Profile of a Pioneer

by Nancy Lowther

Some companies, the conservative ones, seem to live by the motto, "Look before you leap." Others are more daring. They tell you, "He who hesitates is lost." Exceptionally rare, though, is the company that can embrace both of these seemingly contradictory sayings at the same time. The Toronto Star is one such company.

The Star did not hesitate when, in 1992, it became the first newspaper in North America to cut the width of its web to 50 inches. Newspapers across the United States were clamoring for a copy of The Star three years later, when 50 inches became an acceptable option for newspapers trying to survive record newsprint price hikes.

The Star also didn't hesitate to change its press technology from letterpress to offset, move to a brand new $400 million printing plant and redesign the paper--all at the same time it cut its web width--making it the only paper ever to take on all four challenges simultaneously.

Yes, The Star made a major leap in 1992--but not without looking first.

It all started back in 1986, according to Tom Murtha, vice president of corporate newspaper development. The Star's letterpresses had been running seven days a week for 20 years and needed to be replaced. "At the same time, on reader surveys, we kept hearing that the paper's size was 'not convenient,'" he says. "Three times in the 1980s, we retooled our presses, eventually bringing the web down to 54 inches from the original 60. Still, 'not convenient' kept coming up. We needed to find out what that meant specifically. If we were going to change the size, it had to be decided prior to ordering the new presses.

"We knew that Toronto has a large public-transit commuter market," Murtha continues. "A lot of people read the paper while traveling to work. Its bulk made that difficult."

The Star decided to create three mockups and subject them to public scrutiny. Option one was 13.5-inches wide by 23.5-inches deep. Option two was half-an-inch narrower and three-quarters-of-an-inch shorter. Option three was 12.5 inches by 22 inches. They were printed on the letterpresses and cut manually.

The mockups were taken to various shopping malls, where over 400 readers were surveyed. One thing became very clear, very fast--they liked the smallest size. Murtha says, "Back then the cost of newsprint wasn't anywhere near the cost today. So while other newspapers are now looking at size reduction as a cost savings, our driving force was reader preference."

With the new size decided, the search for new presses began. An operations team traveled around the globe studying alternatives and eventually chose German press manufacturer MAN Roland.

The Star's old letterpresses included 9 units with a capacity of 72 pages. When the paper wanted to print color, it lost capacity. The new offset presses can run any number of four-color pictures without losing capacity. Registration is better and dots are sharper, says Pressroom Superintendent Keith Cox.

In June 1989, the board of directors approved construction of a new plant to house the new presses. Construction began later that year and was completed in 1992.

The numbers associated with the project are mind-blowing. The $400 million plant occupies a 50-acre plot of land about 22 miles from the downtown editorial and advertising headquarters. The building itself covers eight acres--about the same size as a more famous local megastructure, the Toronto SkyDome.

The new plant is also highly automated. Twenty newsprint rolls come off the truck at once. The only time human hands ever touch the paper is when the wrapper is stripped. Automatic guided vehicles take rolls to the press. An operator hits a button to insert the chuck into the roll and line it up. Plates travel to the press on a transfer table. Color is set in the quiet room using a touch-screen computer.

Training for press crews was time consuming and involved trips to both Germany and England. Crews had to learn not only offset printing, with its delicate balance of ink and water, but also the new electronics and automation.

On the old presses, if registration was off, the operators made a fairly simple manual adjustment. Now they work on computers in the quiet room. Says Murtha, "It was like knowing how to fly a hot air balloon and all of a sudden being asked to pilot the space shuttle."

Old and new presses were both run during a six-month transition period, printing papers of different sizes on different days--and sometimes even on the same day. A "Construction Report" ran on the front page each day. Mike Trudeau, manager of marketing and research, explains, "It was important to keep our readers informed all along the way."

The paper accommodated its 13-percent dimensional shrinkage by cutting editorial content and increasing page count. Says Trudeau, "The newshole was cut by six to seven percent, and copy was tightened up. Although the number of pages changes based on advertising, an average of two to four pages were added."

Cox says that "in our market, color sells a paper, and we've increased the amount of color immensely. In addition to pleasing readers, it also increases sales from advertisers, who have long been requesting more color." Murtha says that advertising prices were not lowered to match the size reduction. It helped that The Star's main competitor, The Toronto Sun, had already set the precedent of selling ads by the page instead of by dimension.

In 1992, The Toronto Star looked and leapt without hesitating, affecting every aspect of its operations. Is everything under control now? "Yes," says Murtha, "but the learning goes on."

Nancy Lowther is president of Lowther Training and Development in Scarborough, Ontario. Phone is (416) 282-1890.