St Ives has won the contract to print VNUs Computer Active, which has been produced gravure at Quebecor's Mary-sur-Marne plant in France for the past three years.

St Ives Peterborough will produce the title from the second issue of January 2002.

VNU production director Joanne Hurst said Computer Active's print run was "substantial". The magazine's ABC for 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2000 was 328,000.

"We wanted to make economies," added Hurst. She said web offset would give VNU more flexibility in pagination and binding, and would allow for later deadlines. St Ives Peterborough prints one other VNU title, Computing.

Hurst said it had won the contract after competition from many of the UK's main web offset magazine printers.

The contract win comes as a boost after IPC said last week it would close Woman's Journal, Homes & Ideas, and Marie Claire Health & Beauty, which were all printed by St Ives.

St Ives Web sales director Paul Utting said: "We're very pleased to win the contract for VNU's largest title, particularly to bring it back from the continent."

He felt the scheduling benefits offered by web offset had helped the group to win the deal.

Westside Digital in London will handle editorial and advertising repro for Computer Active.

It is a regular supplier to VNU and also does editorial repro for its Personal Computer World and What PC? titles, plus editorial and advertising pre-press for Network News.

Story by Gordon Carson