NEWSPAPER PRESSES -- Creating Commercial Niches

Even customers who print nothing but their own newspapers are finding they need to become more like a commercial operation. The number of zoned editions has increased greatly, meaning there's a greater emphasis on job turnaround and makeready.

"Readers and advertisers want content that relates to them more personally or is at least more neighborhood-oriented, claims Simon "So the issue of zoning—producing different editions for different zones in a marketplace—is huge. We've perfected a technique called On-the-Fly Changeover, which lets the pressman shut down one printing unit while simultaneously engaging another. The result: a different version of a section of the paper can be produced without ever stopping the press."