With a new chief executive behind the wheel, the company that publishes Hot Rod and Motor Trend magazines is shifting into higher gear on the digital highway.

Magazine publisher Source Interlink Media last month hired Scott Dickey to lead the company beyond print.

Dickey said Source was already on the right road thanks to recent innovations, such as buying a digital advertising production company and launching some YouTube channels.

His plan is to continue growing new lines of business.

“We want to move away from a publishing-centric orientation,” Dickey said. “We’ve already turned the corner. Now we want to accelerate.”

Source owns 87 publishing brands, many of them in the automotive world, such as Hot Rod and Motor Trend, which are based in Source’s El Segundo offices. About 200 employees work there. The company also publishes a number of action sports titles through its GrindMedia division in San Clemente.

The company is taking several measures to adapt to an increasingly digital publishing industry that’s as different from traditional print magazines as a Tesla is from the cars that Hot Rod magazine featured in its 1948 debut.

Under Dickey and Chief Financial Officer Bill Sutman, Source is establishing a Web-focused publishing strategy. With the new model, writers post articles to online portals classified by general interest rather than magazine title. Source then picks content from those portals to be published in its print magazines.

The strategy began with the recent launch of the Four Wheeler Network, a Source website that publishes off-roading content and feeds Source’s six print magazines in that category, such as Four Wheeler and 4 Wheel Drive & Sport Utility.

Similar portals are planned for Source’s other groups of magazines that cater to enthusiasts. The idea is to build large audiences for advertisers.

The strategy has been tried at magazines with unsatisfactory results, said Samir Husni, director of the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi. For example, Condé Nast made Style.com the online home of Vogue and W until deciding to give each magazine its own dedicated site in 2010.

“They discovered it did not work that well,” he said. “People are backing up from the random-name portal. They’re recognizing there’s a lot of value to the magazine brand name, whether it’s Car and Driver or Cosmopolitan.”

Sourcing investments

Source has a broad portfolio of print titles and the company will continue publishing many of them, thanks to the loyalty the titles have built up over the years. Also, many of them are deeply discounted – a 12-issue subscription to Four Wheeler costs $10.

But as the company launches its Web portals, it needs to shift some resources. For example, online publishing doesn’t require as much production workers as magazines do. As a result, the Web focus has already led to reduction of some ink and paper in cases where there might be overlapping audiences and the opportunity for moving coverage online.

For example, Source closed down car-customization magazine Modified, which had an L.A. office, earlier this year to focus on a forthcoming Web portal covering that niche as well as related print titles geared toward similar audiences, such as Super Street and Import Tuner.

Other titles could follow a similar fate.

“If we can make better use of the content across the network, as opposed to within an individual brand silo, then we would do that,” said Source President Chris Argentieri.

Many of Source’s titles came by acquisition. For example, Hot Rod was founded by Robert Petersen – namesake of the Miracle Mile car museum – and the company acquired it from a successor owner in 2007. Source’s parent company, Source Interlink Cos., was at that time publicly traded. (Its largest shareholder was Ron Burkle’s investment firm Yucaipa Cos.)

But the acquisition strategy, coupled with the cratering economy, left Source saddled with $2 billion of debt and led to a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in 2009. Source emerged a month later with a reduced debt load and private ownership that included JPMorgan, Citigroup and New York investment firm GoldenTree Asset Management.

GoldenTree has increased its stake in Source over the years and in August led a recapitalization that reduced debt again and turned GoldenTree into Source’s largest shareholder.

The company created two chief executive positions – one for Source’s publishing division, run by Dickey in El Segundo, and the other for Source’s Bonita Springs, Fla.-based magazine distribution business, Source Interlink Distribution. That company is now overseen by Michael Sullivan, who had been in charge of both companies.

Before coming to Source, Dickey was chief executive of Competitor Group, a San Diego media and events company that produces the national series of Rock ‘n’ Roll marathons.

Splitting the chief executive duties has spurred speculation that one or both sides of the business could soon be sold, Husni said.

A sale could always happen down the line, Dickey said, but it’s not something ownership is actively pursuing at the moment. For now, GoldenTree is reinvesting in the business for growth.

“They want to build a really good management team that is going to come up with a really sound strategy for growing the business,” Dickey said.

GoldenTree executives did not respond to a request for comment.

Gearing up

Source’s main line of business on the publishing side is still selling print ads, though it’s becoming a smaller part as the company branches out to find opportunities for faster growth. Executives said about one-third of Source’s revenue still comes from print advertising, while three or four years ago it was closer to two-thirds.

Three years ago, Source acquired advertising production company Mind Over Eye, which moved last year from Santa Monica to a location right next to Source’s magazine offices in El Segundo. The production company has grown from about 10 employees to around 50 since the acquisition and has created advertising campaigns for clients such as Jaguar and Dodge. The company produces video spots and also specializes in high-tech, augmented reality ads. For example, a reader can scan a print car ad in a magazine with a tablet app and get a 360-degree virtual tour of the car on their device.

Source has also ramped up video production for the Web and has a number of YouTube channels that garner millions of views and generate ad revenue. The company’s Motor Trend channel has 2.2 million subscribers. Source has a video production studio full of custom cars and trendy makes such as a Tesla in its garage in El Segundo.

Meanwhile, the company’s Four Wheeler Network has already been a success online, a spokesman said. He added that the site’s audience has grown faster than the six individual off-roading magazine sites combined. Along with editorial features, the site also posts videos and features a forum where people can discuss off-roading.

Dickey said having new ownership ready to invest means that Source is ready to continue those kinds of newer initiatives and he’s optimistic about the launch of the other Web portals.

“The key is we want to accelerate the investment,” he said. “That’s what we have to spend our time and money doing – not just printing magazines.”