VILLAGE VOICE SOLD TO NEW TIMES: THE DEATH OF THE "ALTERNATIVE" WEEKLY?
I suppose people far more in the know about this sort of thing saw it coming, but of all the weeklies that I thought would hold out against the New Times juggernaught (aka the Clear Channel of alt. weeklies), I'd thought it'd be the Village Voice. However, it looks like economics have won out over independence as the Voice will be sold to New Times this week.
For most of you who depend on alt. weeklies to figure out what bars to go to on a given weekend, none of this probably matters to you but for this has to be a rather despairing event for anyone with an interest in independent media. Alternative weeklies have been on the decline in several ways over the last 10 years - a combination of financial woes as well as the rise of internet media sites which have been fierce competitors for classified revenue (yes, blame Craigslist). So while none of this is a huge surprise per se, it's still a big deal. New Times now owns many of the major alt. weeklies I can think of: pick any major American city and odds are, they own the sole weekly around. Village Voice Media (which owned a handful of other weeklies itself) was one of the last that still provided a real "alternative" at all to New Times and while they claim nothing will change, it's hard to see that really being the case.
What makes New Times particularly worrisome is how they syndicate content from one weekly and then spread it around all the other ones in the family. So, for example, a movie review appearing in one market will appear in all the other ones. This reduces the overall number of voices and opinions, essentially homogenizing content throughout the New Times network, regardless of geographic context.
At least the San Francisco Bay Guardian is still independent (tick tick tick).
Jeff Chang writes on his own blog about this deal and says the same things I'm trying to impart, just, you know, a lot better.
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