Just over a year and a half after Bell Globe Media Interactive was fully realized, it’s been dissolved back into it’s core properties, mirroring a cycle in the “convergance” industry that was completed about a year and a half ago in the United States. While all of the ramifications are still unknown, I think it’s a really good decision, and it is incredibly “convergant” decision, despite the fact that the word has been all but banned in Bell’s literature.
We’re still not positive what it means for us, but it’s very nice to finally get this out of the way. Many of us were expecting this annoucement to be six months to a year off. The speed at which it was announced seems to be a positive step.
The operations of Bell Globemedia’s other on-line products, which represent some of the strongest Web properties in Canada including globeandmail.com, globeinvestor.com, and tsn.ca, will be aligned with the specific media businesses that they support. In addition, a technical support function for all Bell Globemedia on-line and interactive media will be located within The Globe and Mail division. Bell Globemedia will continue to supply content to Sympatico through commercial agreements.
On-line and interactive media remain an important component of Bell Globemedia’s multi-media strategy, particularly where they offer natural complements to our marquee media properties such as The Globe and Mail, CTV and TSN.
The responsibility for managing on-line and interactive products will no longer reside in a separate division of Bell Globemedia, but will be aligned with various divisions of the company. This means that the advertising sales and content management functions for each on-line property will move to within the appropriate media organizations. For example, sales and content for tsn.ca will be managed within TSN.