Demand For Colour Leads To Web Press Extension

The growth in demand for colour in the newspaper market has prompted the Scottish Provincial Press to buy an extension of its Goss Universal press.

According to Goss Scottish Provincial Press was the first in the world to install a 70,000 copies per hour Universal press in 1998.

The tower extension will be the fourth upgrade the company has made in seven years.

The latest upgrade will add a further tower and make the final configuration of the press five four-high towers with one of the towers configured to run either four mono webs as required, or one colour web.

The new tower is expected to be installed during the spring.

The original specification of the press was two four-high towers, each configured for four-over-one colour, and three mono units.

The first two upgrades were to increase the colour on each tower to four-over-four colour.

In 2004 the third upgrade included an additional four-high, full-colour tower and a mono tower that was combined with the original mono units to make a fourth four-high tower.

Roy Fox, managing director of Scottish Provincial Press, said: "We were technology pioneers when we installed the original shaftless Universal 70 newspaper press.

At that time we wanted to ensure that our investment was flexible enough to allow us to extend at a later date should the need arise.

Very quickly it became apparent that we would require additional capacity." He added: "Like many newspaper publishers, we are responding to a demand for greater colour and pagination by our advertisers.

We aim to deliver exactly what our customers demand and this need has driven our latest investment, providing the additional high-quality colour capacity required at this time." Scottish Provincial Press's location in the Highlands of Scotland, was a consideration when considering a press supplier, said Goss.

Fox explained: "We needed more than anything a company that could support us and that we could rely on.

Goss technology has delivered for us time and again and we have every confidence that this latest tower addition will be installed with the precision and efficiency that we have experienced in previous years.

Over the years we have hosted a number of customer visits on behalf of Goss and also acted as a training facility for press crews from facilities across Europe." John Chambers, Goss International's sales director for the UK and Eire, commented: "We have worked closely with Scottish Provincial Press over a number of years to provide a state-of-the-art press that serves its growing readership.

The Universal range of presses is the ideal choice for publishers wanting a highly flexible system that is able to grow as they do.

The tower addition at SPP is yet another example of how Goss enhancements give publishers the opportunity to benefit from the latest high-output technology." Scottish Provincial Press currently prints 16 titles, of which three are freesheets.

Titles produced at Dingwall, Rosshire include the John O'Groats Journal, Northern Scot, Inverness Courier and the Rosshire Journal.

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