Sunday, 45,689) is flipping the switch on its Schur Packaging Systems wrapping system this month as part of an all-Schur upgrade of its postpress operations. The News Journal in Wilmington, Del., (daily, 114,435; Sunday, 131,796) meantime, last year went into production with its polybagger, which links a Goss International Corp. Magnapak inserter with a CMC wrapper.

Next up for the Journal & Courier: additional commercial work. The paper recently began printing a series of weekly newspapers serving suburban Cincinnati under an agreement with sister paper The Cincinnati Enquirer. That’s added more than 250,000 copies to the Journal & Courier’s weekly press run.

Although the Berliner format is becoming more commonplace internationally, traction in North America has been less certain. Only one other U.S. paper, the Reading (Pa.) Eagle, has said it will convert to Berliner, using press technology from Koenig & Bauer AG. The redesigned Eagle is expected to debut in 2009.