• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, March 10, 2008

CBS Radio and AOL are set to expand their partnership with a new deal that will make a broad array of content available to AOL users, including over 150 music, news, talk and sports stations. In addition to providing content, CBS is assuming responsibility for ad sales for all of AOL's online stations, which number over 200, as well as the 150 stations it brings to the table.

In addition to the CBS sales team, ad sales will be handled in part by TargetSpot, the Internet radio ad service created by CBS and venture capital partners that went live in September, and Ronning Lipset Radio. Ad formats include in-stream advertising, banner ads on the player, and video pre-rolls.

AOL is ending its relationship with XM satellite radio.

The new deal also involves a redesign of AOL's Web player for audio and support for Mac users. The updated player will include easy navigation to popular CBS stations, like WFAN-AM, 1010 WINS in New York and KROQ in Los Angeles. Listeners will be able to toggle between stations, view song and album information, follow links to relevant Web sites, create "favorite" settings, share songs with other users, and purchase songs, albums, and concert tickets.

The addition of hundreds of new stations should benefit TargetSpot, which has been aggressively seeking to scale up its operations through partnerships with broadcasters. Aside from CBS, TargetSpot's broadcast partners include Entercom, Beasley, WarpRadio and Haystack Media. Touting the benefits to CBS Radio, President and CEO Dan Mason remarked: "A combined CBS Radio/AOL Radio affords us vastly greater scale, as well as massive distribution for our brands."

Last July, Ronning Lipset Radio partnered with Corstarr to use its Adcor technology for delivering Internet radio ads. Adcor allows broadcasters to set up multiple radio channels and deliver ads across one or all of them, targeting audiences by demographic characteristics and daypart.