by James Careless

You would think that being one of the largest U.S. suppliers of satellite services would be enough work for any company, however, SES Americom has a second, rather unlikely job. It moonlights as a newspaper carrier.

Every evening, SES Americom delivers USA Today via satellite to 35 printing plants throughout the United States. This adds up to more than 44,600 miles (round trip) each time. This represents much more than the average carriers’ "five blocks before breakfast." Actually, SES Americom’s daily route is more than 89,200 miles long. In order to provide a fully redundant transmission chain, USA Today actually sends up two feeds each night. One goes to AMC 2, and the other goes to AMC 4. This is why each USA Today printing plant has two antennas: one 5-meter, and one 3.7-meter.

Meanwhile, Loral Skynet "plays paperboy" for USA Today‘s International edition. It takes the USA Today data feed–uplinked from Hawaii, where it is delivered via landline from USA Today‘s McLean, VA, headquarters–and distributes it via satellite to Hong Kong. The same data is also uplinked to Loral Skynet Europe from Herndon, VA, and distributed via Telstar 11 to numerous European printing plants.

As an integral part of USA Today‘s desktop-based publishing system, satellites help keep the publication’s news moving and moving fast. "In fact, it takes just five to seven minutes to move from a page being ‘set’ (approved for printing) to being compiled, transmitted to the remote print site, imaged on the plant’s computer-to-plate equipment and installed on the actual printing press," says Stephen Terrillion, USA Today‘s director of pre-press operations. "This means that USA Today‘s editors can keep updating stories just minutes before the press run starts, all over the planet." In the United States, USA Today‘s plants have two press runs. The first takes places at 11:40 p.m. Eastern time, while the second starts two hours later.

Committed To Satellites

Since its 1982 launch, USA Today moved from legacy computer systems such as ATEX–which required designers to cut-and-paste pages together–to complete desktop publishing using the CCI NewsDesk Editorial and Pagination System (CCI). "With CCI, reporters write their stories on [the] PC, then send them to the editors for checking," Terrillion says. "Once their copy has been edited, our design editors can lay out and view completed pages on their computer monitors. This allows us maximum flexibility for changing stories at the last minute."

CCI is also used for editing and adding "fractional" (part-page) ads into USA TODAY pages. For full-page ads, or ad runs meant for certain regions only (copysplit), USA TODAY uses the ProImage Newsway system instead. Newsway delivers the ad directly to the computer-to-plate equipment at the print site, rather than sending files to CCI first for composition.

The Daily Paper Route

It is 6:00 p.m. At USA TODAY’s headquarters, the daily news delivery is about to begin. The 7-meter uplink antenna starts to pump data at 1.5-Mbps up to AMC 2 and AMC 4, and down again at the same speed. (In Europe and Asia, Loral Skynet’s downlink runs at 512 kbs.)

To balance the requirements of up-to-date news coverage versus the realities of four-color printing, USA TODAY starts by sending out separate magenta, cyan, and yellow page files for the entire edition. Then, when the first three colors have been sent out and lined up with each other, the black illustration and text files are transmitted.

"By sending the non-black color files first, we give the printing plants maximum time to layout the edition, and calibrate the color mix," Terrillion says. "Meanwhile, since the black page files are the last to go, our editors back in Herndon can adjust the copy to include late-breaking news. It’s an approach that meets everyone’s needs."

At the receiving end, each page file is sent directly to the printing plant’s computer-to-plate equipment. It converts the data into steering instructions for a laser beam, which burns each full-page plate. At 1.5 Mbps, a page file takes 10 to 30 seconds to deliver, depending on how graphics-intensive the page is.

Once the data has been burned into the plate, it is bent, removed and fitted onto the printing press. The presses are started, and USA TODAY’s latest edition begins the leap from cyberspace into reality.

Racing The Clock

Even at T1 speeds, sending USA TODAY via satellite takes time. For instance, sending a typical 64-page edition with 20 full-color pages can take until 3:00 a.m., given last- minute copy changes and ad insertions. Of course, this time includes allowance for page retransmissions, in those instances where the signal’s been garbled. Thankfully, the computers that control USA TODAY’s satellite system automatically watch for signal dropouts and arrange for retransmissions without human intervention.

This said, the newspaper’s staff can push USA TODAY out in just 2.5 hours when they have to. "We’ve done this during times when internal software or network problems have put us behind schedule," says Terrillion. "We have even started transmissions as late as 9:30 p.m. and still finished in time for the 11:40 p.m. print run, which is unspeakably fast."

A Key To Success

Even in today’s well-cabled world, USA TODAY counts on direct satellite distribution. "The advantage to satellite is that you never have to worry about the ‘last mile’," Terrillion says. "Even in today’s sophisticated, redundant telephone network, it only takes a backhoe accidentally cutting a cable to put a region out of reach. With our deadlines, USA TODAY can’t afford to take the risk. This is why we use satellite, which has proven its reliability time and again. In fact, I have tremendous faith in satellites. They don’t let us down."

The combination of desktop publishing and satellites has made USA TODAY one of the trusted sources for up-to-date news coverage. It is a partnership that serves this newspaper, its advertisers and millions of readers worldwide, very well indeed.

James Careless is Via Satellite’s Senior Contributing Editor.