9:05 a.m. CDT, April 11, 2011

The web width for the Hoosier Times publications press has been reduced from 50 inches to 44 inches.

    The Bloomington press prints the Bloomington Herald Times, The Sunday Hoosier Times, The Martinsville Reporter Times and the Mooresville Times.

    The web reduction meant major mechanical modifications to the double-wide KBA press in Bloomington.
    Work began in the editorial departments of all the Hoosier Times properties in February and then the advertising, prepress and creative departments started undergoing changes. Although newsprint savings was the primary motivator, other advantages and efficiencies were found along the way. One example was going from nine columns to six columns in the classified sections, so now ROP and classified display ads are the same width.
    All Hoosier Times publications started producing their ads and content at the new image size on Tuesday March 8, but continued printing on the wide sheet. Then on Thursday March 10 The Times Mail in Bedford made the conversion to the new 44 inch width. After the Sunday March 13 issue of The Hoosier Times was printed Pressline Services began working on the final conversion process. That process was scheduled to take 24 hours. During that time, the Bedford Times Mail printed the Monday March 14 version of the Bloomington Herald Times. Then on Monday March 14 the Bloomington press successfully printed the Martinsville Reporter at the new width, then printed the first 44 inch issue of the Herald Times on Tuesday March 15.

    Slight type and style changes accompanied the new size, but these were not very noticeable to readers. The changes are meant to make the newspaper as readable as possible in the narrower column widths.
    Of other newspapers in the south-central Indiana market, the Indianapolis Star, Louisville Courier-Journal, USA Today and the Chicago Tribune have all been on the 44-inch web width for more than a year.