Hedge Funds Buys Newsstand Giant

Chatham apparently controls American
Media, publisher of the National Enquirer

Yesterday's announcement from the owner of the country's largest magazine wholesaler seems to have flown beneath the radar, but it could have major implications for the U.S. magazine industry. 

That's why we're publishing the news release word for word, which rarely happens at Dead Tree Edition.

We'll leave the analysis for others, except for a bit of background information:

• The News Group (TNG) is the wholesaler for the vast majority of magazine copies sold at retail in the U.S.
• Note that JPG will retain the part of TNG that merchandises magazines. (Wholesalers, rather than the stores themselves, are usually responsible for replacing old issues with new issues and deciding how they will be displayed.) That makes sense because JPG's massive distribution business delivers a variety of other products to grocery stores and other retailers. 
• Comag, which started as a Hearst-Conde Nast co-venture, is one of the nation's largest national wholesalers of magazines. National wholesalers represent publishers in dealings with wholesalers and retailers, managing copy placement, billing, collections, and other services.
• Chatham's other media investments have included American Media Inc (AMI) and the McClatchy chain of newspapers. Two Chatham executives serve on the four-member board of AMI, the privately held publisher of National Enquirer and other magazines that has been in hot water lately regarding alleged payments to silence women who had affairs with Donald Trump.

Jim Pattison Group Agrees to Sell U.S. Magazine Distribution Related Assets to American News Company, LLC

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 29, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Jim Pattison Group (JPG) today announced that it has reached an agreement to sell its United States magazine distribution business (TNG), including their interest in The News Group LP, to American News Company, LLC (ANC). The sale is expected to close by December 31, 2018 at which time executive management, and the approximately 1,500 employees of the acquired businesses, will transition to ANC and continue to oversee the day-to-day operations.

"This transaction allows the publishing community to have a more significant voice in the continued development of its supply chain and efforts to secure more efficient and thereby profitable newsstand results," said JPG President Glen Clark. "The stakeholders most impacted by this business, now have an extraordinary opportunity to be directly involved in a critical aspect of their business and will be well positioned to ensure its consistency, efficiency and sustainability."

The agreement to sell JPG's U.S. magazine business includes its distribution centers, depots, vehicles, systems, retailer contracts, publisher contracts, management personnel and related employees. Additionally, ANC will also acquire JPG's ownership stake and all related assets of Retail Support Services (RSS), Magazine Information Network (MagNet), Comag Marketing Group (CMG) and Genera Solutions. ANC will enter into a long-term merchandising services agreement with TNG Merchandising (which is not part of the acquisition and remains owned by JPG) to ensure that magazines continue to be properly merchandised at retail. TNG Canada's operations (wholesale and RS2 Canada) are also excluded from this transaction and will continue to be owned by JPG and run in the ordinary course.

"We are confident that aligning a leading U.S. magazine wholesaler with our valued newsstand partners will have a significant and positive impact on all our stakeholders," said TNG President David Parry. "Our commitment to the channel, and growth of all involved, will be underscored as we continue to work closely with our vital retail customers, suppliers and employees to ensure a low cost, efficient and long-term sustainable business. TNG will be laser-focused on ensuring a seamless transition for all channel participants."

American News Company, LLC, is a Chatham Asset Management (Chatham) portfolio company. Chatham is a $4 billion hedge fund and a longtime supporter of the media industry.

About JPG Headquartered in Vancouver, BC, Canada, The Jim Pattison Group (JPG) is a diversified group of operating businesses primarily in the United States and Canada that enjoy strong and positive market reputations, with most occupying leadership status within their respective industries. JPG's operating divisions span the automotive, advertising, media, agricultural equipment, food and beverage, entertainment, exporting, financial, real estate and periodical distribution industries. JPG has grown to be Canada's 2nd largest privately held company with over $10.1B in annual sales and more than 45,000 employees world-wide. For more information please visit www.jimpattison.com.

About American News Company, LLC American News Company, LLC (ANC) will, upon closing the announced acquisition, be a leading magazine wholesaler in the United States for publishers and retailers. ANC, through its subsidiary Comag Marketing Group LLC, will be a leading provider of national distribution services, including billing and collection and sales and marketing services, for publishers. MagNet and Retail Support Services, both subsidiaries of ANC, will offer licensing of magazine sales information and retail display services, respectively, to publishers and retailers.

SOURCE The Jim Pattison Group
Related Links http://www.jimpattison.com

Related Dead Tree Edition articles:

• Wait! Don't Kill That Magazine: 4 Ways To Rescue A Struggling Publication 
• Books: Amazon's Big Mac 
• A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Magazine Shelf . . . 

Publishers Hope Threesome Will Perk Up Newsstand Sales

Here’s proof that tough times make for strange bedfellows: Three major magazine publishers are teaming up to peddle newsstand copies of their top fashion magazines.

The unprecedented promotion for Conde Nast’s Vogue, Time Inc.’s InStyle, and Hearst’s Elle will appear this autumn in Target stores during fall fashion season, the publishers revealed at last week’s Retail Marketplace 2014 conference. “The offer: Buy any two of the fashion titles and get a $5 Target gift card as you check out,” according to a write-up from the event.

Along with in-store displays, the promotion will be boosted by 50 fashion bloggers, said Will Michalopoulos, Hearst’s senior director, retail sales.

“This is an example of competing titles coming together to drive sales for some of their biggest brands, and to drive traffic for a retailer,” he said. News of such innovations was welcomed by beleaguered newsstand executives, who are still reeling from the collapse of the country’s second-largest wholesaler, Source Interlink, not to mention continuing declines in newsstand sales.

A Meredith 2-for-1 promotion

Hearst and Meredith are among the publishers who have polybagged pairs of related titles to offer two-for-the-price-of-one deals at retail.

“In almost every case, these have gained incremental distribution, and in one case, we calculate that this program will double the overall retail business in one of the chains in which it’s been introduced," Michalopoulos said.

With publishers talking more than ever about cooperating to bolster retail sales, the three-way Vogue-InStyle-Elle tie-up is a logical next step. There was also talk of other joint ventures at the conference, such as creating an industry-wide mobile app to promote sales of magazines.

“Our competition is not other magazines; it’s all of the things that readers are doing when they’re not looking at magazines,” preached Joe Ripp, Time Inc.’s chairman and CEO.

“There’s no going back, so we’ve got to work together to survive in this brave new world,” agreed British media consultant Jim Bilton.

While the magazine industry’s newsstand leaders were having their Kumbaya moment at the conference, the nation’s largest magazine wholesaler sent them a message demanding that they sign a legal agreement if they wanted to continue selling magazines in Walmart and many other stores. The document, which spells out the terms under which TNG will take over most of the magazine distribution that Source Interlink left hanging, is highlighted by a convoluted 191-word Lawyerspeak sentence covering indemnification.

“I still can’t make heads or tails of that sentence,” commented one magazine executive, “but I think it means that if Source ever sues TNG or anyone who works there, I have to give up my first-born child.”

Related articles:

• A Glimmer of Growth Amidst the Newsstand's Gloom  
• A Renaissance for Print, Or Is Flat Just the New "Up"?
• Shootout at the Newsstand

No Thrillah in Manilla: Paperless 2013 Founder Going Down for the Count

Manilla, a Paperless 2013 sponsor that aimed to save people from the horrors of printed and mailed bills, is throwing in the towel, according to TechCrunch.

Unable, in the words of its own ads, to get its "s**t toghether," the three-year-old Hearst unit will start winding down on June 30 and shut down completely on Sept. 30. (The 2013 article Killah in Manilla: Hearst's Green Reputation Tarnished by Subsidiary examined the company's questionable environmental claims.)

Manilla, along with Google, was one of seven sponsors of the controversial Paperless 2013 greenwashing campaign that was supposedly about helping the environment but was actually about bringing the sponsors more green stuff.

Without providing any data or analysis, the anti-paper campaign claimed that businesses become more environmentally friendly when they switch to cloud computing and other paperless processes.

The campaign used the hashtag "Paperless 2013" in social media, but environmentalists and print advocates staged a "hashtag takeover" to counter the campaign's self-serving and misleading claims.

Manilla's CEO said its sponsorship was “truly representative of Manilla’s overall mission ... to help improve the environment by reducing the overall use of paper.” But like the campaign, Manilla never documented how its services helped the environment -- or revealed anything about its own environmental practices.

The start-up's claims were an odd departure from those of its parent company, which is one of the world's largest buyers of publication papers and which has provided extensive reporting of its aggressive and carefully documented environmental efforts.

I'll state my position again: There are legitimate reasons to convert some paper-based functions to digital media. But don't make assertions about "going green" by going paperless without providing evidence, because digital media have a significant environmental footprint.

I Knew I Was in the Production Department When . . .

I toured a publishing company recently that had no signs marking the various departments, but I didn't need a sign to know when I was among the folks who buy paper and plan print projects.

Most departments looked pretty much the same -- people sitting at computers. OK, you could spot the designers because they had Macs and big monitors, but otherwise the differences were subtle -- a bit more phone chatter in ad sales, more arguments in editorial, more gossip in circulation.

As an environmentalist, I noticed that every department had recycling bins. And whether people worked mostly in old media or new media, they used those bins the same: as garbage cans.

Then I rounded a corner and saw it -- a recycling bin with a cover that had two holes, indicating it was for bottles and cans. And it actually contained only bottles and cans!

"For paper only"
Nearby was another recycling bin with a sign saying, "For paper only." And people were actually obeying the sign!

I knew right away I was in the production department. (Some of my colleagues in the industry like to call it the operations department because these days they're also doing things like preparing mailings, building web pages, or selling reprints. And some like to call it the manufacturing department, which really throws off the people who cold-call on behalf of factory consultants, only to find that American magazine publishers outsource all of their manufacturing.)

Anyway, this was not an isolated incident. I consistently find that the people in the industry who really care about environmental issues are the ones who buy paper or put ink on it.

They're the only ones you'll hear talking about sustainable forestry, carbon footprint, and the differences between pre-consumer and post-consumer waste (a distinction unique to North America). They understand that forestry industries can benefit the environment, or harm it, and they often wrestle with how to make their companies' paper purchases and other practices more sustainable.

The "print is dead" gang
Meanwhile, the "print is dead" types ignorantly assume they're saving trees, oblivious to the environmental footprints of the web and digital devices. And they rarely lift a finger to make their work any greener.

A similar dichotomy shows up in government. It's no accident that the U.S. Postal Service, the nation's primary distributor of printed pieces, has been far more active on the sustainability front than any other federal agency. There's something about handling printed products that makes people and organizations more environmentally aware and inspires them to take responsibility

As I noted last week, the dichotomy occurs even at Hearst Corporation, arguably one of the world's greenest large companies. (See Killah in Manilla: Hearst's Green Reputation Tarnished by Subsidiary.)

Hearst's traditional publishing people have meticulously documented the fiber sourcing of the company's magazine paper, pressured paper suppliers to use more sustainable forestry, led industry efforts to make the supply chain greener, and even installed a worm farm at one office. But then an all-digital subsidiary called Manilla ignorantly claimed that its involvement in the "Paperless 2013" campaign will "help improve the environment."

You wanna bet which part of Hearst -- the production department or Manilla -- makes the best use of its recycling bins?

Related articles:

• The Takeover of Paperless 2013: How a grassroots guerrilla army is fighting back against the greenwashing sponsored by Manilla, Google and other companies.
• Who is Really Behind #Paperless2013?: Can the anti-greenwashing forces claim partial victory? 
• OK, Johnny, Now Greenwash Your Hands: Another anti-paper effort based on false premises. And speaking of drying your hands, don't miss this gem: Increased Incidence of Gastroenteritis and The Flu - Could the Solution be Hand Drying With Paper Towels?

Killah in Manilla: Hearst's Green Reputation Tarnished by Subsidiary

Update: No Thrillah in Manilla: Paperless 2013 Founder Going Down for the Count


Hearst Corporation has earned a reputation as a truly green company by systematically measuring, revealing, and minimizing its environmental impacts – until now.

A subsidiary of Hearst – one of the world’s largest buyers of publication papers – is among seven corporate sponsors along with Google of the controversial Paperless 2013 promotion. That campaign has come under criticism (See The Takeover of Paperless 2013) for unsubstantiated claims that organizations become more environmentally friendly when they switch to cloud computing and other paperless processes.

Manilla, a Hearst unit that offers an online bill-management process, is not just guilty of greenwashing by association. Manilla’s CEO said this month that the company’s sponsorship of Paperless 2013 is “truly representative of Manilla’s overall mission ... to help improve the environment by reducing the overall use of paper.”

Manilla ad

Like Paperless 2013, Manilla presents no evidence that its processes help the environment. In fact, its web site reveals nothing about its environmental footprint or programs. That’s a far cry from the practices of the parent company, which owns such leading media brands as Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Road & Track, A&E Network, and the Houston Chronicle.

Hearst doesn’t just claim that its headquarters “is the most environmentally friendly office tower in New York City history.” It underwent the stringent process of having the innovative building LEED-certified with a Gold rating.

Hearst paper policies

Dead Tree Edition cited Hearst in 2009 as one of “the real leaders in making U.S. magazines greener” because of its multi-faceted work on such matters as encouraging sustainable forestry and promoting the recycling of magazines.

Documentation and transparency have been hallmarks of Hearst’s efforts. When it set up the Hearst Sustainable Forestry Initiative in 2004, it says it found that 38% of the fiber for its magazines was from certified fiber.

“By modifying our purchasing strategy and working proactively with our suppliers, we were able to increase this level to 75% by December 2009. We continue to have a goal of 80%,” says the company’s annual “Being Green” report. It also says it is not averse to “changing mills or suppliers when certification percentages and targets are unacceptable.”

Methinks that Manilla’s vague, self-serving claim about helping the environment does not represent the new Hearst philosophy but is rather a case of the startup division not absorbing its parent's culture. Manilla could learn a few lessons from its not-so-paperless sister companies about business practices that promote healthy forests and other measurable environmental benefits.

Methinks, to paraphrase a Manilla ad, that when it comes to environmental claims Manilla needs to get its “s**t together.”

The Line Between Newspaper Publishers and Commercial Printers Continues to Blur

Two announcements within the past week demonstrate that some newspaper publishers are increasingly viewing printing as a profit center while others take the opposite tack and shut down their printing operations.

The Chicago Sun-Times revealed Tuesday that it will become the second major metropolitan daily in the U.S. to outsource all of its printing. But rather than turning production over to a commercial printer, as the San Francisco Chronicle did, the Sun-Times will entrust its printing to the rival Chicago Tribune starting in late September.

The next day, Baldwin Technology Company announced that is has sold UV dryers that will be installed on two newspaper presses in Australia "to significantly improve print quality and enable use of a wider range of paper qualities." In other words, the presses will be able to do heatset offset printing on such higher-grade stocks as coated and supercalendered papers as well as lower-quality coldset printing on newsprint.

As demand for printed newspapers has shrunk in recent years, publishers have more idle time on their presses and less ability to justify investing in new presses. Increasingly, they will either turn their printing over to others or chase after outside printing work to justify the investments needed to keep their printing operations up to date.

The Sun-Times's shift will save it an estimated $10 million annually, partly because it can narrow the paper's width, and will provide more ability to run color ads, according to a Chicago Tribune article. The Tribune plant already produces Chicago editions of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal but has enough capacity to take on the Sun-Times and seven suburban Sun-Times papers apparently without breaking a sweat.

Newspapers & Technology lists 20 closures of newspaper printing plants this year because of outsourcing to other newspapers. And there are increasing reports of newspaper publishers going after work that used to be done by commercial printers.

Baldwin's announcement suggests commercial printers can expect to see even more competition from newspaper publishers. Rather than the sort of multimillion-dollar investments in new presses for the San Francisco Chronicle plant, Baldwin is adding heatset as an option to the Australian presses for only $375,000 per press.

For its technology, which was originally developed for sheetfed presses, Baldwin envisions "further opportunities as printers around the world add flexibility and quality improvement to their production capabilities."

For further reading: Newspaper Production Enters Colorful, Outsourced Era and Can Transcon transform newspapers?, which explain why the San Francisco Chronicle plant and a similar facility in Montreal are so significant for both the newspaper and printing industries.

9 Differences Between a School System and a Publishing Company: Lessons for Cathie Black

One is full of spoiled brats. The other has lots of children.

That's one of the differences between publishing companies and school systems that Cathie Black of Hearst Magazine will need to keep in mind as she makes the transition, announced today, from a career running newspaper and magazine companies to becoming chancellor of New York City Schools.

Here are eight more subtle distinctions between a publisher and a public school systems she'll need to keep in mind:

1. School systems are not-for-profit agencies by design. Newspapers are no-profit organizations despite all their efforts to be otherwise.
2. For schools, the largest inflow of funds is from state and local governments that always seem to be screwing them out of some money. For magazine publishers, the largest outflow of money is for postage, which also involves an indifferent bureaucracy that always seems to be screwing them out of money.
3. For a school system, a new student means more state and federal aid. For a publisher, a new subscriber means less net revenue (because the subscription agent charges more than the subscriber pays).
4. Schools have math classes that make kids feel like idiots as soon as they open a textbook and try to understand algebra. Magazine publishers have blow-in cards that make newsstand customers feel like idiots as soon as they open a copy and see they could have saved 90% by buying a subscription.
5. Public schools offer free education to all. Publishers charge some customers for their content, then give it away to others on their Web sites.
6. School systems issue diplomas of dubious significance. Publishers issue statements of “paid” circulation.
7. Schools are often judged by meaningless metrics, such as how their sports teams do and what proportion of the students take SATs. Publications have their own meaningless metrics, like awards and newsstand sales.
8. Schools are run by principals. Publications are run by advertising salesmen, who have no principles.

Other Dead Tree Edition articles that slander the publishing industry unfairly include:

• Magazine Publishers: Asleep on the Job? 
• Harper's Bizarre: Attacked by Pterodactyls?  
• The Perfect Newspaper Story?

Magazine Publishers: Asleep on the Job?

With all of the stumbles the U.S. magazine industry has made the past few years, it's encouraging to hear that some publishers are looking for outside help on a major strategic issue.

I'm referring, of course, to employee naps.

A recent BusinessWeek story noted that the latest trend in employee perks is napping, with Google's corporate headquarters offering "futuristic napping pods." Some firms have opted for a napping chair that "looks like PacMan with a really long tongue." (Sounds like an English bulldog to me. But where are you supposed to put the tongue? And what if it starts licking you as you doze off/)

"Other companies have outsourced their daytime sleeping solutions," the article informs us. "Yelo, a napping spa in midtown Manhattan, has provided its services to Hearst, Newsweek, and Time Warner. It offers naps in a 'cocoon-like' treatment room in which clients can adjust aromatherapy, sound, and lighting" (but, alas, not advertising CPMs or newsstand sales).

What the article doesn't tell us is the name Yelo has given to its treatment rooms: YeloCabs. Somehow when I think about what relaxes me, a Yellow Cab in Manhattan doesn't come to mind.

Nor does the article tell us whether the snoozing at Newsweek will continue under new owner Sidney Harman. You might think a 92-year-old man would understand the need for an occasional 40 winks, but clearly Harman thinks the magazine's management has been asleep at the wheel: "Newsweek managed to insulate itself from all the opportunities to expand its mark. Newsweek should be in numbers of businesses it's not in now," he recently told The Wall Street Journal.

With Newsweek reportedly losing millions -- $28.1 million last year -- methinks Harman will want the staff (or what's left of it) to do more selling and less napping.

And as for Time Warner, it seems that someone in that company's accounting department has been dozing (or maybe smoking something) as well. How else could it conclude that Time magazine, which is as advertising-anemic as its archrival Newsweek, will "earn a profit of more than $50 million this year"?

Greenpeace Is Back, But Time Warner Looks the Other Way

Nearly 16 years to the day after protesters hung a "Take The Poison Out Of Paper" banner on the TIME-Life building, Time Warner's paper-buying practices were blasted once again this week by Greenpeace.

But two Time Warner properties, TIME magazine and CNN, published articles about the Greenpeace study that failed to mention its listing of Time Warner's CNN Traveller magazine as one of the brands that "prop up Sinar Mas" by buying from its Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) division.

Other magazines singled out for criticism in "How Sinar Mas Is Pulping the Planet" on Tuesday include three Hearst brands (Esquire, Marie Claire, and Cosmo Girl) and Hachette Filipacchi's Elle -- though it wasn't clear whether Greenpeace was pointing the finger at those companies or at content licensees who publish Asian-language editions.

But the copy of CNN Traveller shown in the report is clearly an English-language edition, and the magazine's Web site indicates that the Asian edition is published by CNN.

The TIME article notes that Greenpeace "singles out some of APP's big global customers" like WalMart, Hewlett Packard, and KFC. But nowhere does the article mention Time's UK-based sister publication. And the CNN story doesn't list any of the companies that Greenpeace criticizes for buying from the Sinar Mas empire, which has repeatedly been accused of massive deforestation in Indonesia.

On July 11, 1994, three Greenpeace activists gained international media attention by climbing Time Inc.'s headquarters in New York and hanging a banner saying "TIME: Chlorine Kills -- Take The Poison Out of Paper". Since then, the Time Inc. branch of Time Warner has focused on studying the environmental impact of magazine paper and working with its suppliers to reduce that impact.

Related articles:

• Illegal Logging in Indonesia: Not Funny "The country’s enforcement of logging laws is a joke."
• Three, or Maybe Four, Green Magazine Pioneers: Both Time Inc. and Hearst have been green leaders in the U.S. magazine industry.
• Marcal Challenges the Green-ness of Greenpeace: Paper company accuses Greenpeace of setting its standards for paper too low.

Three, or Maybe Four, Green Magazine Pioneers

While some magazine publishers get plenty of PR mileage from using paper with recycled content, the real leaders in making U.S. magazines greener have gone largely unheralded.

In a recent interview with Publishing Executive, I named three publishing companies that have been “industry pioneers” in making printed products greener. I had a fourth pioneer in mind as well but disqualified it from the list. More on that later.

Here are my green heroes:

Wenner Media
I’ve previously praised U.S. News & World Report for using Catalyst Cooled “manufactured carbon-neutral paper” throughout its “green” issue this year, but it was really following in the footsteps of Wenner’s Rolling Stone magazine. Two years ago, Wenner began changing the industry’s thinking on the environment away from simplistic discussions of recycled content when it announced that all of the magazine’s inside pages would be on Catalyst Cooled.

Wenner pays for a tree-planting program that offsets the already low carbon footprint of the paper. As far as I can tell, Wenner gets no PR or marketing mileage out of that commitment other than a small mention in each issue of the magazine. It is just doing the right thing, in good times and in bad.

Time Inc.
The “Evil Empire”, as competitors and even employees call Time, made a huge contribution by commissioning the extensive, landmark Heinz Center study in 2006 called "Following the Paper Trail". That study showed that the vast majority of a consumer magazine’s carbon footprint occurs at the paper mill and that the emissions of greenhouse gases vary widely from mill to mill.

Time also pioneered the ReMix (Recycling Magazines is Excellent!) advertising campaign that encourages consumers to recycle their magazines.

Check out this audio interview with Guy Gleysteen, Time Inc.’s production chief, who talks about how the company is lobbying paper suppliers on such issues as carbon footprint and sustainable forestry. He’s especially interesting when talking about the company’s motivation for these actions and why Time doesn't mention them in its marketing to consumers.

“The issues that you’d want to educate people on are complex and are not readily described in one or two lines that would appeal to a consumer,” says Gleysteen. He adds that Time’s efforts are about “putting our company into a position where we can be trusted relative to the resources that we use.”

Hearst
Being green seems to permeate the company’s culture, from its award-winning LEED-certified headquarters in New York to the rooftop worm farms (Ooh, gross!) that recycle waste from its Good Housekeeping kitchens in London (Oh. Cool!).

“By the end of 2008, 70% of our magazine paper comprised certified fiber. We have set an interim goal of 80% by the end of 2009,” says the publisher’s "Being Green" report, perhaps the best example of environmental transparency in the U.S. publishing industry. As part of that effort, Hearst and Time went public this week with their campaign to help small forest owners in Maine get certified.

“Being Green” addresses the recycled issue clearly and correctly: “Hearst is currently using more than 15% post-consumer recycled (PCR) paper across its portfolio of publications, primarily in the newsprint we buy. After extensive review, we currently believe newspapers and other end uses (packaging, wallboard, etc.) are the most efficient use for recycled fiber, which continues to be in short supply.”

Now for the almost fourth hero: Readers Digest Association deserves some credit for using paper with 85% recycled content throughout Every Day with Rachael Ray.

As Hearst suggests, coated paper is often not the best use for recycled pulp. But if you’re going to print a magazine in the Midwest on relatively heavy coated-groundwood paper, Myllykoski’s Alsip, IL mill is a green choice. By mixing high-brightness recycled products, such as unsold magazines and printer waste, with curbside-collected paper and virgin kraft pulp, the mill is able to make good magazine paper without bleaching. (The mill’s products are too heavy for Rolling Stone and most Time Inc. magazines, by the way.)

As with Wenner’s announcement about Catalyst Cooled, the marketing of Every Day with Her Perkiness brought much-deserved attention to a paper maker that is greener than its larger competitors.

So why am I not giving RDA as much credit for being green as Wenner, Time, and Hearst? It turns out that Myllykoski already gave Readers Digest plenty of credit: The Finnish company was left holding the bag with $1.65 million in accounts payable when RDA went Chapter 11 in August. That's not exactly a great way to reward a supplier for its environmentally friendly practices.

Do you disagree with my choices of magazine-industry green heroes? Then make your voice heard, not only by commenting on this article but also by entering the 2009 Aveda Environmental Award for Magazines.

For further reference:

• Rethinking the "Green" Magazine Issue
• Certified forestry for small Maine landowners: Does FSC certification help the earth? and More on Maine and FSC.
• Certified Forestry Is In Trouble, U.N. Report Says
• I'm an environmental idiot!: Why recycled content doesn't always make environmental sense for coated paper.
  

Transcontinental and World Color Gear Up for Consolidation While Donnelley Inhales Helium

With Transcontinental borrowing money for possible acquisitions and World Color Press making it clear who is in charge, The Big Printer Consolidation Dance had some interesting moves this week.

Meanwhile, industry leader R.R. Donnelley, which tried to be the Great Consolidator a few months ago, has wandered off for a dose of Helium.

Transcontinental announced Thursday that it will try to raise up to $500 million via debt and preferred-shares offerings “for general corporate purposes, which may include the repayment of indebtedness and the financing of acquisitions and investments provided market conditions are favourable.” That is apparently enough cash to gain a controlling stake in the other big printer based in Canada, World Color Press. Or is it still Quebecor World? Or maybe Novink.

World Color Press hasn't completely worked out the name thing since emerging from bankruptcy in July with its new but old name. Its Web site is still Quebecorworld.com, and many of its legal entities include "Novink", which was chosen and then abandoned as the name of the revived company.

But WCP did clear something else up: Mark A. Angelson, the person most responsible for consolidation of the North American printing industry, is definitely running the show. The company announced this week that the former Donnelley chief is now the CEO as well as chairman of World Color Press. Those who know him say he's there to do deals, not to make incremental changes.

What kind of deals Transcontinental has in mind is not clear. Besides the traditional commercial-printing business, it's involved in outsourced newspaper printing, newspaper publishing, and new media.

There was some speculation that Transcontinental's prospects were strained by its deal to print the San Francisco Chronicle because it might be stuck with an idle $230 million printing plant if the money-losing Chronicle's abandoned ink on paper. Hearst threatened to close down the Chronicle earlier this year if it didn't get union concessions.

But the prospectus for Transcontinental's debt offering says the Chronicle contract "provides for indemnification from Hearst Corporation should the San Francisco Chronicle cease publication or be sold." It also says the "contract size is for more than US $1billion (excluding paper) in revenues over 15 years."

And what of industry leader R.R. Donnelley, which made three unsuccessful attempts a few months ago to buy what was then known as Quebecor World? So far this month, it announced it is getting into the printer business in the form of a joint venture with HP to make digital inkjet presses.

It also spent $4.4 million on a minority stake in Helium, a "social publishing platform" that links freelance writers with publishers. It's not clear why Donnelley's interest has turned from buying other printers to Helium.

Maybe some RRD executives still grieving over the Quebecor debacle thought they could console themselves by taking a few big puffs and talking like Donald Duck.

Harper's Bizarre: Attacked by Pterodactyls?

Has Hearst's magazine division entered a parallel universe where paper has only one side and pterodactyls steal page files?

No, it’s just some media writers having trouble grasping what goes on with ink-on-paper publications.

Jezebel.com reported a few days ago that the September issue of Harper’s Bazaar was missing 39 pages. That reminded me of the advertising sales rep who wanted to know why we were going to charge a client for a two-page insert when it only wanted one page. “Because we have to print two pages” was the answer, to which the sales rep instinctively replied, “But our main competitor can produce one-page inserts!”

Alas, Hearst has not changed the venerable women's magazine into Harper's Bizarre or somehow obtained the magazine version of Zen. (If Zen Buddhists meditate on the sound of one hand clapping, do Zen production directors meditate on the look of one-sided paper?)

Jezebel miscounted. The issue has a page 256, two unpaginated pages, and then page 295 – a gap of 36 pages.

There's also no truth to the rumor that voracious flying beasts were attacking Hearst's PDF files, despite an article in the latest issue of Folio: magazine. The article quotes Hearst's Sean Keefe as saying that a switch to the PDF-X4 format has prevented "raptorization" of its files.

In defense of Folio:, it quickly corrected the error in the Web version of the otherwise excellent article after being alerted by a certain anonymous blogger (presumably after the dead-tree edition of Folio: had gone to press). And a badly formatted file can definitely end up looking like something that got chomped on by a hungry predator. Only people who have been trapped in a room with prepress geeks eagerly discussing preflighting and file formats (". . . when you have unsharp masking and convert from RGB to CMYK blah blah blah") would know that Keefe meant "rasterization".

What Folio: lacks is Jezebel's commenters, who have proposed novel ideas about what's in the missing 36 pages -- including Jimmy Hoffa, George W. Bush's drug-test results from the Texas Air National Guard, Amelia Earhart's plane, and a transcript of the missing Nixon tapes.

Because pages 257 through 294 do not appear in the table of contents, I'm guessing they don't exist. Harper's Bazaar may have planned to produce 257-294 when it went to press with back-of-book sections, then dropped those pages when some last-minute ads didn't come in.

Or maybe the pterodactyls took them.