After a slow start, the big radio network Westwood One (managed by CBS Radio) is expanding its digital portfolio. Gary Krantz, who was hired as the company’s first chief digital officer back in September, tells THR that Westwood is about to launch Metro Web News, an online news service. Westwood has signed up 150 sites – primarily radio sites – to serve as affiliates, much in the same way it has agreements with terrestrial stations. It’s slated to go live April 15 with up-to-the-minute news digests, including text, audio, photos, thumbnail video, etc.
In a Q&A with THR, Krantz, who decamped from left-of-center radio network Air America to come to Westwood, also notes that the company is working on several partnerships with content providers, like CNN, as well as a mobile deal for some of its talk shows. Additionally, Westwood also has a deal with MSnap to provide text-messaging solutions to advertisers.
As for the rest of the interview, Krantz proves elusive on why it took Westwood so long to adopt digital formats and declines to reveal plans to monetize a radio archive that dates back 70 years. On whether XM and Sirius should be allowed to merge, he pleads that Westwood is “distribution agnostic.”