Newspaper & Mailroom
Gulf News, Dubai, orders big KBA Cortina hybrid press
Monday 29. September 2008 - Middle East newspaper pioneer soon to go waterless
Dubai-based media house Al Nisr Publishing LLC, whose reputation for pioneering new technologies and publication forms extends beyond the UAE and the Middle East, is making the transition to waterless in mid-2010.
Publisher of Gulf News, an English-language newspaper for expatriates, Al Nisr Publishing signed up for a KBA Cortina 4/1 press line following a rigorous selection procedure. The high-automation fourteen-tower press with fourteen reelstands, four hot-air dryers and three folders will be the first Cortina installation outside Europe and the first four-by-one version. It will be capable of printing 112 full-colour broadsheet pages including 32 heatset pages.
Waterless newspaper production in the desert
By opting for a KBA Cortina Al Nisr Publishing is blazing a trail for waterless from Europe to the Middle East, demonstrating once again its groundbreaking credentials. Managing Director, Obaid Humaid Al Tayer says: “For many years we have set the pace of innovation in newspaper production in the Arabian Peninsula. For example, Gulf News was the first newspaper in the region to introduce a tabloid leisure supplement, a family and a childrens weekly magazine, a separate tabloid classifieds section, comprehensive business and sports sections, heatset sections on glazed paper, automated page make-up and the use of recycled newsprint. The innovative KBA Cortina underscores our acknowledged role as technological pioneers in the Middle East. The configuration we have chosen, with four dryers, will allow us to print an exceptionally broad spectrum of coldset, heatset and hybrid products with no time-consuming changes of ink. This awesome flexibility is only possible with the waterless Cortina. On top of this the presss advanced technology will enable us to enhance the print quality both of our main title, Gulf News, and of all our many supplements and magazines, while simultaneously trimming make-ready times, waste and manning levels.”
KBA executive vice-president for web press sales Christoph Müller says: “The decision in favour of our innovative Cortina is a vote of confidence in KBAs competence and an invaluable boost to the implementation of new ideas for enhancing quality and efficiency through process standardisation.”
Thriving UAE media group
First launched in 1978 as a tabloid newspaper with a daily circulation of 3,000 copies, Gulf News switched to the broadsheet format in 1980. Having expanded outside the UAE, it is now distributed in Bahrain, Oman, Saudi-Arabia, Qatar and Pakistan. At present it has an average distribution of 118,339 copies from Saturday to Thursday and 122,303 copies on Friday. An online edition (www.gulfnews.com) was launched in 1996. Magazine titles include Friday, Wheels, Sport Xtra, Property Weekly and Entertainment Plus (weekly) and 4Men, Aquarius and InsideOut (monthly). Al Nisr Publishing, which also manages two English language radio stations, is a keen sponsor of the arts, music and sport.