The task of printing the weekly television listing guide will continue to be handled by Polestar Petty in Leeds until at least February 2009.

The contract renewal means Polestar, in its various company guises, has now printed the Radio Times since the early 1930s.

BBC Magazines production director Mal Skelton said: We went out to competitive tender involving all the usual suspects, including Jarrolds and Southernprint.

The Radio Times is a very time sensitive weekly that prints in ten regional editions, and a further edition for NTL. We had to be confident that we used a manufacturing facility to meet the tight deadlines and ensure that the printing quality is still very high. After tough competition that contract went back to Polestar Petty.

The contract was last renewed in 2001 and since then Polestar has invested heavily in the Petty site, which it regards as its flagship high-volume web offset magazine production plant.

It commissioned a 64pp MAN Roland Lithoman web press shortly before Christmas as part of a 16m spend intended to turn Polestar Petty into a 64pp superplant. Another three 64pp presses are on order.

Skelton admitted that the investment factored heavily in the decision to continue using Polestar Petty for the next five years. We need continuity in a project of this size. Its no good chopping and changing printers every year. The repro we review constantly however. We used to use Polestar, but switched last year to Graphic Facilities.

The average print run for the Radio Times is 1.3 million copies per week, covering 10 different editions.

All covers and sections are regionalised, with the option to include up to five loose inserts, glued cards and Post-It notes.

BBC Worldwide became one of the first magazine publishers to use an initiative developed by Polestar to produce four different covers for one issue, and was used to mark the 40th anniversary of Doctor Who in November last year.

It also part-printed the largest ever Christmas edition last month in conjunction with St Ives, helping to print 3.3 million copies of a 262pp issue.

Story by Tony Brown