Is it possible - and viable - for newspapers to deliver customized print editions nowadays?

The idea of customized papers has long been on the minds of editors and publishers, since these would increase the value of the paper both editorially, by making content more relevant, and more profitable thanks to targeted advertising.

Until now, the main hurdle to fully personalized papers has been their costs of production. Not anymore though.

According to Digital Deliverance founder and technology guru Vin Crosbie, "unknown to almost all newspaper people who work with new media (and unknown even to the most newspaper people who work with print), it is now not only possible but economically practical for many newspapers, and soon most, to print a unique edition for each reader."

This would require an investment in new printing presses equipped with Short Run Digital Printing (SRDP).

The VASP group in Portugal already uses SRDP presses to print and distribute its selection of international titles (these aren't personalized titles).

However, the cost of SRDP ink is still very expensive. But according to Crosbie, SRDP presses are already more economical for dailies that have a circulation of less than 10,000 copies. This number is expected to double within two years, in which case the SRDP presses would be economical for about 400 of the US' 1,450 dailies.

Amy Gahran of the Poynter Instititute builds upon Crosbie's vision: what if publishers soon realized that it was more profitable to install many small printing plants, rather than larger centralized ones?

The day when each reader gets receives the news agenda he or she wanted, as well as the news that editors deem he or she should particularly be aware of, is nearing.

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Source: Poynter.org through IFRA Executive News Service