Ebusiness Despatches: Where content and distribution meet, there's only one winner

We were promised a brave new world of innovative content and digital distribution. It was to be a world where film, music, magazines, digital TV and online would meet satellite and fat pipes. The results would be spectacular and a platform for lots of other kinds of digital success. So what's gone wrong?

Cast your mind back five years. We were in the middle of a Mexican stand-off between the two sides. For one thing, nobody was quite sure who should pay whom.

I was the IT director at IPC Media back then. We were too risk averse. We famously brought out Loaded magazine and were approached by Bravo, the TV station. They were excited about what we were doing, wanted to work with us and even offered to rebrand their whole channel 'Loaded'. It would have been great but we failed to act. In many ways, we had too much pride.

So in the face of these potential 'synergies' - and how that word has dated - companies decided the easiest route would be to get together. Think of conglomerates such as AOL Time Warner and Vivendi Universal. These people learnt to sleep with the enemy.

But now, a few years down the line, consider this: It cost a fortune to make deals such as these happen and not in one case have they worked.

There have been turf wars and carping left, right and centre. On one side we've had the creative types, on the other, the engineers. It's been bloody.

There is only one example of success and it goes to someone who was supposed to have missed the internet boat. Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp empire have understood this multi-channel, digital world in which we now live and consume.

A few years ago, I believe he actually got worried. He started up digital offshoots and fashionable start-up funds. But Murdoch quickly realised it wasn't working and pulled the plug.

Meanwhile, in the UK his BSkyB satellite TV operation, under the leadership of Tony Ball, has gone from strength to strength, in stark contrast to 'triple play' cable operators and ITV Digital.

BSkyB paid a lot for content rights, people doubted the model, but it has got it right. And this year it shows it in the simplest way possible - it will move into the black.

Now BSkyB has also snagged former Channel 4 and Channel 5 programming supremo (and CEO in the latter case) Dawn Airey - the most sought-after content creator in the UK.

Murdoch and his cohorts - which, don't get me wrong, are an austere and harsh bunch to work for - have realised you can't acquire this magic formula, you can't merge it. It has to come from within, with commitment.

There will be other successes. Companies will retrench then come back, learning from their mistakes. But not many will do as well as News International in the UK. And now the advertising market is flat, we can tell the men from the boys.

In such a climate you may well point to the BBC, an organisation which isn't dependent on ads and which has a comprehensive cross-platform strategy. Director general Greg Dyke is a visionary but the BBC right now needs someone who can fulfil its remit as a public service broadcaster. It won't be able to compete broadly with News Corp but can do a lot of other things much better, as long as it isn't distracted by a commercial world in which it faces no risk.

For most companies there will be no easy route to a converged future. Content specialists will continue to be wary of distribution and technology experts. And vice versa.

Murdoch and co can merely serve as an example of a company which shows courage and risk-readiness are what's required, coupled with the right plan. Would you have put money on their success at the start of the internet boom?