RBP Chemical Technology Joins SLP Alliance (News & Tech)

December 7, 2020

Article by: News & Tech

RBP Chemical Technology Joins SLP Alliance

RBP Chemical Technology is the newest partner to join Southern Lithoplate’s Strategic Alliance, according to SLP. The alliance, formed in 2006, serves to “enhance the organization’s advantages for U.S. printers seeking affordable, quality consumables and services in a single-call/single source format,” according to SLP. Other members include SCREEN, ECRM Imaging Systems, NELA, Xitron, X-Rite/Pantone and Presteligence.

Southern Lithoplate (SLP) is a provider of digital plates and associated products. The  privately owned U.S. company has headquarters in Wake Forest, North Carolina.
RBP Chemical’s headquarters are in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Google Makes Changes to News Showcase

In a Dec. 2 posting, Google made several announcements concerning its News Showcase.
• Google will soon start offering people access to paywalled content in partnership with select news publishers.
Google will pay participating partners to provide limited access to paywalled content for News Showcase users. In return, users will register with the news publisher, providing a way for the publisher to build a relationship with readers.
• A new type of News Showcase panel includes a list of important articles selected daily by users’ favorite publishers. For example, if a user follows a news outlet that covers their local news, they will see daily updates on the most important local stories, selected by that newsroom. Relevant publications, national and local, will also now be shown within the For You feed, plus in a dedicated area to discover new News Showcase publications within Newsstand on Google News.
• News Showcase has expanded to Google News on iOS and it will be coming to news.google.com and Discover soon. News Showcase metrics will soon appear in Search Console so publishers will have more data to better understand which articles and topics users are responding to.

Facebook News Launching in The U.K. in January

Facebook is launching Facebook News, a dedicated space for national and local news, in the U.K. in January 2021. With Facebook News, the social media giant will “pay publishers for content that is not already on the platform, help publishers reach new audiences and bring more advertising and subscription opportunities,” says Facebook in a Nov. 30 news release on the service.

The first group of publishers featured in Facebook News in the UK includes Archant, Conde Nast, The Economist, ESI Media, Guardian Media Group, Hearst, Iliffe, JPI Media, Midland News Association, Reach, STV and others. “The UK launch in January will build on the success Facebook News has seen in the U.S., where we’ve found more than 95% of the traffic Facebook News delivers to publishers is new audiences that have not interacted with those news outlets in the past,” says the news release.

BIA Forecasts Media Ad Growth

In its newly released U.S. Local Advertising Forecast 2021, BIA Advisory Services estimates total local advertising revenue across all media in the U.S. will reach $137.5 billion in 2021. This estimate represents a 2.5 percent year-over-year growth from the firm’s final post-COVID estimate for 2020 of $134.1 billion, as businesses start to rebound from the pandemic lows. As the expected presence of vaccines will help with the continuing rebound, BIA expects this increase will occur throughout 2021 even without the presence of significant political advertising.

In 2021, traditional media revenue will account for 55.3 percent of total local advertising at $76.1 billion, a slight decline from 2020 levels. Digital media revenue will grow to $61.5 billion in 2021 to obtain 44.7 percent of total local media revenue, a share increase of 3.7 percent from 2020. “Although we are estimating an overall increase in total local advertising next year, we do not expect spending to recover to pre-COVID (2019) levels until 2022,” said Mark Fratrik, chief economist and SVP at BIA Advisory Services.

Hartford Courant Shuttering Offices

The Hartford Courant’s (Connecticut) Broad Street offices will be shuttered at the end of 2020, the paper reported. Tribune Publishing owns the paper.

This is a decision about real estate needs amid a difficult and challenging time on both the public health and economic fronts,” Editor-in-Chief Andrew Julien wrote to employees in an email.Staff has been working from home since spring, the paper said. The paper announced in the fall that it would be printed in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Tribune Publishing has closed a number of newsrooms, including the Orlando Sentinel and the New York Daily News newsrooms, the Courant pointed out.

Daily Journal Offers Buy Local Marketplace

The Daily Journal (Park Hills, Missouri) is launching an online marketplace called Buy Local. The marketplace lets local businesses offer gift cards to people who may not want to shop or eat out at the moment, the paper said. Support from First State Community Bank is allowing the paper to provide the service free to local businesses.

Lee Enterprises owns the paper.

Drupa 2021 Canceled, Digital Events Planned; 2024 Event Still On

The 2021 drupa trade fair is cancelled, organizers Messe Dusseldorf have announced, citing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The next live event will take place as scheduled, from May 28–June 7, 2024, in Dusseldorf, Germany.

During the time drupa, an international trade fair for the printing and packaging industries, was originally scheduled, organizers are offering “virtual.drupa,” a digital event from April 20–23, 2021. Also on tap: A drupa preview day, the third such event, on Dec. 8. The decision to cancel the live event follows recent announcements from major participants that they dropped out of the 2021 fair, including Konica Minolta, Ricoh, Canon, Screen, Xerox, EFI, Kodak, Fujifilm and HP, the fair’s biggest exhibitor.

“The pandemic has caused great uncertainty among exhibitors and visitors regarding participation in drupa 2021. Travel restrictions and budget pressure have increasingly intensified the situation in the print industry,” said Erhard Wienkamp, managing director of Messe Dusseldorf. “We have made this decision together with our partners, who support this step. It was preceded by a detailed process of considering the current conditions and the needs of the industry.”

Bitterroot Star Sold

The Bitterroot Star newspaper (Montana) has been sold to Jesse and Sasha Mullen, publishers Michael and Victoria Howell announced. The Howells owned and operated the paper since they started it in the mid-1980s.

The Mullens own two Montana papers, the Philipsburg Mail and the Silver State Post (Deer Lodge). They also own the Browsing Bison Bookstore in Deer Lodge. Jesse Mullen had been an executive with Civitas Media based in Charlotte, North Carolina, before moving back to Montana two years ago, the paper said.

More News

  • Sun Chemical has enhanced its online troubleshooting guide by adding potential solutions to common pressroom challenges in coldset and metal package printing processes.
  • The complete line of Acuity and Inca wide-format printers from Fujifilm North America Corporation, Graphic Systems Division, has been certified by Color-Logic for metallic printing, Fujifilm announced.
  • Agfa’s Oberon RTR3300 inkjet printer has received the 2020 European Digital Press Association award for large and wide format printing system in the category roll-to-roll printer up to 320 cm, the company says.

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