Voice Media Group

Voice Media Group (VMG) is an American privately held media company headquartered in Denver, Colorado. VMG owns several newspaper publications across the country. These offerings extend across print, mobile and digital marketing.^[1]

Voice Media Group

Company type	Private
Industry	Digital Marketing Media
Founded	September 1, 2012; 12 years ago (2012-09-01)
Headquarters	Denver, Colorado
Key people	Scott Tobias Stuart Folb Jeff Mars Kurtis Barton Gerard Goroski
Revenue	$44.5 million (2024)
Number of employees	296 (2025)
Website	www.voicemediagroup.com

VMG's current properties include a digital marketing agency, V Digital Services, a marketing technology company, V Audience Labs, and media outlets Denver Westword, Phoenix New Times, Dallas Observer, Miami New Times, and Broward New Times.

History

VMG was founded in September 2012, when Village Voice Media executives Scott Tobias, Christine Brennan and Jeff Mars announced an agreement to purchase Village Voice Media's papers and web properties from their founders.^[2] The classified web site Backpage.com was not part of the sale.^[3]

VMG launched the digital marketing agency, V Digital Services, in 2013 and now operates in over 300 cities across the United States. VDS employees over 125 customer-centric analysts and account managers who work with VMG publications and partners around the country to offer digital marketing solutions including organic SEO, paid media, web development and programmatic and pay-per-click advertising. V Digital Services has received several accolades over the years including, Inc. magazine's “Inc. 500 list”^[4] of America's fastest-growing private companies in 2019, 2018 and 2017, several Stevie Awards for Sales and Customer Service,^[5] and many more.

In 2023, VMG launched the marketing technology company, V Audience Labs.^[6]

While adding resources to other areas of the business, Voice Media Group has made strategic divestments of some its newspaper properties. On May 6, 2015, VMG announced the sale of Minneapolis City Pages to Star Tribune Media Co.^[7] In October 2015, VMG sold the Village Voice^[8] in New York City to Pennsylvania newspaper owner Peter Barbey. In October 2017, VMG sold LA Weekly^[9] to local owners; the next month, following devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey, it announced that the Houston Press would cease print publication^[10] and transition to an online-only entity.

In 2021, Voice Media Group sold the Houston Press to an anonymous buyer.^[11]

Awards

VMG's publications have won numerous national journalism awards, including the 2018 George Polk Award^[12] for immigration reporting at Phoenix New Times, 2017 Sigma Delta Chi Awards^[13] at both Miami New Times and Westword, and the 2014 George Polk Award^[14] for sports reporting at Miami New Times.