AOL headquarters in Dulles, Virginia in this July 18, 2002 file photo. AOL, a division of Time Warner Inc., announced the introduction of a new advertising network on Monday, September 17, 2007, and also announced plans to move its headquarters to New York from Dulles, Virginia. - ap

NEW YORK (AP)

AOL said Monday it would move its headquarters to New York and integrate its advertising businesses into a single unit as part of its transformation from Internet access provider into an ad-driven business.

The company's move from Dulles, Virginia, would affect mostly senior executives - AOL would not say how many - and allow them to join about 400 already working in New York on advertising and content production. AOL expects to retain a large presence in Dulles.

The New York-based employees will move into new offices next spring at the heart of the media advertising industry.

Advertisers "are asking you to be closer to them, to develop a much closer relationship to them," Ron Grant, AOL's president and chief operating officer, said in an interview.

AOL, which is looking to advertising to offset plummeting subscription revenues, also announced plans for a new entity called Platform A, combining technologies and services offered by various units AOL acquired in recent years, including the behavioural- targeting company Tacoda Inc. and mobile-advertising company, Third Screen Media.

AOL said Platform A will allow potential advertisers to buy space across all AOL sites and third-party sites that are part of the AOL network. The goal is to give advertisers access to as many potential viewers through a single sales point.

The new AOL headquarters will be at a 15-storey building in Greenwich Village, just south of Union Square and a few miles (kilometres) from AOL's corporate parent Time Warner Inc. AOL's New York employees are currently at Time Warner's old headquarters at Rockefeller Center.

The announcement comes a little more than a year after AOL accelerated efforts to drive traffic to its ad-supported websites by giving away AOL.com email accounts, software and other features once reserved for paying customers.