Having quietly switched production to its new contract print site in July this year, the ‘San Francisco Chronicle’ will become America’s first glossy daily on Monday (November 9). In doing so, it is leveraging the hybrid manroland Colorman XXL triple-wide press technology made available to it under its contract with Canadian printer Transcontinental. The Hearst Corporation paper says the front page, most section fronts and some inside pages will be printed on high-gloss paper during the week. On Sundays, the main news section and several features sections will be glossy. A new arts section launched yesterday will also be printed on coated paper. With the dramatic changes in production quality and colour content comes an increase in cover price, up to $1 from 75 cents on weekdays. It reported a fall of nearly 26 per cent in circulation in the April-September period. The Transcontinental Northern California site built to fulfil the ‘Chronicle’ contract, has three of the triple-wide presses, each with a dryer to print 12 broadsheet pages of heatset (straight) or 24 collect.