www.newsandtech.com www.newsandtech.com September/October 2019 The premier resource for insight, analysis and technology integration in newspaper and hybrid operations and production. Villages Daily Sun inks press, postpress deals for new production facility u BY TARA MCMEEKIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER The Villages (Florida) Daily Sun is on the list of publishers which is nearer to Orlando. But with development trending as winning the good fight when it comes to community news- it is, Sprung said The Daily Sun will soon be at the center of the papering. The paper’s circulation is just over 60,000, and KBA Photo: expanded community. — thanks to rapid growth in the community — that number is steadily climbing. Some 120,000 people already call The Partnerships key Villages home, and approximately 300 new houses are being Choosing vendors to supply various parts of the workflow at built there every month. the new facility has been about forming partnerships, accord- To keep pace with the growth, The Daily Sun purchased a Pictured following the contract ing to Sprung. Cost is obviously a consideration, but success brand-new 100,000-square-foot production facility and new signing for a new KBA press in ultimately depends on relationships, he said — both with the Florida: Jim Sprung, associate printing equipment. The publisher is confident the investment publisher for The Villages Media community The Daily Sun serves and the technology providers will help further entrench The Daily Sun as the definitive news- Group; Winfried Schenker, senior who help to produce the printed product. paper publisher and printer in the region. manager of sales for Koenig “We felt KBA offered us the best partnership, not only be- & Bauer Digital & Webfed; Phil “Our community is growing,” Associate Publisher Jim Markward, publisher of The Vil- cause of specs but because, like us, they are family owned and Sprung told News & Tech. “It’s a lifestyle community — and lages Media Group; Stefan Segger, they matched our values,” Sprung said. “Price was important, with all the wonderful things we offer, more and more people vice president of sales for Koenig & Bauer Digital & Webfed; Steve but the opportunity for a long-term partnership was why we are purchasing homes here. Luckily for us, they’re also con- Infinger, director of operations for ultimately chose them.” tinuing to purchase newspapers.” The Villages Media Group; Jurgen Furthermore, Sprung said KBA is helping The Daily Sun to Gruber, sales manager for Koenig This summer, The Daily Sun tapped Koenig & Bauer AG to & Bauer (US) Inc.; and Dan Sprung, fast-track the project. The press will be delivered in the third outfit the new facility with a 6-by-2 Commander press. The tri- director of marketing and publish- quarter of 2020, with a goal of going live in November. ple-wide installation will feature three reelstands, three print- ing for The Villages Media Group. “Our hope is that we will be completely up and running in ing towers and one folder. time to cover election night, with papers coming off our new Situated in the up-and-coming Governor Rick Scott Industrial Park, the press,” he added. publisher’s new location might seem far from The Daily Sun’s current home, The Villages continues on page 5 Sun-Times streamlining subscriber self-service u BY TARA MCMEEKIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER The Chicago Sun-Times earlier this year im- The app has allowed the Sun-Times to in- for us,” Vice President of Circulation Sheila plemented technology to bolster self-service crease efficiencies by reducing the amount Reidy told News & Tech. functions for its subscribers. The publisher of live call interactions necessary, and tran- The publisher’s previous system was not selected Innovative Systems Design’s Chat- sitioning customers to self-service for the providing that type of efficiency, and customer terbox Cloud Self-Service platform, which most common needs and complaints. In service reps were consistently bogged down. enables interactive voice response (IVR). the roughly six months the app has been in “Our previous system allowed customers use, the Sun-Times said it has to call in and either speak with a representa- increased customer response tive, or log some type of complaint,” Direc- times, while also making more tor or Circulation Sales and Service Iza Kinel valuable use of customer ser- explained. “Besides lacking the efficiencies Turn to vice representatives’ time to we were looking for, we didn’t have all of the handle issues that require live options we needed.” page 33 calls with customers. That led the Sun-Times to search for an op- for expanded “With more calls being tion that put customers first and gave them captured by Chatterbox and easy access to the options they were most industry less going to customer service often seeking. Kinel said the newspaper eval- coverage agents, our costs have been uated a number of other systems and ISD’s greatly reduced, which is huge Sun-Times continues on page 6 News & Tech September/October 2019 u 1 www.newsandtech.com — Let’s write the future. With retrofit solutions that give your press another ten years of life. ABB’s retrofit solutions for newspaper presses will extend the productive life of your press, improve print quality, reduce waste and improve efficiency — for a fraction of the cost of a new press. Worried about the availability of spare parts for your existing controls? With an ABB retrofit you know that spares will be available worldwide for ten to fifteen years. Whether looking for replacement drives, new controls, conversion to shaftless or a complete press reconfiguration, ABB has the right solution for you. The key to the future of your printing business lies with ABB. www.abb.com/printing 2 t September/October 2019 News & Tech ABB-Ad_Newsandtech_228x276_a.indd 1 21.07.2017 07:51:57 uVendor News Denmark’s OTM Avistryk gets retrofit from DCOS DCOS Sweden AB has a contract to retrofit the Many presses were equipped with the DIAX se- existing Bosch Rexroth drive system at OTM Avis- ries of drives and the CLC motion controller, all tryk Herning-Ikast A/S in Ikast, Denmark, accord- based on SERCOS II fiber optics. ing to DCOS. The existing equipment consists In 2015 DCOS developed an industry unique of two Goss Universal 45 presses, with a total of retrofit concept for the DIAX platform, a step-by- twelve 4-high printing towers and two folders in- step migration of the old DIAX system to a mod- stalled in early 2000. ern drive system platform, the DCOS release says. In the 1990s, Bosch Rexroth, with its brand In- Gradually the old SERCOS II fiber optic system is dramat, took part in transforming the graphic arts removed and replaced with a standardized, non- industry from traditional mechanical line shafts to proprietary, ethernet-based bus system. shaftless drive transmission, DCOS points out in its The retrofit was to start at the end of August and release on the retrofit. be competed in four weeks, according to DCOS. Aiken Standard gets press from imPRESSions South Carolina-based Aiken Standard east service center in Tupelo, Mississippi, completed in August, according to imPRES- has expanded its printing operation with where improvements were made. Sions. a four-tower Goss Magnum press bought Because of limited space in Aiken, the imPRESSions Worldwide offers an inven- from imPRESSions Worldwide, according press equipment is being shipped and in- tory of second-hand single-wide newspa- to imPRESSions. The Aiken Standard (part of stalled in stages. The old Goss Community per and commercial presses and auxiliary Evening Post Industries) is a repeat customer press is being removed. equipment. imPRESSions is headquartered with imPRESSions. Phase one of the installation was recent- in Burlington, Washington, and also has a The press was removed from Houston and ly completed and is now in production as facility in Tupelo, Mississippi. shipped to imPRESSions Worldwide’s south- phase two gets started. The project was to be Recruitology inks deal with BH Media Recruitology, a provider of digital recruitment solutions, has a deal according to the company. As the technology learns where job list- with BH Media Group to launch its white-label solutions on all BH ings best perform from a candidate quality perspective, budgets are Media digital properties, according to Recruitology. Recruitology automatically redirected to the most appropriate partner channels, provides businesses looking for talent a way to post and promote jobs the company says. on dozens of job sites including Indeed, Glassdoor, Nexxt, and Ca- “We are honored by BH Media's endorsement of our products and reerBuilder. The solution gives job seekers on Recruitology's media welcome its brands to our family,” said Roberto Angulo, Recruitol- partner job sites a way to find local jobs and send resumes directly ogy's CEO. to businesses. BH Media joins Recruitology's media partner list, which includes Recruitology uses proprietary AI technology to best match busi- McClatchy, Tribune Publishing, Gatehouse Media, Los Angeles nesses looking for talent with qualified candidates at the lowest cost, Times, and Hearst. Newsday using SCS/Track After going live with SCS/ClassPag at the beginning of the summer, standard solution that required less day-to-day attention from the IT Newsday Media Group has now gone live with SCS/Track, according department, SCS says. to SCS (Software Consulting Services). “The system is up, stable and all production work is now running Newsday Media Group is the publisher of Long Island daily News- through SCS/Track,” says Greg McDonald, Newsday’s director of edi- day as well as the 79-edition Hometown Shopper weekly. torial systems and content delivery. SCS/Track replaces several systems that had previously been SCS, which offers a line of publishing-related applications includ- tightly integrated and customized by Newsday’s staff.