What Exactly Does a Print Manager for a Major Metropolitan Newspaper Do?

Mike Taylor

Professional print buyers have dozens of different titles and a wide range of responsibilities. It’s part of the role’s allure. No two buyers are alike. Many work within Marketing. Others are part of Purchasing/Procurement, Corporate Communications, or Publications.

My background is in corporate print buying, and I’ve never worked for a newspaper except as a beat reporter many moons ago (the Madison Eagle in my hometown of Madison, NJ). When Mike Taylor got in touch and I saw that he’s the Print Manager for the OC Register in Santa Ana, CA, I decided to interview him. Many people don’t realize that major newspaper companies do a lot more printing than just the daily runs.

As their Print Manager, Mike outsources and manages all of the paper’s insert printing, inserts, and postcards & sticky notes, to the tune of about $150K of printing every month.

Mike’s been in printing since high school, first in commercial printing for about 10 years and then selling package printing for a few years. When he saw this job advertised, he thought he’d try his hand at print buying.

He works with the sales, advertising and marketing staff at the company. They have approximately 80 sales people, and in addition to the daily newspaper, he handles whatever inserts the sales reps need. They also do direct mail and solo mail projects as well as custom print jobs.

“I’m essentially the print broker for the whole building,” Mike told me. He’s been there for 6 years, and currently has 3 people working with him.

A few key stats for the OC Register are in order. It’s a daily paper, and on Sunday it’s sent to approximately 300,000 print subscribers. The publisher also produces a Spanish newspaper, OC Excelsior, printed once a week for 55,000 subscribers. They also have 26 community papers, which are delivered to residents in small towns free of charge. These have a total circulation of approximately 455M/week.

On Friday most of the local papers go out. Advertisers benefit, because the publisher combines these local papers with the OC Register for circulation for advertisers. For example, they can put an insert in all or some of the local papers as well as in the OC Register. Right around Christmas, for example, they sent out 1.6 million inserts to be printed from 11 different advertisers.

On Friday, if an advertiser wants to cover as much territory as he can in Orange County, he could do like so: put an insert in the Register and an insert in the community papers. Plus they have what they call a “jacket” that they print for the paper on Fridays. This is a 4-page tab that goes inside the paper and holds all the inserts. If you get neither the paper nor the local papers delivered, you can still get the jacket delivered in your mailbox.

What’s changed in recent years?

Mike mentioned that they now partner with the LA Times – making this the 4^th distribution channel they offer advertisers. LA Times sales reps can also sell into their newspaper’s program and vice versa.

They don’t do any of the printing on site. Although they have a print house in Anaheim, they don’t use them for the paper. Mike did say that they use Vertis and World Color plus Fisher Printing, a local printer, for inserts and direct mail projects.

I had to ask about the health of the newspaper, in light of the struggles we see with newspapers as advertising dollars shrink. “The OC Register is one of the few papers that’s not struggling as bad,” said Taylor. “We started early with digital applications. We supposedly have the best app for iPad as far as newspapers go.”

What’s different about newspaper printing? “The substrates of course.” I thought he might purchase the paper himself, but I was wrong. His printers buy the paper. He tried buying it himself but felt it was too much micromanaging vs. the cost savings.

He also brought up those front-page stick-on notes. “We’re one of the leaders in those stickers on the paper’s front page. We probably buy $50,000/month in those stickers. They really work: they’re generating about $100K to $130K in revenue per month. A record $160K in November!” These sticky notes are applied using Accraply equipment (www.accraply.com). This manufacturer is headquartered in MN but has several facilities, including one in Ontario, CA. The stickers are put on after the main section of the newspapers comes out on the conveyor belt and before it goes to the stacker. “Quite an amazing piece of machinery,” offered Mike.

The company’s salespeople also get other work to handle, including postcards and other direct mail projects. For clients who don’t want to advertise in the paper, the company will handle between $50K to $75K a month in “solo mail” & “print only jobs.”

Is his role typical in the industry? “As far as I know, a lot of newspapers don’t have print managers like myself. Before I came here, a lady upstairs bought the printing, and she wasn’t a print buyer by training. I saved over $1 million in print costs the first couple of years I was here.”

He also helps sales people sell more, by sharing with them things they can do aside from just newspaper ads or inserts. “I take it upon myself to educate the sales reps a little bit to help aid the selling of print.”