The growing media conglomerate Townsquare Media is getting bigger. THR reports that the company has just purchased former AOL music commodities The Boot (Country), The BoomBox (Hip-Hop), and NoiseCreep (Heavy Metal), in addition to ComicsAlliance.
AOL had begun to shut down the sites in April in conjunction with policies to sell non-core assets, that is, until Townsquare stepped in to save them. Townsquare Media Group, a Connecticut-based radio group, has been doing a lot of expanding lately. This is the group's second big acquisition in the last year — they purchased music blog network MOG last August. Now Townsquare operates more than 244 stations and companion websites across 51 markets, according to TechCrunch.
Currently some staff members from the acquired sites are making the move to Townsquare — all were offered positions at the company. The entire staff of ComicsAlliance has reportedly signed on, but of the members of the AOL music blogs, only some have agreed to come aboard — the rest are taking interviews.
Profitable or not, The Boot, NoiseCreep, The BoomBox and ComicsAlliance certainly had loyal followers. According to the ratings agency Comscore, The Boot had about 1.4 million unique monthly viewers, NoiseCreep had around 1 million, The BoomBox had about 828,000 and ComicsAlliance had around 419,000. The aquisition will extend Townsquare media group's current reach of 52 million unique monthly viewers by around 3.5 million, if my math is correct.
The acquisition will put the sites back under the supervision Bill Wilson, a former AOL content business head who is now Townsquare Executive VP and Chief Digital Officer. Maybe a second chance with the sites and a new team of executives will mean better business.
This announcement means a happy ending for workers at AOL's media blogs who were told in late April that they would soon be out of a job. Instead of being left in the lurch, they will now have a new home at Townsquare, if they want it.
Other planned-to-be-axed AOL blogs including Spinner.com have not been spoken for. AOL has yet to release a comment on what will happen to them in the coming weeks.
Workers at ComicsAlliance have made their feelings clear. Shortly after they received news of their purchase, they released a special post called "Alive and Whole" which was edited from Batman: Birth of the Demon by Dennis O'Neil & Norm Breyfogle.
The text reads:
The morning is clear and calm. He stands in the warm and gentle light of the sun and he speaks. Though there is no one to hear.
"I'm alive and whole... I guess that's a miracle."
Source: Comics Alliance "Alive and Whole" 5.28.13
Good luck guys!
