Taylor is publisher of The Palm Beach Post, and his replacement will be named in coming weeks. Taylor will report to Doug Franklin, executive vice president of Atlanta-based Cox Media Group and a former president and chief executive of Cox Ohio Publishing.
In his new role, Taylor will oversee Cox’s newspaper, television and radio properties in the Dayton market and the publications in its surrounding areas. Additionally, he will have oversight for Cox’s four FM radio stations in Louisville, Ky.
This radio group will report to Donna Hall, a direct report of Taylor’s, who also manages Cox’s four stations in Dayton. In his new role, Taylor will encourage collaboration of ideas, skills and strengths to provide unique sales opportunities and solutions for advertisers across multiple media platforms.
The newspaper, television and radio properties will continue their existing independent news and editorial functions, the company said.
“Alex is a media expert who brings fresh thinking to the table,” Franklin said in the announcement. “Dayton is a key market for our new business model as Cox develops into a fully-integrated media company. As the boundaries between traditional and new media merge, it’s important to have leaders like Alex in place who can think broadly across the media landscape.”
Prior to his position at The Post, Taylor served as publisher of The Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction, Colo. and as vice president and business manager at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
During his career with Cox, Taylor also has served as an advertising executive, reporter and editor at various properties.
Cox Enterprises, parent company of Cox Media Group, began in Dayton in 1898 with James M. Cox’s purchase of the Daily Evening (now Daily) News. Cox served three terms as governor of his native state of Ohio from 1913-19, and in 1920 he was the Democratic nominee for U.S. president with a young Franklin D. Roosevelt as his running mate.
More than 110 years after the company’s start, Gov. Cox’s great-grandson, Taylor, will lead Cox Enterprises’ Dayton and Southwest Ohio properties. Today, Cox Enterprises posts revenues in excess of $15 billion.
Cox Media Group Inc., a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises, is an integrated broadcasting, publishing and digital media company that includes the national advertising rep firms of Cox Reps. With revenues exceeding $1.5 billion, the company operations include 15 broadcast television stations and one local cable channel, 86 radio stations, four metro newspapers and more than a dozen non-daily publications, and more than 100 digital services.
Cox Media Group’s operations in Ohio include: Dayton Daily News, Fairfield Echo, JournalNews, Springfield News-Sun, The Middletown Journal, Oxford Press, Pulse-Journal and the Western Star; WHIO-TV, a CBS affiliate; AM 1290, 95.7FM News Talk Radio WHIO, K99.1FM and 95.3 The Eagle.