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Armed with new printing technology, The Dispatch is launching the world’s first compact 3V newspaper
OLD SCHOOL: Dispatch executives believe traditional paper size was too cumbersome for modern readers. 3V EDITION: Though still a broadsheet, the 3V format is more compact and colorful.
PHOTOS BY JODI MILLER
ONE morning later this month, roughly 200,000 copies of the Columbus Dispatch will hit front porches and newsstands, office tables and hotel lobbies.
Pages will be smaller, folding across the middle to about the size of an iPad. Papers will be thicker, with more pages and additional sections. The layouts will be more colorful and modular—more like a magazine. The newspaper’s gothic-font nameplate will be there, only reduced in size.
Welcome to the “3Volution,” a compact newspaper format named for the technology able to produce it.
The Dispatch will be the first paper in the world to convert to the format, which is also known as “3V” or “three-around.” Many expect it to change the industry.
“We’re talking to a lot of newspapers around the country about it,” said Jim Gore, vice president and general manager of Pressline Services Inc., the company that recently patented 3V technology. “Everybody’s watching, waiting for it to launch. There’s a ton of interest in it.”
Several other daily newspapers are expected to switch to the format in the next year. The Gannett Co. will use the Dispatch’s printing facility on the West Side to produce 3V versions of the Cincinnati Enquirer and Kentucky Enquirer in the fourth quarter of this year. Gannett declined to comment for this story.
Phil Pikelny, chief marketing officer for the Dispatch Printing Company, said the new format is a giant leap forward for broadsheet papers that have remained relatively unchanged for more than a century.
“I’d like to meet the man who invented the broadsheet—because the man should be shot,” Pikelny joked. “The consumer was already wanting this to go away.”
The change shrinks pages of the Dispatch to 14.6 inches long by 10.5 inches wide, down from 22 inches long by 11.375 inches wide. The company says the new format will include the same amount of news content in a greater page count. (Like the Dispatch, Columbus Monthly is owned by the Dispatch Printing Company.)
“Most newspapers are either standing still or cutting,” Dispatch editor Ben Marrison said. “This company has decided to double down, and we’re reinvesting in this community and this product. The feedback has been off the hook.”
A newspaper with smaller page dimensions isn’t big news, so to understand the significance of the Dispatch’s new format, you’ve got to go to the presses.
Newspapers are printed by threading long rolls of paper through multi-story presses that hold a series of cylinders; wrapped around the cylinders are thin metal printing plates. These plates guide the transfer of ink to paper, creating an image of each page.
In traditional set-ups, two printing plates wrap around each cylinder, so two pages are produced in a single rotation. In the 3V format, each cylinder holds a single plate with three page images on it. This one plate produces three pages per turn.
The new size essentially increases productivity by 50 percent. Running paper through the presses at the same speed produces 90,000 3V copies per hour, up from 60,000 copies of a traditional broadsheet.
Pressline Services’ technology uses the Dispatch’s existing presses, but the switch required a significant overhaul of the infrastructure, said Joe Gallo, Dispatch executive vice president and corporate chief information officer. Even devices that move papers through the plant and machines that translate computer files to plates had to be altered.
But the conversion hinged on the development of a new folder, a machine that cuts sheets, gathers pages in sections and folds them together to be stacked in bundles. Pressline’s new folder can run faster and more efficiently to keep up with the increased pace as 3V newspapers emerge from the presses.
“The new folder is the reason you can do a faster number of copies,” Gore said as he recently oversaw installation at the Dispatch facility. “The folder has to go faster, but the [press] doesn’t.”
Each of the four press lines at the Dispatch’s printing plant is being fitted with a new folder. The Dispatch’s total investment to reformat to 3V is estimated in the eight-figure range.
“It’s very significant,” Gallo said. “Everybody thinks that print’s going to go away. I truly think that this is something that will be a good enough experience that it has a very long life.”
The different look and feel of the 3V format means a new approach to stories, photos, graphics and illustrations.
“We took it as an opportunity, essentially, to build a brand-new newspaper using the same award-winning journalists,” Marrison explained. “There are sections within sections. It’s very logical. It’s going to have more color. It’ll have far more pages. It’s going to have new sections.”
Marrison said that the paper will likely have a greater number of tighter stories and more newsy shots rather than feature photos. Reporters also will experiment with new story styles, including “charticles,” a format that uses briefs and graphics.
A prototype version included familiar sections like Sports, Metro & State and Life & Arts. Also inside were standalone sections for travel, college football and business. Increased sectioning is one of 3V’s biggest advantages for an editorial staff.
Take, for example, fall sports coverage.
NFL football, NHL hockey and baseball playoffs compete for prime placement, but the Buckeyes usually command the front of the sports section. In the 3V format, Ohio State football will get its own section during the season, leaving more front-page real estate for others in the main sports section.
Mary Lynn Plageman, managing editor of features for the Dispatch, noted that sections have been organized like a news magazine. Content is organized to aid navigation, she said, a benefit for readers and advertisers. For instance, the At Home section contains specific segments for gardening, home projects, real estate and the housing market.
“You can really draw out the benefits of how easy it is to package content,” she said.
Love it or hate it, anyone who holds the 3V version of the Dispatch will see a radical difference—a far cry from the look and feel of most daily newspapers.
The recent prototype handles easily and opens far more comfortably, to about the width of a desk chair’s arms. Section fronts bear multiple entry points, including top stories, graphics and page numbers of other articles. Additional color is obvious.
“Every time we’ve tested it, we’ve been really surprised by the response,” Marrison said of the overwhelmingly positive feedback.
That is, after the shock wore off.
Many who glance at the prototypes are quick to assume that smaller pages mean fewer stories or a smaller typeface. Others believe that the new format is simply a way to cut costs or hide shrinking coverage.
Initial ideas change once readers start paging through, said Pikelny, who noted that all the positive feedback would “go out the window” if the new format offered less content. “This is not a money-saving issue,” he said.
According to results from a June mail survey conducted by the Dispatch, roughly 70 percent of 213 respondents preferred the new format over the old. Those “pleased” or “very pleased” by 3V numbered 83, compared with 16 who were “displeased” or “very displeased.”
“What everybody loves about it is that it’s a smaller size, but it’s still your newspaper,” Pikelny said.
