Tenuous Future p.

By: John Consoli

Tenuous Future p.
Producing and distributing a tailored newspaper is not as simple or
economically feasible as some thought, production execs are told
PRODUCING AND DISTRIBUTING a tailored newspaper is not feasible in the current economic climate, and with portable electronic delivery expected to be commonplace by the end of the decade it may not be wise for newspapers to invest in such a project.
That was the surprisingly candid message issued to newspaper production executives this week by Tom Simms, vice president for systems at Philadelphia Newspapers Inc., which publishes the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News.
"My guess is . . . that if we are not successfully producing and delivering household tailored newspapers by 1997 or 1998, we might as well not invest the effort and dollars necessary to do it at all," Simms told a standing-room-only crowd on the opening day of the Newspaper Association of America's Nexpo 93 conference and exposition in New Orleans.
"I believe use of portable electronic services will be commonplace early in the 21st century," he said.
Simms discussed the decision by Knight-Ridder's Wichita (Kan.) Eagle not to proceed with a four-year project to begin distribution of a tailored newspaper in that market. Knight-Ridder is also the parent company of PNI.
"We are, at the moment, on hold with the Wichita plan," he said. "The clearest reason: Start-up costs are incompatible with the economic environment."
Simms said the Wichita plan would require an additional 4.5 positions to manage and maintain an accurate database containing the needed subscriber and distribution information.
"Our industry prides itself in meaningful and accurate subscriber data- bases," Simms said. "The reality for most newspapers, however, is that while necessary and helpful, our CIS databases are not nearly as accurate as we would like them to be and certainly don't contain the kind of psychographic and demographic information necessary to produce and distribute a truly custom-tailored newspaper."
The distribution of newspapers labeled with specific customer names and addresses is also quite complex, Simms said.
"Making sure the right truck has the right bundles in the correct order so that the right carrier can deliver the right newspaper in his or her defined delivery sequence to the right doorstep with no problems is deemed impossible by some," he said.
Doing this successfully in Wichita, Simms said, would require an additional four positions in circulation and 13 in the mailroom.
A lesser concern about distributing the tailored newspaper is disaster control, he said.
"In the night-to-night routine of running a mailroom, you only have to witness a few stacker-jams, burst bundles or ink-jet and under-wrap malfunctions to have nightmares regarding how to recover labeled, sequenced, inserted, address-specific newspapers that have gone through one of these disasters on their way to the loading dock," he said.
Simms remains convinced that the tailored newspaper is doable, but all the bugs have to be worked out.
He pointed out that Knight-Ridder and the Wichita Eagle began working with software and equipment suppliers in 1989 to come up with a complete business plan to begin offering the tailored newspaper.
The fact that it took so long to reach this point and it has not become a reality today does not bode well for the concept.
However, Simms says, "After 12 years of work between Knight-Ridder and Collier-Jackson, especially regarding CIS development, and after 18 months of work specifically related to enhancements to support custom-tailored newspapers, we are convinced that Collier-Jackson can produce database software that serves the psychographic and demographic needs of the market."
Simms said he is convinced that Collier-Jackson can produce software that is "capable of driving the mailroom equipment well enough to successfully produce custom-tailored newspapers," and that both Graphic Management Associates and AM Graphics ? which were also involved in the Wichita project ? "can both deliver the computer-controlled mechanical technology to insert and label newspapers tailored for the individual household."
However, he says, mechanical customization in the mailroom for the tailored newspaper will lose its value as the reality of electronic newspapers approaches.