Verizon's media and advertising head Tim Armstrong to leave: WSJ

(Reuters) - Verizon Communications Inc’s head of media and advertising business Tim Armstrong is in talks to leave the U.S. wireless carrier, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

AOL Inc Chief Executive Tim Armstrong speaks at the Viva Technology event in Paris, France, June 30, 2016. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

Armstrong, who came to Verizon in 2015 from AOL after the company bought the online service provider for $4.4 billion, served as chief executive officer of AOL.

Verizon’s media head was the CEO of AOL from 2009 to 2015. AOL reported its first quarterly revenue growth in eight years in 2013, as its online advertisement revenue grew.

Armstrong has been working on building AOL’s expertise in placing text and video ads on mobile phones.

Verizon spent $4.48 billion acquiring the core business of Yahoo, which it merged with AOL last year to form a venture called Oath. Led by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, Oath owns more than 50 brands including HuffPost, TechCrunch and Tumblr but has failed to make an impact in the space occupied by Facebook and Google.

Last year, Verizon had shown interest in acquiring a significant part of Rupert Murdoch’s Twenty-First Century Fox Inc’s assets which the company later sold to Walt Disney Co.

Verizon declined to comment, while Armstrong did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Reporting by Vibhuti Sharma and Sayanti Chakraborty in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta

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