• Fortune, Thursday, May 14, 2009 9:30 AM

About four years ago, a handful large media companies, from ABC to Viacom, created the new position of digital strategist-in-chief and picked rising stars to fill it. As a group, the digital gurus lacked bigtime media-operations chops, but their presence showed that the companies were thinking seriously about the interactive future.

Many of these digital honchos were hired to do deals that have now either fallen by the wayside or become so core to doing business that they no longer need to be led by a specialized chief. At companies like MTV, the need for a single digital decision-maker has evaporated, leaving those decisions to all management. In contrast, News Corp. is empowering the top interactive exec. The company recently named Jonathan Miller chairman and CEO of its digital-media group and corporate chief digital officer, both new positions.

The real indicator that old media has nailed its new-media strategy may come when there's no need for a chief digital officer at all. Perhaps the surest sign of that will be when one or two of them become their companies' chief executive officers.

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