James Murdoch has, as expected, created a chief operating officer role for News International as part of a “streamlining” restructure brought about in response to a review commissioned from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Group GM Cliver Milner is promoted to the role, effectively replacing executive chairman Les Hinton, who was called to News Corp’s (NYSE: NWS) new Dow Jones in December. ”The way content is delivered through newspapers, websites and products will be brought under Clive’s control,” News Corp said in a statement (via Guardian).

Though individual papers retain separate editors, the commercial structure is being flattened as expected. News Group MD Mike Anderson, who headed The Sun and News Of The World, becomes digital and development director across the whole group, including the Globrix, BrandAlley and Milkround websites, while Times MD Paul Hayes becomes group-wide commercial MD, with responsibility for ad sales that will now merge across the titles. News International closed its loss-making magazines division last week.

• News Group Corporate Structure To Be Flattened: Reports