I shall refrain from posing the question 'is this the tipping point for web offset?', because I've asked it too many times before and it never has been.

However, this week's news of another acquisition by the Walstead camp can certainly be added to the list of 'significant happenings' for those of us who like to partake in a bit of slightly obsessive web offset watching.

Combined with the noises coming out of Polestar about bottom-slicing unprofitable contracts and cutting capacity; and St Ives' well-documented consolidation of its web offset plants (which may or may not be completed), it makes for an intriguing picture.

Also to be added to the mix is the BGP factor: things look to be getting very busy over in Bicester, with significant amounts of new work heading that way from DC Thomson, Bauer, and Northern & Shell. Once that little lot is bedded in I wonder what the contractual fill will be there?

At the recent Pira print futures conference IPC media manufacturing director Jasper Scott put up a list of four remaining major players in terms of UK magazine printing: Polestar, Wyndeham, St Ives and BGP.

I might argue that for Jasper's own purposes that list is surely reduced to three, as I can't see St Ives being in a big hurry to print for IPC again any time soon.

Publishers and commercial clients who require the sort of production firepower that this 'big four' can provide will no doubt be studying their supply chains closely. If they're not, they should be. As one seasoned print boss said to me just the other day: "There's an assumption among clients that the trade has infinite patience and capacity. That's just not the case anymore."