Graphic Arts Online & IPA Top 50 North American Premedia Leaders

Premedia: having outgrown the restrictions of "prepress" alone, the industry has transformed itself. Still formally known by the U.S. Dept. of Commerce as "Prepress Services, North American Industrial Classification 323122," players in this market are branching into all things that precede print, or any visual medium.

Half the firms responding to Graphic Arts Monthly and trade association IPA's survey of North American premedia operations were primarily engaged in the

printing business: Premedia accounted for less than 50% of annual revenues. The rest sell principally premedia work, and have been reinventing offerings and internal operations to capture a share of an estimated $8-billion market.

This survey asked for counts of staff involved in preflighting, proofing, retouching, separation, image assembly, platemaking, photography, data management, workflow and other media (Internet, CD/DVD, Video, Broadcast). Drops in revenue from type- and imagesetting, page composition and scanning coincided with internalized file creation at agencies, publishers, and consumer products firms.

Things are moving. Accumulating print assets and increasingly complex workflows find clients seeking expertise of premedia experts in asset management.

A few printers probably underestimated head count for premedia staff, if activities (e.g. workflow and data) are also managed for print. This likely skewed data one way or the other in cases so noted. Sponsored by the Adobe Solutions Network Print Service Provider Program, the survey was conducted by Mark DiVito, group research director, Reed Business Information.

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