When Bill Wilson was in charge of content at AOL, he launched dozens of niche sites under their own sub-brands—everything from Daily Finance to country-music site The Boot. Last February, Wilson left AOL and landed at Townsquare Media, a radio company which owns 171 local stations. As the chief digital officer at Townsquare, he is bringing some of the niche media strategy he developed at AOL, along with hiring a crew of former colleagues, and applying it to Townsquare’s local radio websites.
Today, Townsquare relaunched 30 of its local radio websites in markets like Buffalo and Peoria, along with a new overarching country music site, Taste of Country. The rest of Townsquare’s radio sites will be revamped over the next few months as well. Radio is already a local media. (It was local before local was hot). Now these websites will try to become a resource for local news, entertainment, and other information—little niche media sites in their own right.
If this looks like Wilson’s strategy from his AOL days applied to radio, well, it is. And it’s not a bad strategy, either. To help him, Wilson hired ten former AOLers from AOL Media, AOL Radio, and AOL City Guides. The old crew is back together again. Can they turn radio into local web stars?
Bill Wilson is Executive Vice President and Chief Digital Officer at Townsquare Media, a radio station company. Previously he was the President of MediaGlow at AOL. Prior to this role he was Executive Vice President of Programming at AOL. He is responsible for user experience in all of AOL’s content sites, which include News, Movies, Lifestyle, and Celebrity Gossip. He is also responsible for user experience at a number of blog sites such as Engadget and...
Townsquare Live Entertainment, LLC is a fully-integrated live entertainment development and production company that focuses on developing strategic partnerships with major media and broadcasting entities. Based in Los Angeles, Townsquare Live develops, finances, and produces lifestyle-oriented live events in markets across the United States, including the 36 markets where Townsquare Media currently operates radio stations and associated digital assets.
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