Rapidly Growing Thai Daily Buys KBA Again

The Daily News, which has a 35 per cent share of Thailand's newspaper market, has installed a second KBA Colora press to facilitate it rapid growth.

The Daily News, which has a 35 per cent share of Thailand's newspaper market, has installed a second KBA Colora press to facilitate it rapid growth.

From humble beginnings in 1964 as a 16-page 20,000 circulation newspaper in Bangkok, the Daily News is now one of the biggest and most respected newspapers in Thailand.

Known as the 'newspaper owned by all Thai people' it has a 35 per cent market share of the Thai newspaper market, with a circulation now more than 750,000, and readership estimated to be 18 million people.

From its production centre in Bangkok it is distributed all over Thailand, with the aim of every Thai person being able to buy it at 7am each morning.

The Daily News put in its first KBA press, a Colora in 1995 and has now installed a second Colora.

Between them they are responsible for printing most of the copies of the Daily News.

Paramat Hetrakul, the production manager of the company and grandson of the founder, said: "When we came to considering another new press we first looked at KBA, as our experience of the presses was one of the highest levels of reliability, combined with excellent quality throughout.

We also knew we could achieve flexibility with KBA presses.

We needed a press that would allow later editorial deadlines by shortening the printing period and one that would give us maximum flexibility at the latest stage.

We also wanted to increase the colour capability, which is currently at 60 per cent of the paper, we are definitely aiming to have full colour on every page." He continued by saying that when the company looked at the presses available on the market the Colora stood out.

Importantly, the company already had KBA experience and its printers appreciated the presses ease of operation and technology.

The format was also perfect for the company, giving it maximum flexibility and impressive productivity.

Hetrakul further commented: "We know a substantial amount of the technology from the Colora machine, we know the production performance, and we had all been impressed with the first machine for its consistency and reliability.

After a thorough analysis of the options we concluded that a second KBA Colora was the ideal solution for the Daily News, it would provide us with the tools we needed to help grow our business by meeting the needs of readers and advertisers." To further decrease make-ready times and so increase deadline times, the company has also put in its first Agfa CTP system to feed digitally exposed plates to the press.

Paramat Hetrakul said: "With our growth curve continuing to surpass expectations we realised that another new newspaper press would be required." Hetrakul pointed out that newspaper publishing in Thailand suffered a major setback in 1997 with the Asian currency crisis but three years later the company's advertisement numbers were back to where they had been and have continued to grow.

He commented: "The Thai newspaper market is extremely competitive but we believe by offering our advertisers the highest possible quality from the first paper we print to the last and by offering them more colour opportunities, the Daily News will continue to thrive.

For that in part we look to KBA to continue to provide us with the printing technology, as it has done so successfully for the past 10 years.

By having two KBA Coloras we are moving forward with high confidence." Paramat Hetrakul added: "As a family owned organisation it is much easier to take it in the direction we want and so as we have grown the paper over the years we have all been close to the business, so are very sensitive to what works and what is not appropriate.

We have maintained high quality journalism, publishing without fear or favour, we have valued our independence and we have always believed in investing in the highest quality technology." The Daily News offers easy-to-digest news reports for readers of all education levels and backgrounds and its continuing success is through its mission to be a voice of the Thai people.

During its early years the paper was at the forefront of the struggle for press freedom and its publishing schedule was frequently disrupted as a result.

Today, however those freedoms have been won and the paper is thriving as a result.

It has now reached number two spot in the market in terms of circulation, with its eye set firmly on the number one position.

The Daily News is published seven days a week, has 40 pages in full colour, two sections, and 30-35 per cent of the space is advertisements.

The newspaper supports a wide range of charitable foundations, including granting education scholarships to poor students and providing medial equipment for rural areas.

There are now eight family members at the top level of the company, which currently operates from a single editorial and production site, with 800 people employed.

The company not only publishes the daily paper, but produces commercial print and growth is the keyword for all aspects of the business, including growth in the circulation and pagination its flagship product, the Daily News.

The paper was founded in 1964 by Saeng Hetrakul and it remains in the hands of the same family today, the current president is his son.

Already an experienced printer Saeng brought in the right technology and staff to establish the paper 41 years ago, with stability a key factory, the first editor had a 16 year tenure, the current editor is now in his 24th year.

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