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The World's Newspapers for the World's Largest Sporting Event
Source: Ideas Magazine: November 2004
In August, all of the world's media was focused on the Olympic games in Athens. In fact, credentialed media representatives covering the competition actually outnumbered the 10,000 assembled athletes. They were there to provide on-the- spot coverage of the competitors from their home cities and countries for readers and viewers back home.
NewspaperDirect, the world's largest printer of digital newspapers, was in Athens as well helping to bridge the gap between home and the Olympic venues. Readers of newspapers from over 50 different countries were able to obtain their favourite hometown newspaper on the day of publication thousands of miles from their homes. With the time differences, it was even possible to receive tomorrow's newspaper today (with Asian dailies)!
In collaboration with its local distributor in Athens, NewspaperDirect Hellas, operated an around-the-clock digital printing centre throughout the Olympics to print newspapers and distribute them to key locations throughout the city. NewspaperDirect distributed current editions of newspapers like the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Yomiuri Shimbun, Basler Zeitung, The Irish Times, Folha de S. Paulo, and the Globe and Mail to the Media Centre, Athletes Village, retail kiosks, hotels, and even to the Queen Mary II.
How was this incredible feat accomplished?
NewspaperDirect has agreements with over 250 newspapers worldwide that allow it to offer their titles out of market on a daily basis. Daily electronic files of the newspapers were sent by the publishers via the Internet in a PDF format before the newspapers went to plate-making.
After a file of the newspaper was received at NewspaperDirect's network operations' centre, it was vetted to assure that the file had been received correctly and was complete. The files were then forwarded to NewspaperDirect Hellas for printing and delivery. NewspaperDirect Hellas used five commercially available KonicaMinolta laser printers to turn out the newspapers.
The entire process from reception of the electronic file to actual delivery in Athens, via scooters with saddlebags on the back, took no more than a few hours. The alternative for most publishers was to print in the home market, load newspapers on airplanes, fly them to Athens, then have the copies pass through customs and security into the hands of local distributors for delivery - probably a day or two late.
What readers of the NewspaperDirect editions received was not a copy of the newspaper web site or a facsimile of a specially created news product but, the actual day's newspaper printed on newsprint in an A3 (11"×17") format. Tabloids dropped into the format without any alteration what so ever and the broadsheets are shrunk proportionately to fit easily into the A3 format. Even with shrinkage, the broadsheets were clearly readable in that reproduction of 600 dots per inch (dpi). They were many times clearer than traditional offset printing.
The response to the digital newspapers was tremendous. Within earshot of NewspaperDirect personnel, Jay Triano, a sports anchor with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), mentioned to his colleagues that it would be interesting to get perspective on what the American newspapers were writing on the USA Basketball team and its problems. In less than an hour, he had that day's edition of The Boston Globe. Throughout the Olympics, digital newspapers were delivered to the president of NBC.
Bulk deliveries were made everyday to the various national Olympic Committees including the Swiss, Japanese, Canadian, Korean, and Brasilians. Each country was able to receive multiple titles from their homeland. Some key corporate customers for the digital newspapers also included Coca-Cola, Bell Canada, CNN, Vancouver 2010 Olympic Committee, and New York Olympic Organizing Committee for 2012.
Olympic attendees may have left the comforts of home, but one of those comforts, their daily newspaper, was there to meet them.
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