The Village Voice, Pushing 50, Prepares to Be Sold to a Chain of Weeklies By RICHARD SIKLOSPublished: October 24, 2005
The company that publishes The Village Voice and five other alternative newspapers is to announce today an agreement to be acquired by New Times Media, the largest publisher in the market. The deal would create a chain of 17 free weekly newspapers around the country with a combined circulation of 1.8 million. Establishing the Anti-Establishment The merger - coming in the same week as The Voice's 50th anniversary - will undoubtedly raise questions about whether The Voice and its siblings can preserve their anti-establishment roots as part of a growing corporation.
But in an increasingly rocky media landscape, an equally important question is whether conglomeration will give the chain - which would include LA Weekly, SF Weekly, Miami New Times and The Dallas Observer - the editorial and financial muscle to compete against free competitors, both online and in print.
James Larkin, the chairman and chief executive of New Times, said in an interview that the merger, unlike those in the broader newspaper industry, where consolidation has led to accusations of uniformity and boilerplate coverage, "allows us to get stronger and to have stronger content."
The most pressing issue raised by the deal is how it will play with antitrust regulators, with whom the merger partners have already had one run-in.
In 2002, the Justice Department charged New Times Media and Village Voice Media with illegal collusion and blocked a deal between them to shut down money-losing publications in Los Angeles and Cleveland.
As a result, those papers were sold to other publishers, and the companies signed a consent decree in 2003 that, while they admitted no wrongdoing, ensures that their planned combination will get plenty of regulatory scrutiny.
As part of that settlement, the companies agreed that any further deals over the next five years would have to be submitted to the government for approval. In any case, because of its size, the transaction would require approval under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act of 1976.
In addition, after an article speculating about the deal was published several months ago in a rival San Francisco weekly, the California attorney general's office put New Times on notice that it expected to be notified of any deal. Mr. Larkin described the consent decree as an albatross that stemmed from bad legal advice.
Although no money is changing hands, people involved to the merger said it valued the combined companies at about $400 million. The merged company, which will continue to use the name Village Voice Media, is effectively an acquisition by New Times, whose current shareholders will own 62 percent of the new company and hold five of nine board seats.
It will have revenue of roughly $180 million. Both companies are private and therefore do not publish their financial results, but Mr. Larkin said that the combined entity would be profitable and that, despite industry pressures, New Times had been increasing revenue and profit by single digits each year.
In 2000, the Voice chain was acquired by an investor group that includes David Schneiderman, a former editor, and various arms of the investment firms Goldman Sachs; Weiss, Peck & Greer; and Trimaran Capital Partners. None of the current investors are exiting as part of the merger, although Mr. Larkin said the expectation was that he and his partners would buy out the financial backers in five years.
Mr. Larkin is to be chairman and chief executive, and Michael Lacey, New Times's executive editor, is to continue in that role at Village Voice Media.
A trust controlled by Mr. Larkin and Mr. Lacey, who have been publishing partners since 1971, will hold 53 percent of the combined company's shares; they would be the largest individual shareholders within that trust. They have been backed in their efforts to assemble a chain of weeklies by Alta Communications, a private equity firm in Boston that currently holds 14 percent of New Times Media.
Mr. Schneiderman, who is currently Village Voice Media's chief executive, is to take a new position as head of the group's online efforts. Donald H. Forst, the editor of the Village Voice newspaper, will continue in his role once the deal closes. But Mr. Forst and all the Voice Media editors will now report to Mr. Lacey, rather than their individual publishers.
Mr. Lacey said the Voice papers are a good fit with New Times's crusading culture and emphasis on in-depth magazine-style coverage of local news, although observers noted that New Times had been deliberately apolitical and The Voice had been unstintingly left-leaning. Establishing the Anti-Establishment "I don't think it will have a negative impact on the content of the papers," said Jane Levine, a former publisher of The Chicago Reader who is now on the paper's board. "There may well be changes to the content of the papers being bought, and there will be people who think that they will be negative, in part because New Times doesn't endorse political candidates. If you think the loss of the endorsements is a big negative change, you won't be happy with this deal."
Another criticism of New Times has been the development of a consistent design that Mr. Lacey described as a template aimed at appealing to travelers, but he said The Village Voice would retain its logo and format.
The Village Voice newspaper, with its weekly circulation of 250,000, will be the flagship of the company as well as the national brand for a new alternative media Internet portal that the merged company is planning.
Generally, the alternative weekly format of melding provocative writing, serious arts coverage and extensive listings and classifieds has become unbundled by the Web. And readers of New Times and Voice papers, like those of all news media businesses, are spending more time online.
The online move that is meant to reposition The Village Voice as a national brand also represents the company's most immediate commercial challenge: the Voice's once-lucrative classified advertising business, unique in its size among all the papers in the new company, has been hampered by the success of the free ad site Craigslist.
Mr. Schneiderman said that the company was having a "fantastic year" relative to the daily newspaper industry, and that advertising categories other than classified ads were performing well at The Voice. "It's painful," he said. "We've lost millions of dollars of revenue to free online classifieds."
Part of the strategy to address that shortfall will involve integrating Village Voice Media papers with backpage .com, which is New Times's attempt to compete with Craigslist for free advertising.
Additionally, the papers are to become part of a broader effort to tap into national advertising through a New Times business called Ruxton Media Group, which sells marketing packages in print and online meant to appeal to the typically young tech-savvy readers of alternative weeklies.
Together, the merged companies' publications would represent roughly 25 percent of the 7.6 million in weekly circulation that the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies counts among its 126 North American members. But that total does not include the many rivals looking for the attention of those readers or a slice of the alternative weekly advertising pie.
Among them are the so-called faux alt weeklies produced by daily newspaper publishers; new giveaway dailies like amNew York; and online journalism sites like Slate and Salon.
The companies' filing under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act is subject to a 30-day government review period. The government could request additional information that might delay the deal's completion.
Mr. Lacey lamented that during that period he and Mr. Larkin would have to refrain from sharing specific plans with employees at Village Voice Media, a silence that he said would only enhance the perception they are the industry's bogeymen.
While acknowledging that the pending union will raise anxiety, both Mr. Larkin and Mr. Lacey said they hoped to be received as dedicated long-term proprietors after a string of unconventional owners of The Voice during the last two decades, including the media baron Rupert Murdoch, the real estate and pet-food mogul Leonard N. Stern and the current consortium of financial firms.
"I'm doing it because I love good journalism," Mr. Larkin said. "I want to have newspapers in the most exciting markets in the country. This is not a financial play."
...
Hmm.
― iDonut B4 x86 (donut), Monday, 24 October 2005 04:11 (7 years ago) Permalink
― breezy, Monday, 24 October 2005 04:13 (7 years ago) Permalink
― Hurting (Hurting), Monday, 24 October 2005 04:15 (7 years ago) Permalink
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 24 October 2005 04:16 (7 years ago) Permalink
Why so optimistic?
― Dave Segal (Da ve Segal), Monday, 24 October 2005 04:34 (7 years ago) Permalink
― iDonut B4 x86 (donut), Monday, 24 October 2005 04:54 (7 years ago) Permalink
― walter kranz (walterkranz), Monday, 24 October 2005 05:09 (7 years ago) Permalink
― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Monday, 24 October 2005 05:27 (7 years ago) Permalink
― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Monday, 24 October 2005 06:54 (7 years ago) Permalink
― thousands of tiny luminous spheres (plebian), Monday, 24 October 2005 07:11 (7 years ago) Permalink
― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 24 October 2005 07:41 (7 years ago) Permalink
― awful bliss (awful bliss), Monday, 24 October 2005 08:08 (7 years ago) Permalink
That's IT?
― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Monday, 24 October 2005 11:02 (7 years ago) Permalink
― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Monday, 24 October 2005 11:49 (7 years ago) Permalink
By Howard KurtzWashington Post Staff WriterMonday, October 24, 2005; C01
The nation's two largest alternative newspaper chains plan to announce a merger today, a long-rumored combination that champions of quirky, iconoclastic, locally controlled papers have been sniping at for months.
New Times, the Phoenix-based publisher with 11 newspapers from Miami to San Francisco, is acquiring the Village Voice, the storied New York weekly co-founded by Norman Mailer, and five other papers owned by the Voice.
New Times will export its brand of "desert libertarianism on the rocks, with sprigs of neocon politics," writes Bruce Brugmann, publisher of the rival San Francisco Bay Guardian.
Hogwash, says Michael Lacey, New Times's executive editor, insisting that "individual editors in individual cities determine the content of their papers week to week. . . . I wish there were more conservative writers at the papers. There aren't. There isn't anything imposed about the editorial viewpoint from Phoenix."
Reaction is likely to be chilly among many staffers at the notoriously fractious Voice, where columnist Cynthia Cotts described a 2000 acquisition attempt by New Times as a "hostile takeover" by a company whose media purchases produced a "signature bloodbath."
But David Schneiderman, chief executive of Village Voice Media, says the merger will give his papers a "national platform," particularly on the Web, an operation that he will oversee. While his staff will go through "a period of trepidation," Schneiderman says, "the resources of the combined company will strengthen us editorially." New Times executives, he says, "invest in editorial. This is what they're about. It's quite refreshing."
As for the notion that the fabled counterculture papers of yore are becoming more corporate, Schneiderman says: "The issue is, what's in the newspaper? I would challenge anyone who's critical of this to point to anything in our papers or the New Times papers that's establishment. It's flat-out not true."
Lacey says the merger of assets requires no cash. The 2000 deal had a purchase price of about $150 million, according to a source cited by the New York Times.
The planned acquisition will require Justice Department approval on antitrust grounds, since the combined company would control about 14 percent of the circulation of the major alternative weeklies nationwide. The department has clashed with both companies before. In 2002, New Times agreed to close its Los Angeles paper, which competed with Village Voice Media's L.A. Weekly, in exchange for the Voice shutting down its Cleveland paper, which did battle with New Times's Cleveland Scene.
Justice accused the companies of trying "to corrupt the competitive process by swapping markets, thereby guaranteeing each other a monopoly." The firms agreed in a consent decree to notify the department before any merger or shutdown. "We got bad legal advice," Lacey says.
That was not the only allegation of corporate excess; Brugmann's Bay Guardian has sued New Times on charges of predatory practices.
Alternative papers provide an outlet for colorful writing and muckraking local reporting -- as when Portland's Willamette Week revealed last year that former Oregon governor Neil Goldschmidt had sex with a 14-year-old girl three decades ago and paid $250,000 to hush it up. The 50-year-old Village Voice, which has had such prominent contributors as Jules Feiffer, Jack Newfield and Nat Hentoff, has won three Pulitzers, most recently in 2000 for coverage of AIDS in Africa.
Despite their liberal, anti-establishment pedigree, alternative weeklies such as New Times and Village Voice long ago became big business. They are free and stuffed with music and arts coverage, they rake in piles of cash from entertainment ads and personal classifieds. Village Voice Media is owned by a consortium of investment banks that beat out New Times five years ago.
"Perfectly good journalism is commercially viable," Lacey says. "You have to give them well-written, well-reported stories. We don't need focus groups. We knew damn well that good stories sell, not people doing raving opinion pieces about how outraged they are. Blogs have made it completely unnecessary to have alternative newspapers fulfilling that role."
No cash will change hands because the deal is structured as a merger, with New Times getting 62 percent of the equity (plus a 5-4 edge on the company's board) and Village Voice 38 percent. Jim Larkin, the chief executive of New Times, says the negotiations took 15 months and that the only job cuts he envisions are on the corporate staff. "Village Voice makes money," he says. "These are both plump companies."
Lacey founded Phoenix New Times with Larkin in 1970, when he was a college dropout who had to give blood to make ends meet. He says the chain -- which also owns papers in Houston, Dallas, Denver, St. Louis and Kansas City -- boosts the budgets of the weeklies it acquires, though he would not rule out job cuts at the Voice papers in an effort to boost profit margins.
New Times has won a slew of journalism awards. Mark Jurkowitz, media critic for the Boston Phoenix, wrote recently that the company is "known for being non-ideological." But Lacey concedes that the planned takeover will produce a "culture clash" at the Voice, "because people will resent someone coming in from the outside. It's always very disturbing." What's more, New Times is a non-union shop, while the Voice and L.A. Weekly have noisy unions.
In terms of sheer feistiness, the papers may not be that far apart. A Voice writer recently slammed President Bush's "cluster of neocons and religious nuts and military industrialists," adding: "We need to investigate Wampumgate, Kazakhgate, the oil-for-slush scandal, Plamegate, and all the rest -- we need to do it for the sake of our own democracy."
Phoenix New Times, meanwhile, was calling the Maricopa County sheriff "a modern-day J. Edgar Hoover . . . without the penchant for women's underwear" and accusing local media outlets of the journalistic equivalent of sexually servicing him.
To skeptics, a large company that serves both the 1.1 million readers of New Times and the 800,000 of Village Voice Media -- which also has papers in Seattle, Minneapolis, Orange County and Nashville -- is a giant step toward the corporatization of the alternative news world. But Lacey argues that "media concentration at our end of the business is a good thing because it allows us to compete effectively," and says he hopes to restore the Voice "to its glory days."
That may or may not happen. But the bastion of Greenwich Village liberalism was once owned by Rupert Murdoch for six years. "The joke was we were Poland and Murdoch was Russia," says Schneiderman, a 27-year Voice veteran. "The only question was when he would invade."
― curmudgeon, Monday, 24 October 2005 13:52 (7 years ago) Permalink
http://blogs.citypages.com/pscholtes/2005/10/new_times_takes.asp
― Pete Scholtes, Monday, 24 October 2005 14:04 (7 years ago) Permalink
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0543,memo,69258,2.html
― geeta (geeta), Monday, 24 October 2005 15:25 (7 years ago) Permalink
Village Voice writers' pay cut while music editor is on vacation
― Eppy (Eppy), Monday, 24 October 2005 16:45 (7 years ago) Permalink
― gear (gear), Monday, 24 October 2005 16:50 (7 years ago) Permalink
― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Monday, 24 October 2005 22:10 (7 years ago) Permalink
― fact checking cuz (fcc), Monday, 24 October 2005 22:54 (7 years ago) Permalink
http://www.reclaimthemedia.org/stories.php?story=05/10/24/3056201
― geeta (geeta), Monday, 24 October 2005 23:18 (7 years ago) Permalink
That said: ding dong, the Voice (as we know it) is dead. Or, "How the Central Scrutinizer toppled the Empire from an office in Denver."
― Chris O., Monday, 24 October 2005 23:32 (7 years ago) Permalink
And yeah, hearsay about NT varies from "alright" to "nightmare", as Chris O. cogently pointed out... It will really depend on where on that scale an alt-weekly falls currently, as far as readership/competition/etc.
― iDonut B4 x86 (donut), Monday, 24 October 2005 23:46 (7 years ago) Permalink
― miccio (miccio), Monday, 24 October 2005 23:53 (7 years ago) Permalink
― iDonut B4 x86 (donut), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 00:20 (7 years ago) Permalink
― Are You Nomar? (miloaukerman), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 00:30 (7 years ago) Permalink
― Banana Nutrament (ghostface), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 00:52 (7 years ago) Permalink
― js (honestengine), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 00:58 (7 years ago) Permalink
― Are You Nomar? (miloaukerman), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 01:53 (7 years ago) Permalink
again, i don't expect to be terribly popular or persuasive -- here or anywhere, really -- for awhile. i merely wish to hack away at the New Times Seal-Clubbing Neocon Automaton rap we're inevitably gonna get. o'connor's right: it's a case-by-case, paper-by-paper situation, and some are better than others. (he's not the first guy to use the Drunk Dad metaphor, actually.) but that alone blows holes in the theory that we're gonna sire 17 papers with identical copy and only change the street names and sports teams. certain details (layout/movie reviews) aside, our papers now are each distinct, regional entities, and trust me -- i join you all in hoping to christ the VV papers stay exactly as they are in that regard. i want matos/sylvester/eddy exactly where they are, only more so.
― awful bliss (awful bliss), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 02:07 (7 years ago) Permalink
that'd be an improvement since the voice killed their sports coverage ages ago.
― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 03:38 (7 years ago) Permalink
― awful bliss (awful bliss), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 03:46 (7 years ago) Permalink
― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 03:48 (7 years ago) Permalink
New Times Media Buys Village Voice
By SETH SUTEL, AP Business Writer
New Times Media, the nation's largest publisher of alternative weekly newspapers, is buying the owner of the Village Voice and its five sister newspapers, creating a company with 17 weekly publications and a combined circulation of 1.8 million.
The new company will keep the Village Voice name but will be run by the two top executives of New Times Media, a Phoenix-based company with 11 newspapers, the companies announced Monday.
The deal creates a dominant player in the alternative newsweekly business with nearly a quarter of the industry's total circulation of 7.6 million, according to Richard Karpel, executive director of the Association of Alternative Weeklies, a trade group.
New Times shareholders will own 62 percent of the new company and Village Voice shareholders the remaining 38 percent. The board of the new company will also be made up of a majority of New Times directors.
New Times CEO Jim Larkin will run the new company, to be called Village Voice Media, and New Times executive editor Michael Lacey will be executive editor. Village Voice CEO David Schneiderman will oversee online operations.
Schneiderman said the combination would allow the newspapers to more effectively compete for national advertising and build up a bigger presence online, where newspapers face competition to their lucrative classified advertising business from free listings services like Craigslist.
The newspapers from the Voice group will be added to backpage.com, a free online classified advertising venture that is owned by New Times and was launched as an alternative to Craigslist.
The combined company would have overall revenues of about $180 million, Schneiderman said. He declined to disclose other financial details, noting that both companies are privately held, but he did say both were "comfortably profitable."
The Village Voice, with a free circulation of about 250,000, is one of the best known alternative weekly newspapers in the country. It was co-founded in 1955 by the novelist Norman Mailer, and has been owned at various times by magazine industry veteran Clay Felker; Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and the businessman Leonard Stern.
Under the new structure, the Voice's editor Donald Forst will continue in his current role but will report to Lacey, as will the editors of the Voice's five other weeklies in Los Angeles and Orange County, Calif.; Seattle, Minneapolis / St. Paul and Nashville.
New Times publishes in 11 cities including Phoenix, Cleveland, Houston, San Francisco, Miami and Dallas.
The absorption of the Voice and its sister newspapers into a larger company would do nothing to dampen their antiestablishment tone, Schneiderman said.
"We kept our finger firmly planted in the eye of the establishment when Murdoch owned us," Schneiderman said. "It's part of our genetic makeup."
The deal will be subject to federal regulatory approval. The two companies have run afoul of regulators before, and in 2003 settled charges of collusive behavior from the Justice Department after selling competing papers to each other in Los Angeles and Cleveland.
The deal had been expected, and has been the subject of much discussion in the alternative weekly industry. For smaller publications, the creation of a big company with newspapers in several large cities including New York, Miami and San Francisco could mean tougher competition for national advertising.
"I think there's a sense of resignation," said Brian Hieggelke, the publisher of the alternative weekly Newcity in Chicago. Hieggelke is also director of the board of a cooperative that sells national advertising for weeklies which competes with Ruxton Media Group, a similar business owned by New Times. As part of the deal, the Voice papers will become part of Ruxton's ad sales network.
"For people who aren't part of New Times or (Village Voice Media), the best case scenario is that it will be neutral for their business, but in many cases it will be a negative," Hieggelke said.
The Voice is currently owned by a group of investors including three private investment funds: one managed by Goldman Sachs; Weiss, Peck & Greer and the Trimaran Fund. None of those investors is exiting as part of the current transaction.
― geeta (geeta), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 03:57 (7 years ago) Permalink
As for what's in store... Well, Westword, the New Times paper in Denver, has no book review section. And yes, Rob, I know that not all New Times papers are the same. Still, what does that tell you about these guys' priorities? Or, if you're interested, got to www.westword.com and type "TABOR" into the search engine, or "C and D" (what next week's ballot is going to be all about in Colorado), and follow the links, and see if you learn anything about it. Pitiful.
― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 04:47 (7 years ago) Permalink
― maura (maura), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 04:51 (7 years ago) Permalink
Xpost Xpost Xpost
― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 04:59 (7 years ago) Permalink
This is inelegant code for unfastening everyone who had an opinion in hard copy versus someone who will give you their opinion for free or pennies on the Internet. What's the difference, actually? Well, one's a rationalization and an excuse, the other's the justification for the rationalization and the excuse. It's just like every other newspaper manically seized by obsession and fear of/with content from the Internet. Most newspapers are going through or will go through this in 2005 or next year. Even though profitable, cuts are expected at the biggest because it's the way corporate does things.
And before the regrets and bad news there is always the parade of rationalizations about the Internet and nature of editorial content and its origin and how the changing world has dictated something bad but we're still dedicated to and will do great journalism because great journalism is great.
Of course, you follow this to its logical conclusion, you don't even need local editors over the next few years. You can ship raw copy instantaneously to Indonesia or any old ex-Brit empire country now a slave labor nation with high bandwidth telecomm connections to the net and get the product back to you before you get up in the morning. Hey, "The Internet had made it completely unnecessary to have workers at alternate newspapers fulfilling this role."
― George the Animal Steele, Tuesday, 25 October 2005 05:14 (7 years ago) Permalink
― don, Tuesday, 25 October 2005 05:31 (7 years ago) Permalink
― don, Tuesday, 25 October 2005 05:34 (7 years ago) Permalink
― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 05:51 (7 years ago) Permalink
― Chris O., Tuesday, 25 October 2005 15:31 (7 years ago) Permalink
― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 15:47 (7 years ago) Permalink
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 25 October 2005 18:24 (7 years ago) Permalink
We all have different opinions on who are the better or worse editors of these papers. (This isn't even relating to music editors, necessarily. This can be arts editors, food editors, film editors, political editors, CHIEF editors, etc.) Every paper has a combination of good and bad editors... some are overall better than others.
What this New Times buyout will do is essentially equalize the good and bad qualities of these papers. The shitty editors will have to shape up, and the good editors will be likely (and this depends on which delegate at the Denver/Phoenix Borg Central is assigned to whom) be told how to do things, when they don't need to be told how to do things.
All in all, this is sad, because while a lot of really bad sections might improve, a lot of great sections are likely going to be compromised, and I don't think anything will arise from this that will equal the greatness of the latter. These singular visions that were enjoyable sections are going to be less singular, and this is the sad part. But hey, cut-to-the-chase corporate visions aren't really interested in preserving uniquely great quality in certain spots.. they're interested in across-the-board profitability, even if it means the referendums are going to blemish the good spots, as well as improve the bad spots.
― iDonut B4 x86 (donut), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 18:49 (7 years ago) Permalink
― iDonut B4 x86 (donut), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 18:53 (7 years ago) Permalink
― don, Tuesday, 25 October 2005 19:08 (7 years ago) Permalink
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 19:09 (7 years ago) Permalink
Damn. Im getting misty eyed, seriously.
― Raymond Cummings, Monday, 24 September 2012 19:33 (8 months ago) Permalink
Is their mangement style less damaging at some of their other papers?
Under the terms of the agreement, Voice Media Group will own and operate the following print publications and corresponding digital properties: Village Voice (New York), LA Weekly (Los Angeles), Westword (Denver), New Times (Phoenix), Houston Press, Dallas Observer, Riverfront Times (St. Louis), New Times (Miami), City Pages (Minneapolis), New Times (Broward), SF Weekly (San Francisco), Seattle Weekly, and OC Weekly (Orange County). Voice Media Group will also purchase and take over VVMH's national advertising division, which will now be called VMG National. VMG National will continue to sell national advertising for more than 56 partner sites and publications, reaching more than 3 million readers across 56 key metro markets each week.
http://www.wvva.com/story/19619001/newly-formed-denver-holding-company-voice-media-group-to-acquire-village-voice-media-publishing-properties
― curmudgeon, Monday, 24 September 2012 20:42 (8 months ago) Permalink
management
― curmudgeon, Monday, 24 September 2012 20:43 (8 months ago) Permalink
thanks for the link to the tricia romano twitter thing, good read
I had not seen the actual print Voice in a long time (would read some of it on the Internet) and then last week I saw one, holy shit it's a pamphlet
― dmr, Monday, 24 September 2012 20:46 (8 months ago) Permalink
love this:
I miss Xgau, wearing trademark jeans, rock T, headphones, stopping and saying: "Tricia: The new Common record," and sighing.
― heated debate over derpy hooves (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, 24 September 2012 21:14 (8 months ago) Permalink
Man, the stuff we made fun of upthread is SO much better than what they publish now
― drunk 'n' white's elements of style (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 13 November 2012 22:13 (6 months ago) Permalink
Fire sale is on! I guess. Seattle Weekly and SF Weekly have both been sold.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 9 January 2013 19:06 (4 months ago) Permalink
just struck me how much pathos is in the phrase "acquired by new times" (or "discarded by new times," for that matter)
― ThePartyHater (some dude), Wednesday, 9 January 2013 19:07 (4 months ago) Permalink
Thought maybe this revive was about another wave of classic jazz albums we should hear before we die.
― The POLLed Geir America (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 9 January 2013 19:10 (4 months ago) Permalink
http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2013/01/09/sf-weekly-sold-to-bay-guardian-publisher/
, Voice Media Group will continue to own and operate the following print publications and corresponding digital properties: Village Voice (New York), LA Weekly (Los Angeles), Westword (Denver), New Times (Phoenix), Houston Press, Dallas Observer, Riverfront Times (St. Louis), New Times (Miami), City Pages (Minneapolis), New Times (Broward) and OC Weekly (Orange County).
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Seattle-Weekly-sold-to-Sound-Publishing-4179877.php
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 9 January 2013 19:11 (4 months ago) Permalink
For now.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 9 January 2013 19:11 (4 months ago) Permalink
boy it would be nice if somebody bought them and rethought the game.
― What am I, in France? (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 9 January 2013 19:12 (4 months ago) Permalink
i got $47 in my checking account, lemme see how many papers i can buy with that
― ThePartyHater (some dude), Wednesday, 9 January 2013 19:14 (4 months ago) Permalink
man, i looked at the voice website this morning wondering if p+j was up yet, it's total garbage now
― j., Wednesday, 9 January 2013 19:15 (4 months ago) Permalink
i never read any of those sites anymore, laweekly especially is sickeningly terrible.
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Wednesday, 9 January 2013 19:19 (4 months ago) Permalink
"The sale of SF Weekly will allow Voice Media Group to focus on growth opportunities for mobile and online platforms and to develop core digital offerings in its other key markets."
so another blogging platform full stop is the gameplan then.
― s.clover, Wednesday, 9 January 2013 19:59 (4 months ago) Permalink
just looked at the voice website just now. holy *shit* is that ugly, like throwback to 1996 webdesign, netscape navigator 1.0 compatible ugly. and then there are just huge amounts of links to articles in basically three blogs/"verticals" and that seems like the entire goddamn site.
― s.clover, Wednesday, 9 January 2013 20:07 (4 months ago) Permalink
I was always glad that the Metro Times was never bought by these clowns.
― Solange and thanks for all the fish (Nicole), Wednesday, 9 January 2013 20:10 (4 months ago) Permalink
God I love digital properties.
― glenn mcdonald, Wednesday, 9 January 2013 21:25 (4 months ago) Permalink
thank got Seattle Weekly wasn't sold to the Seattle Times, as was rumored. hopefully it will become semi-decent again.
― chief keef olbermann (The Reverend), Wednesday, 9 January 2013 23:10 (4 months ago) Permalink
michael musto must feel like the queen fuckin bee these days
― j., Thursday, 10 January 2013 00:04 (4 months ago) Permalink
so this guy writes about rap for the voice now are you guys big fans?
― scott seward, Thursday, 10 January 2013 00:11 (4 months ago) Permalink
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJu451qyZL0
― scott seward, Thursday, 10 January 2013 00:12 (4 months ago) Permalink
i'm feeling it...
― scott seward, Thursday, 10 January 2013 00:14 (4 months ago) Permalink
Wow this is really bad.
― pun lovin criminal (polyphonic), Thursday, 10 January 2013 00:23 (4 months ago) Permalink
looks like heath ledger as shat out by corey haim
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Thursday, 10 January 2013 00:26 (4 months ago) Permalink
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKPvdcEfETAdamn, you're serious: he IS writing about hip hop for the voice
― What am I, in France? (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 10 January 2013 02:35 (4 months ago) Permalink
i googled up a few articles of his and they don't seem particularly offensive.
― s.clover, Thursday, 10 January 2013 04:05 (4 months ago) Permalink
http://www.lowtimespodcast.com/the-la-weekly-posted-some-garbage-now-i-want-to-talk-to-them/
― Chuck E was a hero to most (s.clover), Monday, 22 April 2013 21:03 (1 month ago) Permalink
even when held up against the rest of the paper/site, west coast sound is particularly terrible.
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Monday, 22 April 2013 21:17 (1 month ago) Permalink
Was just going to post that. The Voice has been posting piles and piles of perv pic features from various events around the city, but there's something even more creepy about it being gifs. Plus at least most of the Voice pics are from like "sexy" events where people are all publicly displaying sexuality on purpose, iirc.
― huun huurt 2 (Hurting 2), Monday, 22 April 2013 23:28 (1 month ago) Permalink
Welp:
Will Bourne, who became editor-in-chief of The Village Voice in November, and Jessica Lustig, the deputy editor since January, are leaving the weekly publication.They met with the staff at 11 p.m. on Thursday and said that Christine Brennan, executive editor of Voice Media Group, had instructed them to cut five positions from the 20-person staff. Rather than implementing the cuts, they resigned and left immediately.
They met with the staff at 11 p.m. on Thursday and said that Christine Brennan, executive editor of Voice Media Group, had instructed them to cut five positions from the 20-person staff. Rather than implementing the cuts, they resigned and left immediately.
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 9 May 2013 16:34 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
the Voice is soon going to be a single guy in his underwear posting clickporn photo sets of sex events
― THIS IS NOT A BENGHAZI T-SHIRT (Hurting 2), Thursday, 9 May 2013 16:44 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
"From your mouth to God's ears," says a lurking Ben Westhoff.
― da croupier, Thursday, 9 May 2013 16:49 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
lol staff of 15, i really had no idea.
― ballin' from Maine to Mexico (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 9 May 2013 16:54 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
Is that editorial staff or total? I mean either way damn.
― THIS IS NOT A BENGHAZI T-SHIRT (Hurting 2), Thursday, 9 May 2013 17:06 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
how small can the staff get before 'editor-in-chief' is a bigger title than the organization can bear
― j., Thursday, 9 May 2013 17:12 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
editorial staff, apparently.
― stefon taylor swiftboat (s.clover), Thursday, 9 May 2013 18:26 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
As someone who put out a monthly mag with a total staff of 3, plus freelancers, I'm kinda surprised it takes 20 people to put out something as shitty as the 2013 Voice.
― 誤訳侮辱, Thursday, 9 May 2013 18:42 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
1) its weekly. 2) it has lots of bloggyblogs. 3) actually i don't know beyond that i don't pay attention anymore.
― stefon taylor swiftboat (s.clover), Thursday, 9 May 2013 18:46 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
oh right 4) it occasionally still has real legwork in actually reporting feature stories and it theoretically pays staff to do that and not just freelancers.
― stefon taylor swiftboat (s.clover), Thursday, 9 May 2013 18:47 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
there is admittedly a lot of legwork even in digging up salacious details on stories like that one about the real estate magnate's wife who did cocaine and had an affair with a cartel hitman who owned a monster truck racetrack which was a cover for snuff film production.
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Thursday, 9 May 2013 18:51 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
http://www.villagevoice.com/about/staff/
Editor in Chief Will Bourne Deputy Editor Jessica Lustig Arts and Culture Editor Film Editor Alan Scherstuhl Music Editor Brian McManus Copy Chief Web Editor Nick Greene Senior Associate Editors Angela Ashman, Araceli Cruz, Nick Murray Staff Writers Michael Feingold, James King, Michael Musto, Nick Pinto, Graham Rayman, Tejal Rao Contributors Melissa Anderson, Allen Barra, Roy Edroso, Deborah Jowitt, Chantal Martineau, Nick Pinkerton, John Surico, Robert Sietsema, Alexis Soloski Contributing Copy Editor Benjamin Mercer Editorial Fellows Emily Gogolak, Jason Lewis Editorial Interns Alexandra Bell, Brittany Spanos, Christopher Weller, Diana Clarke, Leah Butterfield Associate Editor Heather Baysa Arts Assistant Eric Sundermann
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 9 May 2013 18:53 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
xpost -- why are you not linking that story right now.
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 9 May 2013 19:00 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
I wonder if McAnus will get a promotion. Failing upwards, etc.
― The last of the famous international Greyjoys (Nicole), Thursday, 9 May 2013 19:04 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
Fin:
Last week, top editors at the Village Voice resigned in protest when they learned that management wanted them to lay off several members of their already-decimated staff. This morning, those layoffs came down. They're not pretty.We hear that executives from the Voice's parent company flew in for today's massacre. Michael Musto, the Voice's nightlife columnist and most high profile remaining staffer, has been let go, as was rumored last week. (There had apparently been some talk of Musto's column hanging on in some form, but that does not seem to have worked out.) Also let go, sources tell us, was Robert Sietsema, the Voice's longtime food critic, and Michael Feingold, the paper's theater critic. Feingold was scheduled to host the Obie Awards for the Voice next week.
We hear that executives from the Voice's parent company flew in for today's massacre. Michael Musto, the Voice's nightlife columnist and most high profile remaining staffer, has been let go, as was rumored last week. (There had apparently been some talk of Musto's column hanging on in some form, but that does not seem to have worked out.) Also let go, sources tell us, was Robert Sietsema, the Voice's longtime food critic, and Michael Feingold, the paper's theater critic. Feingold was scheduled to host the Obie Awards for the Voice next week.
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 17 May 2013 15:26 (1 week ago) Permalink
Should be polled: http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-06-22/columns/why-i-hate-being-gay/
― Not Simone Choule (Eric H.), Friday, 17 May 2013 15:28 (1 week ago) Permalink
those are the last 3 columnists I read, btw, and obv the last 3 longtimers.
tho Zacharek on film I will still look at
― ballin' from Maine to Mexico (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 May 2013 15:38 (1 week ago) Permalink
man, gutted. they're done huh.
― utilizing my famously feline agility to seek managerial succor (forksclovetofu), Friday, 17 May 2013 17:32 (1 week ago) Permalink
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/business/media/michael-musto-and-robert-sietsema-leave-village-voice.html?_r=0
more reaction to firing of Musto, Sietsema, & Feingold
― curmudgeon, Monday, 20 May 2013 13:16 (4 days ago) Permalink