You Can Judge The Health Of The US Print Newspaper Business By How Many Checkbooks Showed Up At This Year’s Annual Nexpo Technical Trade Show And The Prognosis After Four Days Is The Patient Is Quite Sick

Philip M. Stone April 17, 2008

Nexpo is the big US newspaper equipment trade show. It’s where many deals are often made for capital investments, presses, inserters and the like, the whole range of what it takes to produce a newspaper technically. This year’s convention in Washington is said to have been disappointing at best. Vendors seemingly were standing around talking to one another more than they were to prospects.

And in that environment it’s quite obvious that US newspapers are more concerned right now in investing in their online products – no need for presses and insert machines there -- so the disappointment on the trade show floor is not just the orders that didn’t come in this year, but it leaves a big question of how many big orders they can expect in the future.? Are US print newspapers basically being left to technical “care and maintenance”?

Nexpo, or as it was once called, ANPA/Tec, used to be a colossal show – so big in fact that during its good years of, say, 20 years ago, it could only be held in Las Vegas, Chicago, or Atlanta, because only those cities had convention centers big enough to hold everything on display. This writer “manned the booth” in those days and it was four days of being constantly on one’s feet and talking the sales pitch. Traffic was heavy and checkbooks were out.  But that was when newspapers had 30% margins and capital investment was high on their agenda.

Times have changed, and perhaps the best description of the way Nexpo looked this year is that every day seemed like the normal fourth and final day when only a few stragglers would normally show up. Vendors still saved new products for Nexpo launch – Kodak, for instance, this year unveiled a new high-speed thermal computer-to-plate unit, the Generation News. The plate setter, capable of producing 300 plates per hour, is slated for beta testing at the Los Angeles Times – but there just weren’t that many people Kodak could break that news to.

It is never cheap to exhibit at Nexpo whether it be a booth showing heavy equipment or for a news agency baring its wares. Booth rents are exorbitant, and installation and take-down is usually handled by local very unionized personnel, and they don’t come cheap either. Touch a wire that you weren’t supposed to touch because that was a union job and one was given the impression that could well be the last such wire you’ll ever touch! But the money got spent because “everyone” came to the show. But no more, and that includes vendors who have been dropping out over the years as attendance has dipped, and those who are still coming are taking smaller booths and are not shipping in so much equipment to show.

Final attendance numbers for this year’s show have not yet been released but it is doubtful more than 450 people registered. Mornings on the exhibit floor looked particularly lonely. It’s all a big problem for the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) that depends on Nexpo profits for much of its annual funding, and yet is committed to drastically reducing it membership fees as newspapers look for savings absolutely everywhere.

In that vein a panel discussion between vendors and newspaper CEOs took on added importance. The vendors told it like it is -- “We, too, are feeling the pain,” said panel moderator Dennis Nierman, president of AlfaQuest Technologies, Inc. He said it was “discouraging” to see the exhibit floor as empty as it was on the first day.

The newspaper panelists tried to explain to the vendors that not all was doom and gloom. Hearst’s newspaper division president said his company had budgeted $250 million  for printing press updates and more would be budgeted (Hearst announced earlier this month it is investing $60 million to expand The Albany, New York, Times Union with a state-of-the-art press and packaging facility that will allow the newspaper to offer color on every page. The facility should go on line in about in late 2011.)  MediaNews CEO Dean Singleton said his company had spent more than $500 million on capital equipment over the past three years. But Gary Pruitt, McClatchy CEO, made clear that the investment focus now was online, and as a delivery system it doesn’t need all of that heavy equipment that print eats up.

One vendor blogged, “This tradeshow will not be as it was unless something changes radically. I don’t know what it could be but vendors have to find ways to attract publishers with innovative-conservative solutions like our editorial solution that handle all types of media, for print and any online or mobile media. Even then, it won’t be the same. So cut it shorter, four days are way too much, two will do as well if we do ten instead of seven hours. “

Another blogger noted, “Certainly I understand why newspaper executives stayed away - money, downsizing, busy trying to do everything back at the office that they can to save their core and at the same time evolve. But I don’t see it as a wise decision. At first glance cutting ‘superfluous’ items out of your newspaper budget might make obvious the decision to not attend Nexpo/Capital Conference. But what you’ve done when you do that is cut out the opportunity to learn from those who’ve succeeded with digital, with social, with motivating reps to sell multimedia, with turning print journalists into MoJos, etc. etc. etc. You’ve also cut out the opportunity to talk with vendors whose products might help you pare down costs, work more efficiently and bring in incremental revenue. And you’ve cut out the opportunity to network with your peers in other markets who just might help you - and you them.”

There seemed to be a popular view that IFRA in Europe and Nexpo in the US should alternate show years, but given the financial crunch at newspapers its very doubtful there would be much trans-Atlantic travel allowed.  Nexpo attendance this year was probably the slimmest ever, or close to it, and the amount of space taken by exhibitors was down, with some major players not opting for booths but rather just pre-arranged meetings.

Nexpo is scheduled next year for Las Vegas, if that doesn’t bring the crowds then nothing will. But as a sign of the times the show will be hosted in a hotel rather than the convention center.  Nexpo in a hotel? Something old-timers would have never believed. It really does sound like the end of an era.