As with the music and TV industry, the reported consortium is an attempt to use digital media to stem dwindling revenues. Printed periodicals such as magazines and newspapers have been battling sharp drops in circulation, and moving to a venue without the costs of paper production or distribution is, in theory, highly attractive.

Interim CEO

The intent would be to provide a central location for a wide variety of publications, as a newsstand does, and with commonly agreed platforms, file formats, and, assumedly, user interfaces. Between them, the publishing giants have some of the biggest brand names in the magazine business -- Time; People; Sports Illustrated; The New Yorker; Vogue; O, The Oprah Magazine; Esquire; Better Homes and Gardens; and many others.

The New York Times reports the target platforms include iPhones, BlackBerrys and the e-book readers from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Sony and others. A Time executive, John Squires, has reportedly been named the interim CEO for the company.

Squires will have a term of six months while the new company looks for a permanent CEO. He has reportedly been the driver behind bringing these usually competitive publishers together. The new company is expected to be announced within a few weeks.

While there are some resemblances to iTunes and Hulu.com, there could be substantial differences in the way the magazines are ported to digital media. Downloadable songs on iTunes are the same essential experience as in CDs, and watching a TV show on Hulu is not unlike watching one on cable, except the watching is usually done on a computer screen rather than a TV. On Amazon's Kindle, reading an e-book is, basically, reading.

'Locking the Barn Door'

But Squires told The New York Observer that, to make this work, the experience of digital magazines needs to be different than a print magazine. In contrast to other content, he said, digital magazines will need to be "a new product in order for it to be something that consumers really love."

Michael Gartenberg, a vice president at Interpret, said the new consortium reminds him of the expression that "there's nothing like locking the barn door after the horse is out." The key question with the magazines' budding consortium, he said, is whether it is "too little, too late."

He added that magazine publishers have to do something about digital media, given that readers are being inundated with free content on the web, which takes away their time, interest and dollars from content they might buy in magazines.

"Consumers will absolutely pay for content if they perceive it has value," he said, but, without a clear distinction in value, they will gravitate toward content "they can get without paying for."