Comics Alliance is officially back, purchased by Townsquare Media, another conglomerate of primarily music sites which is owned by a former AOL exec who helped develop Comics Alliance. Along with CA, Townsquare picked up a bunch of AOL’s music sites which were also cut, including The Boot, BoomBox, and NoiseCreep.
CA is back as usual with cosplay and SheZow, and a charming comic by Let’s Be Friends Again to explain the site’s history. In a weekend in which we heard that one of the world’s largest newspapers is slashing its freelance rates, hearing that some of our media colleagues have not lost their jobs is about as exciting as the news can get.
Townsquare is owned by Bill Wilson who was president of AOL Media when all these sites launched in 2008-2009 and is primarily a music-oriented network of sites, with an audience of 66 million a month. TechCrunch (which is owned by AOL) has more details of the business behind the move. and this factoid:
Comscore estimates the aggregate audience of the acquired properties at 3.5 million monthly unique visitors. Country site The Boot had 1.4 million, heavy metal blog Noisecreep had roughly $1 million, hip-hop property The BoomBox had 828,000, and comic books fan site Comics Alliance had 419,000 unique monthly visitors as of April.
And the official PR:
Townsquare Media Group announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire AOL Music assets The Boot (http://www.theboot.com/), The BoomBox (http://www.theboombox.com/) and NoiseCreep (http://www.noisecreep.com/) as well as ComicsAlliance (http://www.comicsalliance.com/) from AOL Inc. The new digital properties will join Townsquare Media Group’s national digital business, a portfolio of premium music and entertainment websites which reach over 52 million US monthly unique visitors and include Taste of Country (http://tasteofcountry.com/), PopCrush (http://popcrush.com/), ScreenCrush (http://screencrush.com/) and Okayplayer (http://www.okayplayer.com/).
AOL Music is considered a pioneer in digital music, creating The Boot, The Boombox and NoiseCreep to expand its scope into Country Music, Hip Hop and R&B and heavy metal, respectively.
ComicsAlliance is one of the most important and established online voices in the comic book industry. The site, a three-time and 2013 nominee for the industry’s esteemed Eisner Award, has hosted its own panel at ComicCon and has been featured on The Daily Show and in New York Magazine.
“The acquisition of these assets from AOL represents the continued rapid growth of Townsquare Media’s portfolio of owned and operated music and entertainment websites,” commented Townsquare Media Group Chairman and CEO, Steven Price. “Adding these premium brands to Townsquare Media’s comprehensive offering propels our scale beyond today’s 52 million US monthly unique visitors, allowing advertisers and agencies even greater access to this highly engaged and demographically desirable audience.”
As part of the transaction, members of the AOL Music and ComicsAlliance teams will be working with Townsquare Media’s team going forward. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
WOO-HOO! Great news!
Squeee!
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