Townsquare CEO Bill Wilson is well
aware of how important it is to
motivate from the top down. He knows
how powerful it is when employees
in markets like Texarkana, Grand
Junction, Rockford, and Owensboro
hear from and see the CEO of a
massive public company. That’s why
he spends a lot of his time traveling to
Townsquare’s small and medium-sized
markets, sharing the Townsquare
vision and telling employees how
vital they are to the success of the
company.
Wilson has been with
Townsquare since its founding in
2010, when then-CEO Steven Price
asked him to consider bringing
his digital expertise over to radio.
When he saw the connection radio’s
on-air talent have with their local
communities, he was hooked.
Before making the move to
Tow n s q u a r e , W i l s o n wa s p r e s i d e n t
of AOL Media, where he had
responsibility for AOL’s overall global
content strategy. In his nine years
at AOL, he served in a number of
roles, including president of AOL’s
programming and studios. Under
Wilson’s leadership, AOL’s content
sites grew to reach more than 75
million monthly unique visitors
domestically and over 150 million
worldwide.
Today, Townsquare is one of
radio’s biggest digital success
stories. Wilson’s digital strategy is
working, and netting the company
much-needed revenue as radio’s
spot revenue continues to sputter
along. Townsquare’s digital revenue
is projected to be in the hundreds of
millions over the next several years.
Wilson also has music in his
blood, and that attracted him to radio.
He started his career at Arista Records
under the guidance of Clive Davis
and Richard Sanders, serving as a
product manager working with artists
including Notorious B.I.G., Kenny G.,
Sarah McLachlan, and Spiritualized.
Wilson eventually landed a job
as senior vice president for worldwide
marketing at Bertelsmann Music Group
(BMG) in 1992, and was responsible
for marketing across more than 50
countries for the world’s biggest
artists, including Dave Matthews
Band, Outkast, Foo Fighters, Whitney
Houston, Annie Lennox, Santana,
and numerous other major recording
artists over his tenure at BMG.
When Wilson joined Townsquare
in 2010, he was executive vice
president and chief content and
digital officer. He was appointed
co-chief executive officer with Dhruv
Prasad in October 2017, when Steven
Price stepped aside as CEO and
became executive chairman.
In January of 2019 Prasad left the
company and Wilson was named its
sole CEO.