Associated Online Restructure Separates News And Commercial Operations
Associated Northcliffe Digital (AND) has announced a major restructuring of its digital operations that puts some of its biggest news websites back under the control of their print publications.
– AND’s Integrated Media division has been shut down, and control of the online editions of newspapers like the Daily Mail (LSE: DMGT), Metro and the Evening Standard will devolve back to their respective newspapers. Mark Milner, who had been MD of AND Integrated Media, will become MD for AND’s Specialist Division, the vertical unit which includes property, motoring, dating and price comparison sites.
– AND has, at the same time, created two new support divisions — digital services, and digital display and commercial partnerships. These will be headed up respectively by Karen Kemble-Diaz and Andy Mitchell.
– AND also appointed Roland Bryan as director of strategy. He was formerly at Virgin Media (NSDQ: VMED), where he was head of content strategy and business development.
Why’d they do it? DMGT, owner of Associated Newspapers and its AND online unit, has reported strong results for its online business to date. In its last trading update at the end of September, online ad revenues had shot up by 78 percent; and the Daily Mail is currently the second most-popular newspaper site in the country, according to ABCe figures. But at the same time, it has expanded its portfolio through a number of acquisitions and investments.
Maybe the task of integrating everything is not always the best way of keeping brand differentiation and running a tight ship. In a statement released today, AND emphasised that it had always intended to hand website power back to individual newspapers; although it also pointed out that this has now happened ahead of schedule. The move is a departure from the trend to centralise online activities seen in other media companies. But, in what is perhaps a telling example of how far DMGT got with fully conceiving and implementing an integrated strategy for AND, take a look at the division’s spartan website.
