In India at the start of this week - where the market for printed newspapers is more positive than most other places in the world - the talk is about wasted energy.

WAN-Ifra's India Conference and Expo opened with a pair of workshops, one focused on energy and power quality management and the other on making the switch to an integrated newsroom.

The latter - about increasing revenue from classifieds - brings AIM Group founding principal Peter Zollman to Mumbai from the US to discuss elements of the classified advertising business in print and online. In print, it's a market which has been reinvigorated by the unrestricted availability of colour.

On Thursday, a third workshop addresses the opportunity to create culture of innovation from the challenge of developing a cross-platform approach to editorial.

Two 'escape routes' if you like, for a country's publishers who know the writing is (eventually) on the wall for printed papers... and a third for delaying the 'doomsday' as long as possible.

I've found myself in trouble before over the negative thoughts of others on India's newspaper industry; not my views but those of speakers whose comments we report.

My own print publishing background - and perhaps the 'baby boomer' mentality of an eternal optimist - sees things differently. So let's look at the positives for print, and the technologies upon which it depends.

The 'right sizing' argument is not so much about whether Indian newspapers need 4x1 presses, or whether they should be fast or slow, but about what needs each publisher has to address: How many pages to a typical issue, how many copies are needed; where and how urgently.

Perhaps multiple publications can be fitted into a defined production 'window' if time, technology, geography and competitive issues permit. There isn't a 'one size fits all' and the argument for new press investment can be as simple as the paper savings of a shorter cut-off.

The argument for 4x1 in India is mostly about the flexibility it delivers in pagination; the ability to increase products in two-page (broadsheet) increments while retaining the greater productivity of a wider web width. Triple-wide is unlikely to cut it here because that will invariably (at present, at least) mean two-around plate cylinders.

But there's more to it than the format and price of the press; there will always be justification for speed and automation while labour and materials costs continue to rise. And while carving a future for print means securing ever-more innovative business models for it.

Even at single-width, the 45,000 cph of the new Goss Magnum Compact is likely to put 50 per cent more copies on the floor in an hour than the presses it replaces; if there are edition changes in the mix, its auto plate-changing feature will make that output difference much, much more... and the manning needed to achieve it.

It's that misunderstanding that prompts us back to the issue: Next month sees another flagship WAN-Ifra event, the World Publishing Expo in Hamburg, and two of the world's biggest newspaper press manufacturers are the first to stake a claim to press conferences on the opening day.

Will they have new presses to announce? I doubt it... but the focus on saving time and waste is relentless, and is what constantly justifies the investment in new equipment, as well as technology and control upgrades.

The world is awash with perfectly-serviceable high-speed presses which will make their way to the scrapyard for the simple reason that 'perfectly serviceable' isn't good enough. And while it's never been good enough for wealthy, time-sensitive markets such as the market heartlands of Germany, it's become no longer good enough in evolving markets such as China and India.

The argument about press choice isn't about 'sizing'; it's about getting the technology choices right.

Peter Coleman

Pictured: The 80,000 cph TKS Color Top at HT Media in Noida, India, uses a 4x1 format but can print two different products at the same time