Content was supposed to be the central driver of convergence. But to the gurus of convergence, content has been a fickle friend.

With the exception of a handful of examples, the entire notion that a rich mix of programming, print and interactivity could drive consumers hungry for every morsel of info on a subject is a bust.

According to those espousing the theory, content is what makes this thing called convergence different from a simple cross-platform media buy. Content was supposed to herd people from TV programs to news stories to Web-based features or games, where at each stop they would also be offered branded messages.

AOL Time-Warner’s approach to Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone last year was to be the model. Produced by Warner Bros. and promoted across the media giant’s magazines, specialty channels and Internet properties, it was to be the engine that drove this new-economy corporation to ever-greater heights. The $130-million production grossed $317.5 million in the U.S., making it the eighth highest grossing film of all time. Harry merchandising earned $134 million in retail sales in 2001. Not that any of this has saved AOL’s stock from a free-fall, but at least that aspect of the strategy appears to have succeeded.

Here in Canada the challenge was always different. Unable to count on Harry Potter-style content, the media barons of Canada rejigged the strategy to focus on their news outlets. But this was never a viable alternative. The idea was to create newsworthy content that would be disseminated at all levels of CanWest Global and Bellglobe Media’s news properties.

With one notable exception, this endeavor was pretty much a bust.

That exception was CanWest’s State of The Nation, which featured a four-part special series based on quarterly poll results that took the pulse of the nation on topics suh as social and economic attitudes and the state of Canada’s education system. Reports included 12-page editorial inserts in the National Post written by Post journalists based on the polling results, a week’s worth of 60-second features on Global’s dinner-hour newscast, a half-hour program on cable channel Prime. All were exclusively sponsored by RBC Financial Group.

But that initiative was launched over a year ago and neither CanWest nor BGM has managed to launch anything with similar scope or impact since.

‘A lot of these companies have flawed strategies,’ Nerraj Monga, senior investment analyst at Veritas Investment Research, tells us in a story covering the parting of Bell Globemedia convergence guru Kevin Shea (see story, p. 2).

‘From a customer’s perspective, how is convergence beneficial? You watch TV for its content and you read the news because it will give you a different perspective. The way I see it, as a customer, if BCE owns ROB TV and The Globe and Mail and I get the same opinion…do I really believe what they are saying? Where is my perspective coming from? There are no competing perspectives under the convergence umbrella and I think customers don’t like that.’

The problem also was in the question of just what kind of content is compelling enough to make the whole exercise worthwhile? News, by its very nature, is most interesting when it’s negative. How do you sell an advertiser on that?