UPM Sells SC PM to Shandong Tralin

http://www.upm.com/en/Pages/default.aspx

UPM has sold the 220,000 tonne/yr supercalendered (SC) paper unit PM 7 at its shuttered Myllykoski mill in southern Finland to Shandong Tralin Paper Company in China. The sales price was not revealed.

Dismantling of the machine started in early March and should be done by the end of June, Timo
Suutarla, general manager of the Myllykoski mill.
The PM will be relocated to Gaotang County in the province of Shandong in China, according to a Tralin spokesperson. The machine will be converted to make food wrapper from straw pulp.
The Tralin spokesperson declined to comment on what kind of alterations the PM needs, what capacity it will have after the rebuild or when production should start.

Three US Mills Raise Carbonless Price

Appleton said it will raise prices 6% on its NCR Paper carbonless sheets, Fluorescents sheets, and non-paper products effective with shipments April 1 in the US and Canada.

Glatfelter also set a 6% price increase for its carbonless sheets grades sold in all global markets effective April 1.
Nekoosa Coated Products will also raise carbonless sheet prices, industry sources said.

More European Mills Raise Prices

The number of German paper traders seeking to hike prices for graphic paper in April keeps rising.
Since Deutsche Papier got the ball rolling by announcing a 7% hike for all graphic paper grades from April 1, several other market players have revealed similar plans.

Papier Union, which is part of the Inapa group, said it is aiming at 7% increases for all graphic papers from April 2. The firm ascribed the move to price hike announcements from papermakers and said it was unable to compensate for rising purchasing prices.
Igepa announced 6-7% hikes for all deliveries of sheeted graphic products from April. "Due to cost increases for energy and raw materials, especially pulp, the price adjustment is inevitable," the firm said in a statement.

Two Sides: Misleading Claims About Print/Paper

Two Sides Urges Leading U.S. Companies to End Misleading Claims About Print and Paper: Two Sides has announced the next stage of its nationwide initiative to urge major U.S. banks, utilities and telecommunication companies to end the use of misleading marketing claims about the sustainability of print and paper. Phase Two will include a second round of communication intended to initiate productive discussion with senior management in the target industries, reminding them of their responsibility to adhere to best practices for environmental marketing as outlined in the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s recently revised Green Guides.

Hearst Magazines Installs DALIM ES, DALIM TWIST

Hearst Magazines Installs DALIM ES and DALIM TWIST for Print and E-Media Workflow: Kehl, Germany – Hearst Magazines is implementing the DALIM ES system across its magazine brands, simplifying production workflow, especially for electronic editions, the emerging channel in which Hearst leads the industry with a circulation of 886,000. Blanchard Systems, North American Distributor of Dalim Software, worked closely with Hearst through the testing and evaluation.

US Caustic Soda Supply Tight

http://www.icis.com/Articles/2013/03/11/9648684/us-caustic-soda-supply-snug-on-demand-from-non-traditional-buyers.html

Demand from non-traditional export destinations is straining US caustic soda availability, a market source said on Monday. 
Growing demand for US caustic soda from Africa, Australia and Europe, regions not considered conventional targets for US caustic, is placing upward pressure on prices, the source said on the sidelines of the 18th annual Plastimagen international plastics exposition and conference. --> 
Price increases of $30-50/dry short ton (dst) (€23-39/dst) announced by US producers remain under discussion. Suppliers have said the proposed hikes are driven by snug availability and steady demand.

Print vs. Digital Debate Continues

http://www.pubexec.com/blog/magazine-publishing-jumping-into-print-vs-digital-debate

Industry gurus (and Publishing Executive columnists) Bob Sacks and Samir "Mr. Magazine" Husni engaged in a lively, spontaneous Twitter debate yesterday on the future of print vs. digital. 
Both agree reading on paper will not disappear, but beyond that the two diverge. Husni thinks paper will remain a vital magazine medium, encapsulating an experience not replicable on tablets, while Sacks believes paper will become a pricey niche format. 
So, who's right? After an experience I had last night, while all this tweeting was going on, I find myself leaning toward the Husni camp. 

The Fall - And Rise - of Magazines

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media-network/media-network-blog/2013/mar/07/fall-rise-magazines-print-digital

Challenging times lie ahead for magazines. The Audit Bureau of Circulations figures published last month made grim reading.

But these figures are only a partial reflection of what is really going on. The industry trade body, the Professional Publishers Association, released its first combined digital and print circulation chart alongside the traditional ABC figures and its CEO Barry McIlheney says that for many titles, such as Conde Nast's GQ and Future's technology magazine, T3, a combined figures is a truer reflection of how the industry is faring.
Indeed, some sectors are doing quite nicely and all magazines are built around the twin pillars that have always eluded newspapers – passion and community. The most successful ones are returning to their roots.

Ricochet Adds Condé Nast Titles, Forbes & More

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/195731/nytco-adds-conde-nast-people-to-ricochet.html#axzz2NS0KgpmV

Ricochet, the content marketing platform launched by The New York Times Co. in April of last year, is adding a number of publications to its list of partners, including the entire Condé Nast magazine portfolio, People, Forbes and Advertising Age.

RDA: Gains in Readers & Advertisers

http://www.rda.com/news/readers-digest-associations-core-brands-show-big-gains-among-readers-and-advertisers-in-cy2012-and-q1-2013

The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc., the global multi-brand and multi-platform media and direct marketing company, today released CY2012 and first quarter 2013 figures which demonstrated a strong, growing demand for its North American media brands from print and digital readers and advertisers alike.

Advertising revenue across all U.S. digital properties increased 35% over 2011 led by the Reader’s Digest flagship, which grew its digital advertising revenue by 94%.

CEOs Expect Sales, Capital Spending Growth

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ceos-expect-increased-sales-capital-133800604.html

The results of Business Roundtable’s (BRT) first quarter 2013 CEO Economic Outlook Survey show CEOs’ expectations for the economy over the next six months have improved due to expected higher sales and capital spending.

CEO economic expectations increased for the first time in four quarters. BRT CEOs also expect 2.1 percent growth for 2013, a slight increase from last quarter’s estimate of 2.0 percent.

Did Time Lag in Offering Paid Content?

http://www.adweek.com/news/press/did-time-inc-miss-paid-content-boat-147870

Time Inc. was a pioneer at the dawn of the Internet revolution, creating in the '90s the prescient if ultimately ill-fated online portal Pathfinder to host its magazines. But today, it isn't even keeping pace with its smaller print brethren, and one area in which it has particularly lagged is paid content. 

While other major magazine publishers as well as newspapers have made advances reversing what the Internet has wrought and getting consumers to pay for digital content, Time Inc. still lags. In the spring of 2011, the company's biggest rivals, Condé Nast and Hearst, made deals to sell subscriptions to their magazines' tablet editions in Apple’s iTunes store. It took Time Inc. more than a year to follow suit.

Asset International Expands to Europe

Asset International Segmenting aiCIO Brand Across Europe: New York-based b-to-b media publisher Asset International, which serves the the finance market, is continuing its growth into the European market by further segmenting its aiCIO (chief investment officer) brand into more regionally-focused editions. Since launching in 2009, the brand has averaged 50 percent revenue growth each year—spread across digital, events and print.

ePublishing Acquires Next-Tech Markets

ePublishing Acquires B2B Audience Network:
Cloud-based CMS, ecommerce and CRM services provider ePublishing has acquired Next-Tech Markets and its advertising network of business publishers.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Next-Tech's B2B Audience Network is primarily made up of industrial, energy, defense, greentech, medical, IT and emerging technologies publishers, and includes more than 300 online publications for clients including UBM, Cygnus and GIE Media. The acquisition brings ePublishing's client total to about 800, says Thomas Chaffee, the firm's CEO.

NAPA Report: Reforming the USPS

NAPA Panel Releases Report on Reforming the U.S. Postal Service: An independent Panel of the National Academy of Public Administration today issues its findings and conclusions from its evaluation of a new hybrid public-private partnership concept for U.S. Postal Service (USPS) operations put forward by four nationally-recognized postal experts. David Walker, former Comptroller General of the United States, chaired the Academy’s Panel that conducted the ten-week review of the "Thought-Leader White Paper." The Paper advocated that mail processing, collection, and transportation be performed by private-sector companies and that the delivery function—“the last mile”—be reserved for the USPS.

USPS Technical Credit Matched Dollar for Dollar

USPS Full-Service Technical Credit Matched Dollar for Dollar by AccuZIP: AccuZIP has announced a bold offer for its professional direct mail and QR code tracking service, and other products, to match dollar for dollar the amount of any mailer’s proposed USPS Tech Credit.  This would give each mailer that qualified for the proposed Tech Credit the ability to track and report 100% of their direct mail and QR Codes by simply uploading every IMb to the AccuZIP secure server.  The USPS notified all mailers that qualified for a proposed Tech Credit amount in a February 2013 letter. The letters they sent out included information on the exact dollar amount, the qualifying CRID(s) and the associated mailer information.