Editor’s note: Remember when The Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, Mass., bought a flexographic press? How about when the Chicago Tribune bought six packaging systems to improve its daily and TMC postpress operations? And you certainly don’t want to forget the German newspaper that was the world’s first to use UV ink on a doublewide press. All this, and more occurred in 2007. The month cited refers to when our article or Dateline appeared and not when the actual event occurred.

January

•Reuters taps MediaSpan Media Software to provide editorial and content management software linking its worldwide offices.

•MediaNews Group picks outsource vendor Express KCS to handle the ad production of more than 40 northern California newspapers. Express KCS, based in San Jose, Calif., has its production offices in Gurgaon, India.

 

•Yahoo Inc. and eight newspaper publishers align forces in a bid to grow papers’ online classified ad revenues and boost the amount of local information on yahoo.com. The group’s properties will initially incorporate Yahoo HotJobs into their Web sites before they take other steps to share content and services.

•Newsday in Long Island, N.Y., and The (Baltimore) Sun roll out violet computer-to-plate systems from Agfa.

•The Chicago Tribune selects Goss International Corp. to install six Magnapak packaging systems to upgrade its daily and TMC postpress operations. Goss said it’s the largest single order it has ever received for its packaging technology.

•GMA Inc. changes its name to Muller Martini Mailroom Systems Inc.

•Stephens Media wraps up its project to convert its 13 newspapers to violet computer-to-plate, installing 25 FasTrak CTP units from alfaQuest Technologies.

•Cox Newspapers Inc. deploys Caspio Inc.’s database building software across its 17 daily papers. The move comes after a two-year evaluation of the software at flagship Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

February

•The Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., orders a Flexible Printing System press from Goss International Corp., becoming the first U.S. newspaper to purchase the compact press model.

•Digital Technology International snaps up Publishing Business Systems Inc. and Atex acquires Mactive and its worldwide units.

•The Austin (Texas) American-Statesman rolls out Harland Simon’s Prima Espirit press control software to oversee imposition across the paper’s four presses.

•England’s Associated Newspapers Ltd. is replacing its legacy editorial and content management foundation with a 1,000-seat installation from Atex.

•The Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch taps ABB to install MPS Plate Workflow.

•The Idaho Press-Tribune in Nampa, Idaho, and Bear River Publishing in Preston, Idaho, install PlateRite News 2000 thermal computer-to-plate imagers from Screen USA.

•Morris Communications Co. becomes the ninth newspaper publisher to join the Yahoo Inc. consortium.

March

•The Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, Mass., buys an S4 flexographic press from Cerutti Group to anchor a 7,000-square-foot expansion of its downtown production facility.

•Lowcountry Newspapers, which prints The Island Packet in Hilton Head Island, S.C., and The Beaufort (S.C.) Gazette, goes on edition with a Koenig & Bauer AG Prisma 4-by-1 press, in the process becoming the first U.S. publisher to use the KBA model.

•The Los Angeles Times says it will reduce its web width to 48 inches. Meantime, the Staten Island (N.Y.) Advance and six other Advance Inc. newspapers say they are cutting their widths from 50 inches to 47 inches.

•The Times-News in Hendersonville, N.C., shuts its production operations and transfers printing to the Spartanburg (S.C.) Herald-Journal. Both papers are owned by The New York Times Co., which made the change to cut expenses.

•The Wyoming Tribune-Eagle in Cheyenne taps MAN Roland Inc. to supply it with a singlewide Uniset 75 press as the daily upgrades its production.

•Herold Druck in Vienna, Austria, becomes first doublewide press user to begin UV printing after it commissions curing system from Eltex Electrostatik on a MAN Roland ColorMAN tower.

•In a victory for Japanese press vendors, a federal trade court stops the U.S. Dept. of Commerce from reconsidering a sunset review examining if suppliers sold presses in the United States at below-market rates.

•The Boston Globe, The New York Times and the Telegram & Gazette in Worcester, Mass., say they will anchor their prepress around printnet workflow software their MAN Roland unit ppi Media. The Globe and the Telegram & Gazette will work from one ppi server housed in Boston while The Times will work out of its own server in New York.

•The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post rolls out an online shopping marketplace using HarvestInfo’s ShopMountain platform.

April

•The Dallas Morning News flips the switch on its new $50 million Sunday postproduction plant, anchored by two 76-hopper FSI Packaging System collators from Prim Hall.

•Newspapers & Technology introduces a SmartEdition of the paper through a partnership with NewspaperDirect. The free digital edition offers readers worldwide and exact replica of N&T, including all articles and ads.

•Bonner General Anzeiger in Bonn, Germany selects WIFAG to install an OF 370 S press.

•Seacoast Media Group inaugurates its $21 million production plant in Portsmouth, N.H., built around press and postpress equipment from Goss International Corp.

•The Wall Street Journal experiments with applying scented ink to selected advertisements, using technology developed by Scentisphere and Flint Group.

•Transcontinental Inc. opens a unit dedicated to selling its printing and production services to newspapers in the United States.

•The Winnipeg (Manitoba) Free Press upgrades its press controls using software and systems from Harland Simon.

•The Miami Herald migrates to computer-to-plate, selecting violet CTP equipment from Kodak, associated plate bending and sortation hardware and software from Nela, and workflow software from ProImage.

•AlfaQuest Technologies unveils its NewsXpress entry-level computer-to-plate unit.

•The (New York) Daily News picks Krause and Fujifilm Graphic Systems USA to supply its violet computer-to-plate technology.

•Publishers Circulation Fulfillment Inc. signs a distribution partnership with The Tampa (Fla.) Tribune to manage the daily’s home-delivery copies in Pinellas County.

•The Seattle Post-Intelligencer deploys a customized digital newsreader application designed to give readers a more intuitive and reader-friendly way to view the publication’s content.

May

•At Nexpo 2007 in Orlando, Fla., newspapers and newspaper printers take out their checkbooks to buy new press technologies to anchor their future production requirements. The Naples (Fla.) Daily News buys a WIFAG evolution 371 press for a new 180,000-square-foot production facility. Transcontinental Inc. picks MAN Roland to supply it with three ColorMAN XXL 6-by-2 presses for the production facility it’s building in northern California to produce the San Francisco Chronicle. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution buys six ColorTop 7000 towers from TKS (USA) for its color expansion project. And the Reading (Pa.) Eagle buys a Colora doublewide Berliner press from Koenig & Bauer AG, becoming the second U.S. daily to embrace the format.

 •Four outsourcing vendors make their Nexpo debuts: Express KCS, Affinity Express, CCI Sourcing and 2AdPro. Reps say they are busy throughout the show at meetings with newspapers that want to evaluate using offshore services to bolster their prepress operations. Affinity signs software pact with Mediaspectrum to use its ad production software as a foundation.

•Flint Group buys Day International in an effort to broaden its product mix.

•The New York Times selects FMC Technologies Inc. to supply a paper roll handling system for its College Point, N.Y., production facility.

•The Toronto Star becomes the largest-circulation North American broadsheet to convert to a 46-inch web width.

•The San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News outsources its ad production work to Express KCS, following the lead of other MediaNews Group dailies.

•Goss International Corp. says Independent News and Media in Northern Ireland has gone on-edition with its FPS press, a little more than six months after the publisher begins renovating a former Newry warehouse into a production site.

•The Herald-Times in Bloomington, Ind., is now on-edition with its Americolor add-on tower. The paper purchased the tower from Inland Newspaper Machinery Corp. to boost its color capacity.

•Journal Register Co. says it will deploy alfa Media Solutions Inc.’s OpenMedia editorial apps throughout its newspapers.

•Kodak and Agfa preview no-process and chemistry-free digital plates.

•Central Maine Newspapers converts to computer-to-plate using hardware and software from the CTP Alliance. CMN installs a Screen PlateRite News 2000 platesetter, which images Southern Lithoplate’s Viper 830 thermal plates, and Polkadots Software’s Newsflo workflow app.

•The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash., signs a deal with Fujifilm Graphic Systems USA to install two Krause LS-Jet 170 violet computer-to-plate devices and two Krause BlueFin processors.

•The Sun Journal in Lewiston, Maine, selects Fusion Systems International to automate its prepress operations.

•The Chicago Tribune launches Trib Local, an online publishing venture using software from Kodak and Advanced Technical Solutions Inc.

June

•Commissioning at Cox Target Media Inc.’s $200 million Valpak production center in St. Petersburg, Fla., begins. Upon the formal opening of the mammoth plant the Valpak facility will produce 20 billion coupons each year, packaged and mailed in more than 500 million envelopes.

•The Wall Street Journal says it will print New Mexican editions of its Monday through Saturday paper at the Albuquerque Publishing Co.

•The (Phoenix) Arizona Republic announces plans to close its Mesa, Ariz., production plant and transfer printing to its main facility in Deer Valley.

•The Naples (Fla.) Daily News picks Schur Packaging Systems Inc. to supply it with four palletizers for its forthcoming production plant.

•Italian newspaper La Stampa is on-edition with four WIFAG evolution 372 presses, capping off a $93 million upgrade at its Turin production site.

•Spanish publisher Heraldo de Aragon agrees to purchase a Commander CT press from Koenig & Bauer AG.

•Fairfax Media says it will install multimedia advertising and content management software from Atex across its Australian newspaper operations, spanning more than 3,500 users.

•The New York Times adds six Agfa Polaris CTP units to its College Point, N.Y., production facility. Meantime, The Palm Beach Post in West Palm Beach, Fla., adds a second Agfa Advantage CLS platesetter to its prepress lineup.

•The St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press introduces a redesigned Web site using software from Indigio Group.

•The San Diego Union-Tribune launches wiki site AmplifySD, using software from MindTouch Inc.

•McClatchy Co. joins Yahoo newspaper consortium as search engine says it plans to roll out new features.

July

•A division of News International goes on-edition with the first two of 19 MAN Roland ColorMAN triplewide presses underpinning the publisher’s $1 billion printing improvement project.

•Investor’s Business Daily wraps up project to improve proofing capabilities by rolling out Newscolor software at 12 print sites.

•The News & Record in Greensboro, N.C., selects Masthead International Inc. to rebuild a 12-unit Goss International Corp. Metro press.

•La Figaro in Paris buys a 10-tower waterless Cortina press from Koenig & Bauer AG.

•The Facility Group spins off its Denver-based consulting arm, which will now do business as Harding Consulting Alliance.

•The Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y., says it is upgrading its press and folder controls using hardware and software from Harland Simon.

•The Houston Chronicle rolls out workflow software from ProImage as part of its migration to computer-to-plate.

•PPI Media says it is introducing an editorial management application, dubbed Felix.

August

•Tokyo Kikai Seisakusho files suit with a Japanese court in an attempt to recover the more than $35 million in damages and attorneys fees it paid Goss International Corp. after TKS was found guilty of violating the now-repealed 1916 Antidumping Act.

•The Chicago Tribune says it will begin delivering the Chicago Sun-Times and nine affiliated suburban newspapers to subscribers in northern Illinois and northwestern Indiana.

•Lee Enterprises taps Glunz & Jensen K&F for punch bending equipment for seven of the publisher’s newspapers. Lee will upgrade prepress operations at the Missoulian in Missoula, Mont., the Billings (Mont.) Gazette, the Rapid City (S.D.) Journal, the Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune, the Times-News in Twin Falls, Idaho, the Post-Star in Glens Falls, N.Y., and the Southern Illinoisan in Carbondale.

•U.K. newspaper printer Trinity Mirror buys presses from MAN Roland and WIFAG for its plants in Watford and Oldham, England, respectively.

The move comes after Trinity Mirror signed a 12-year agreement with Independent News & Media to print and distribute The Independent.

•Quipp Systems Inc. sells three Packman systems to the Chicago Sun-Times.

September

•Danish newspaper publisher Dansk AvisTryk buys a Commander press from Koenig & Bauer AG that meshes the capacity of a triplewide format with the flexibility of a singlewide machine.

•The Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal taps ABB to upgrade controls on its 9-unit Mitsubishi Heavy Industries press.

•The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot hires Goss International Corp. to rebuild its five 6-unit Metroliner presses and convert 30 pasters to digital control.

•The Boston Globe says it will begin printing two suburban Boston papers, The Patriot Ledger in Quincy and The Enterprise in Brockton.

•The New York Times debuts as a 48-inch-wide broadsheet, eight months earlier than previously scheduled. Goss International Corp. crews cut down the web widths of presses in College Point, N.Y., as well as nine other Goss machines at other Times print sites.

•Kodak says it will introduce a new inkjet technology that will let publishers use web offset presses to individualize newspapers.

• Audit Bureau of Circulations approves plans for a new study that will integrate newspaper readership and online audience estimates into a single report.

October

•China’s push to reduce its mammoth export growth and clean up chemical pollution leads to higher raw materials prices, forcing both Flint Group and Sun Chemical unit US Ink to increase the cost of certain formulations.

•The Visalia (Calif.) Times-Delta and Tulare (Calif.) Advance-Register convert to 44-inch-wide webs, becoming the first North American broadsheets to adopt the narrower format.

•Lee Enterprises buys Trendsetter News computer-to-plate systems from Kodak to anchor prepress at nine additional sites.

•The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn., upgrades DC drives using equipment from Harland Simon and says it will reduce web width to 46 inches in project overseen by Pressline Services Inc.

•Journal Register Co. opens suburban Detroit plant built around a MAN Roland GeoMAN press.

•Signature Offset buys towers from Tensor Group Inc. to increase color capacity at three sites.

•Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel and Los Angeles Times become first newspapers to print scratch and sniff ads using scented ink from Flint Group.

•Fort Wayne (Ind.) Newspapers begins printing papers in new plant anchored by TKS (USA) Color Top 4-by-2 press.

•The News-Gazette in Champaign, Ill., kicks off packaging facility based on postpress and polybagging equipment from Schur Packaging Systems. (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot buys polybagging systems and inserters from Goss International Corp.

•(Toronto) Globe and Mail rolls out circulation management software from SAP to oversee distribution.

•USA Today adds a specialized selection of widgets to its Web site to broaden its appeal, using software from NewsGator Technology Inc.

November 

•The Indianapolis Star and The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky., say they will convert to a 44-inch-wide format, the first doublewide press papers to make the move.

•Gannett gets ready to open two regional photo-toning centers to process images from the group’s 85 U.S. newspapers.

•Transcontinental Inc. picks Goss International Corp. and Ferag to supply postpress equipment for its Fremont, Calif., plant.

•MediaNews Group says it expects sales from its online efforts to triple in the next five years.

•Free Lance Star in Fredericksburg, Va., says it will add heatset towers to its forthcoming Goss International Corp. FPS press.

•Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch adds 32-position plate stacking system from Acutech LLC.

•Newspaper Association of America says it will combine Nexpo and Marketing Conference beginning in 2009.

•Baldwin Technology Co. Inc. rolls out a new web cleaning system.

•Nela rolls out an intelligent plate storage system, the Logistack.

•Schur Packaging Systems introduces a high-speed inserter, the NewsStar, to be available in 2009.

•MacDermid Printing Solutions, Oce and Eltex join PrintCity’s Value Added Printing of Newspapers study.

•Agfa says Austrian newspaper publisher Mediaprint is testing its forthcoming chemistry-free violet plates.

•San Antonio Express-News becomes the first U.S. newspaper to add mapping capabilities to its Web site using software from MetaCarta Inc.

•Digital Technology International introduces MediaPool, software that oversees print and online data from the same server.

December

•Bay Area News Group-East Bay picks MediaSpan to supply it with front-end editorial software as part of a $7 million upgrade.

•Audience-Fax, a joint venture from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, Scarborough Research and the Newspaper Association of America debuts.

•Lehman Communications Corp. in Longmont, Colo., buys a Uniset press from MAN Roland for a new plant.

•The (New York) Daily News says it will begin inserting its daily editions, and buys postpress equipment from Ferag and Goss International Corp.

•Denver Newspaper Agency wraps up $100 million project to upgrade press and postpress operations, using equipment and software from MAN Roland, Goss International Corp., Schur Packaging Systems, Ferag, Kodak, Nela, Burt Technologies Inc. and HK Systems.

•The National Publishing Innovation Center opens its doors in Montgomery, W. Va.

•Newspaper online profits soar even as industry’s overall margins fall, according to a report issued by Borrell Associates Inc.