Media Forum: Is NatMags right about digital?

Will the centralisation of digital activity work this time round?

During the first dotcom boom, the theory was the consumer magazine publishers were going to make a mint because the website experience was closest (in old-media terms) to reading a magazine. That they made considerably less than a mint was hardly their fault - anyone who put serious money behind internet ventures six years ago ended up with rather charred fingers.

This time around the theory is that, as the second internet bubble continues to inflate, it's TV and film production companies that are going to clean up - because the broadband, streamed internet experience is, in old-media terms, closest to watching television.

So it's obvious, isn't it? The consumer magazine publishers, hardened by experience and twice as wily as a result, really will make their mint this time around. And we'll all be looking the other way when it happens.

Even The National Magazine Company, not the publisher with a track record in online publishing, is up for it, having just unveiled a new, centralised division designed to focus its digital efforts. It will seek to go beyond the family of NatMags mastheads, while developing bespoke content for current sites. It will also manage the pure-play business NetDoctor.co.uk and launch new sites in areas not already covered by magazines.

It's a big commitment - and one that's rather different from the efforts of rivals. Other publishers, such as Emap, have been evolving a hybrid structure. Titles have their own sites and the managers of these titles are given responsibility for overseeing the straightforward stuff - tailoring existing print content for online use.

Additionally, however, they have added tiers for developing bespoke content and developing new, non-magazine brand sites.