Ottaway Unit Buys First 2-Around Goss Magnum in U.S.

By: E&P Staff With the aid of national production staffers at parent Dow Jones & Co., Ottaway Newspapers' Seacoast Media Group, Portsmouth, N.H., selected Goss International to supply integrated press and inserting systems for its new, 70,000-square-foot production and office facility now under construction. Installation will begin next August.

The order is the first for a two-around Goss Magnum press in the United States, and the first to combine Goss newspaper press and post-press equipment since Goss acquired Heidelberg Web Systems last year. Seacoast Media will use the systems to produce the newspapers it distributes in southern New Hampshire and Maine, along with several other products and commercial print publications.

Seacoast Media produces the Portsmouth Herald, The Hampton Union, The Exeter News-Letter, The Rockingham News, and the free weekly Dover Community News in New Hampshire, York County Coast Star, and The York Weekly in Maine, and the Seacoastonline.com Web site. The company also manages distribution of the Wall Street Journal, Barron's, the Boston Globe, USA Today, New York Times, Financial Times, Investor's Business Daily, and Greek National Herald in coastal New Hampshire and southern Maine.

A need for more space and expanded color, paging, and sectioning capacity on the press and through the mailroom is driving the expansion project, according to Operations Director Paul Briand. The project will bring together Portsmouth-based news and business offices and production, now located in nearby Stratham (see November E&P, p. 62, or this online article [sub. req.]).

Citing the singlewide Magnum's versatility and the productivity and reliability record of the press and the inserter, Briand said in a statement that Seacoast Media sees "major integration advantages in being able to purchase press and post-press systems from one vendor that is located just up the highway from our new plant."

Goss production facilities in Dover and Durham are about 10 miles from Seacoast Media's facility. Project support will come from those Goss locations. The Durham plant builds the inserter. The press, however, is manufactured at Goss' plant in China.

Seacoast Media's Goss Magnum will consist of 32 printing couples in three four-high towers and two two-high towers, as well as a Goss Universal 2:3:3 jaw folder with two formers. The configuration will print up to 48 broadsheet pages with 24 full-color pages and 16 spot-color pages in collect production. Plans also allow for the future addition of fifth and sixth towers and a second folder. The two-around Magnum prints up to 75,000 copies per hour, depending on configuration.

The 22-hopper Goss NP632 inserter will cycle at up to 25,000 papers per hour and will be equipped for zoned inserting with Goss Omnicon controls. Goss also will supply NP125 inserter gripper conveyors to feed products from the inserter to two stacker tie lines.

Based on technology in its Magnum one-around and other Goss single- and doublewide presses, Goss launched the two-around version of its Magnum earlier this year for new-press installations and tower additions to Goss Urbanite and Tribune presses.