Time and other speed closings

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, May, 1989 by Jean Marie Angelo

Time and others speed closings

Glen Rock, N.J.--Time stands to gain a day in closing time on its international editions with its purchase of Pagefax systems, supplied by Crosfield Electronics, Inc.

Meanwhile U.S. News & World Report can now close on four-color advertising up to three hours prior to publication using the same technology, which it uses through New York-based Applied Graphics Technology (formerly PPI/Kordet). Business Week, Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising, Newsweek and Vanity Fair are also using or testing the ability of AGT's equipment to radically shorten deadlines.

So far, Time is the only major media operation to buy its own system, which will cost $9 million if the company chooses to buy all the equipment after an initial test phase.

The systems allow Time's Impact Center--an electronic transmission facility--to transmit facsimiles of four-color pages to printing plants in HongKong, Singapore, Holland, Canada and Florida (the site that handles all work for Latin America) in minutes, according to George Woods, general manager of Time Inc.'s Impact Center.

The transmitted pages include information on the four process colors, which are then processed at the international locations.

The new technology also enables Time to include more four-color in its international editions; until now, they were limited in the use of color.

For its domestic editions, Time Inc. has purchased Scripter text management equipment, which allows the Impact Center to merge and transmit both text and graphics at a quicker speed. And, since this Scripter system is also used by other Crosfield clients, Crosfield has arranged for Time to transmit data from other clients' locations when necessary, explains Mel Ettinger, president of Crosfield.

Time is also considering facsimile transmission for its domestic editions, which are currently transmitted after they have been converted into digital data. This digitized format is limited, however, because it does not allow transmission of ad pages and other materials supplied outside the company.