Newspapers and Technology

The price hikes that vendors are passing through to newspapers aren’t likely to end anytime soon.

The first massive wave has already come from ink, plastics and prepress consumable suppliers. Agfa and Fujifilm unit Enovation Graphics are among the latest to announce price hikes in the United States, while Kodak Graphic Communications Group raised prepress consumables prices in its Europe and Greater Asia regions.

Vendors say they are squeezed by ever-escalating raw materials costs and can no longer hold back passing those increases onto their newspaper customers.

Consider the following:

*2005 aluminum costs neared $2,400 per ton, almost double 2003 prices, fueled in part by spot shortages.

*Silver hit $9.53 a troy ounce in February, doubling 2003 prices.

*Polyester feedstock for film rose 30 percent in the past three years.

*Polyethylene resin, used in plastic bags, rose 15 percent.

*Crude oil prices rose 30 percent in the past year and have tripled since 2001.

Link: Vendors battling price vise.