The Hindu Business Line : Ifra starts research on intelligent production

Mr Manfred Werfel, Research Director, Ifra, delivering the keynote address along with Mr N. Murali (left), Director, Ifra India, and Mr R.V. Rajan, Executive Director, at the inaugural session of Ifra India 2004 conference in Hyderabad on Wednesday. — A. Roy Chowdhury

Hyderabad , Sept. 15

IFRA, the world's leading association for newspaper and media publishing, has started a research project on the future of an intelligent production system, right from ad production to distribution.

The project envisages creation of a vision of a future system that includes the economic benefits and new customer relationships, according to Ifra Research Director, Mr Manfred Werfel.

Delivering the keynote address on `The intelligent newspaper of the future' at the inaugural session of the Ifra India 2004 conference here on Wednesday, Mr Werfel said that newspaper publishers would like to drastically reduce production costs by 25 per cent to 30 per cent to overcome problems such as increased competition, declining circulation, reduced page counts and smaller editions. This could be achieved through intelligent, error avoiding production control systems, adoption of information and communication technology tools and self-controlled systems for colour management, etc.

Over 350 delegates from the newspaper publishing industry from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, West Asia and other countries are taking part in the two-day meet, the 12th conference of Ifra India. Along with the conference, an exhibition displaying latest products and services of interest to the publishing industry is being held.

In future, Mr Werfel said, the publishing industry should aim for integrated production systems based on open standards. The industry should set the entire system to "standard printing" and "improved newsprint" so that with the push of one button all the sub-systems would set right automatically.

Telling the publishers not to expect customers to be printing experts, he said intelligent production systems in future would take the need for print know-how away from the customers. Customers would send any digital files for printing through the Internet and the production system would return a soft proof on to an automatically calibrated monitor.

Earlier, welcoming the gathering, the Ifra India Director and Joint Managing Director of The Hindu, Mr N. Murali, said that Indian newspapers were not afraid to embrace new technology. In future their focus would be on improving quality as well as enhancing their value. Newspapers were making heavy and continuous investment in technology. However, there was unevenness in the spread of technology and the task was to bridge the technological divide.

Referring to the "cut-throat" competition among the newspapers in the country today, Mr Murali said that the price wars had led to unsustainable growth. Indian newspapers were "outrageously and ridiculously priced" lower than anywhere else in the world. For instance, in Sri Lanka a newspaper costs Rs 15, which was equivalent to about Rs 8 in Indian currency.

In the light of the "distorted economics of newspapers", he warned that the bubble might burst anytime. On account of gross under recovery from customers, there was an over dependence on advertisement revenue which could lead to problems. Nevertheless, he hoped that better sense and sanity would prevail.

The Irfa India Executive Director, Mr R.V. Rajan, proposed vote of thanks.

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