Gilbertson said 'quite interesting' content was not enough and the key question for the future of B2B publishing was whether it could provide information digitally that was distinct and helped its business readership perform better.

Those publishers that could produce distinctive content that informs rather than simply provides interest, he said, were likely to be the ones that would succeed following the conversion to digital publication.

He said: "If everybody has near unlimited audience quantity [online] then to survive profitably you have to be able to provide audience quality.

"To my mind there are two ways you can attract audience quality, either through sustaining your uniqueness of content or through quality differentiation that the customer actually values and appreciates.

"If you can find content that is sustainably distinctive and you have some sort of special value proposition that customers appreciate, then you can generate returns."