For 15 years until 2002, he was a Senior Supervising Producer at CNN’s documentary unit. He’d later work at Discovery in partnership with The New York Times, and then at Slate, NBC News, Mashable and HuffPost before launching his own “video strategy” consultancy.
Now, he’s going to one of the nation’s biggest audio news content providers — Entercom Communications — by taking the newly created role of VP/News.
Now in the role: Bill Smee.
He’ll have strategic oversight of Entercom’s “multiplatform” local news brands, comprised of eight all-news and 18 News/Talk radio stations in 23 markets across the U.S. — many of them former CBS Radio stations, such as WCBS-AM & WINS-AM in New York; KCBS-AM in San Francisco; KNX-AM in Los Angeles; and WBBM-AM & WCFS-FM in Chicago.
Smee will also spearhead linear audio, podcast and on-demand audio; written editorial and video news content produced both centrally and at the station level; and collaborate with digital product teams on the design of new features to serve news listeners.
It signals a big push forward in bringing bigger ad revenue opportunities for Entercom’s spoken word properties. And, it suggests they may take a more prominent role in the Radio.com platform rebuilt by Entercom following its acquisition from CBS Radio.
Smee will report to Entercom EVP/Programming Jeff Sottolano, who calls the new VP/News “a highly respected, award-winning news professional with over 30 years of experience leading and growing high-profile news brands.”
Smee added, “This is a tremendous opportunity to build on the core strengths of Entercom’s news brands on all platforms at a time when demand for quality news, especially at the local level, is sky high.”
Smee is already familiar with Entercom, as he has served as a strategic consultant for Entercom’s news-formatted stations, podcasting and digital platforms.
This experience comes from the opening of a consultancy while working with Mashable for four months in early 2017, and then with HuffPost for the following four months.
From September 2013 to December 2016, Smee was Director of Digital Video for NBC News. Before that, he spent 6 1/2 years as Slate Magazine’s Executive Producer, developing and launching its website.
