The Times in Shreveport, La., will convert to Berliner as the paper gets a reconditioned press in a $15 million project to be completed in 2010.

The paper is installing a 1991-vintage WIFAG OF 790 doublewide press obtained from reseller Graphic Web Systems, according to Peter Zanmiller, The Times’ publisher.

Zanmiller said he and Gannett Co. Inc. production executives have been working with GWS for the past six months to find a press to replace The Times’ 47-year-old letterpress.

 

“Economics play into this,” Zanmiller said about the decision to buy a reconditioned rather than a new press. “We feel as if we got a great deal and we are going to get the biggest bang for our buck.”

Netherlands-based GWS specializes in finding and reconditioning presses for resale. The press The Times is buying is currently in operation at a printer in Switzerland. It will go off-edition next summer and then be shipped to Shreveport in May 2009.

3rd Berliner in U.S.

The shafted press, which will offer The Times full color on every page, will be configured as four towers and two folders. The OF 790, now a 50-inch-wide machine, will be trimmed to 44 inches before it is transported to Shreveport, Zanmiller said.

The Times will convert from its current 54-inch-wide, 22.75-inch-high broadsheet format to an 18.5-inch-by-11-inch-wide Berliner format upon commissioning.

It will become the third U.S. Berliner and the second Gannett daily to adopt the smaller design, following the Journal and Courier in Lafayette, Ind.

The Reading (Pa.) Eagle is also converting to Berliner after it installs its Koenig & Bauer AG Colora press in 2009.

The Times hired Dario Designs Inc. to design a building to house the press. It will be attached to The Times’ current newsprint warehouse, Zanmiller said.

Zanmiller said GWS will oversee the installation of an electrical power converter and other minor modifications needed to enable the WIFAG press to conform to U.S. power requirements. It will also handle the shipment and construction of the press, which is managed by an ABB control system.

“It’s a complete turnkey operation,”

The Times is the first U.S. newspaper to buy a coldset press from GWS. The firm had traditionally focused on selling used heatset presses, but last year began turning its attention to the North American newspaper market, said Willem Kok, GWS’ chairman.

“We see lots of opportunities for U.S. papers to purchase reconditioned presses,” he said.

Kok bought GWS in 2006 with the express purpose to market the deep inventory of European newspaper presses, many of which offer color and production options that far exceed those of similarly-aged U.S. machines.

“Newspapers are looking to buy presses like these in order to reduce their costs,” he said. “They get the color and flexibility the need and get presses that are still mechanically sound.”

Gannett had been evaluating how to remedy The Times’ aging press infrastructure for years, Zanmiller said, and at one point thought about building a centralized plant to produce both The Times and sister paper The News-Star in Monroe, La.

That idea was dropped and The News-Star ultimately received a rebuilt 19-unit Goss Urbanite press in a project overseen by Pressline Services Inc.

Zanmiller said The Times, unlike its Berliner-sized sister paper in Lafayette, Ind., doesn’t plan to polybag its Sunday editions or make any other major postpress modifications to accommodate the Berliner format.

“We think the integrity of the inserts will be fine,” he said.

Beefing up The Times’ printing capabilities will also enable the paper to seek out additional commercial work. “That’s definitely one of our objectives,” he said. “We’ll definitely be going after commercial printing.”