Village Voice Media

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The New Times Media corporation was a national publisher of alternative weekly newspapers.

Its papers were Cleveland Scene, Dallas Observer, Westword, East Bay Express, New Times Broward-Palm Beach, Houston Press, The Pitch, Miami New Times, Phoenix New Times, SF Weekly, and Riverfront Times.

In 2003, the company was forced into a settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, over antitrust allegations. The company had colluded with another publisher of alternative weeklies, Village Voice Media, to stop competing in two cities where both companies published. New Times Media shuttered its New Times LA, while Village Voice Media agreed to stop publishing Cleveland Free Times. The settlement required each company to make available publishing assets and the defunct papers' titles to potential competitors.

On October 24, 2005, New Times Media announced a deal to acquire Village Voice Media, creating a chain of 17 free weekly newspapers around the country with a combined circulation of 1.8 million and controlling a quarter of the weekly circulation of alternative weekly newspapers in North America. After the deal's completion, New Times used the Village Voice Media name.

The Voice deal had many critics, including several that labeled New Times Media the "Clear Channel" of alt-weeklies [1]. New Times also dropped many popular features and contributors in an effort to overhaul the struggling Village Voice.

1 Village Voice Media
2 See also
3 References
4 External links

Village Voice Media

Village Voice Media is a privately held corporation that owns the Village Voice, America's oldest (founded in 1955) and largest alternative weekly newspaper, as well as LA Weekly, OC Weekly in Orange County, California, Seattle Weekly, City Pages in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Nashville Scene, Dallas Observer, Westword in Denver, New Times Broward-Palm Beach, Houston Press, The Pitch in Kansas City, Miami New Times, Phoenix New Times, SF Weekly in San Francisco, Riverfront Times in St. Louis, and backpage.com, an online classified advertising website.

In 2002, the previous Village Voice Media entered into a noncompetition agreement with New Times Media, another national publisher of alternative weeklies, whereby the two companies agreed to stop publishing New Times LA (a product of New Times Media) and Cleveland Free Times (a product of Village Voice Media), so that the companies would not publish two, competing newspapers in any single city. This agreement and phasing out of the two newspapers, led to an antitrust investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. The investigation resulted in a settlement, requiring the companies to sell off assets and the old newspapers' titles to any potential competitors.^[1]

On October 24, 2005, New Times Media announced a deal to acquire Village Voice Media (which, at the date of sale, owned the first 7 papers mentioned in the first paragraph), creating a chain of 17 free weekly newspapers around the country with a combined circulation of 1.8 million and controlling a quarter of the weekly circulation of alternative weekly newspapers in North America. After the deal's completion, New Times took the Village Voice Media name.

In October of 2007, Michael Lacey, the executive editor, and Jim Larkin, chief executive, of Village Voice Media, were arrested in Phoenix, Arizona, on charges that a Village Voice Media publication, the Phoenix New Times, had published secret grand jury information. A state special prosecutor is investigating the newspaper's long-running feud with Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, including the publishing of Arpaio's home address, a crime under Arizona law. The special prosecutor's subpoena included a demand for the names of the readers of the New Times's website. It was the information about the subpoena which was deemed by prosecutors to be secret grand jury information.^[2]

References

^ Savannah Blackwell, "New Times nailed", sfbg.com, January 29, 2003.
^ David Carr, "Media Executives Arrested in Phoenix", The New York Times, October 19, 2007.