Village Voice Media (VVM) and New Times (NT) announced a definitive merger agreement on October 24, subject to regulatory approval. They further announced that the VVM-owned publications would be joining the NT-owned Ruxton organization for national advertising representation. As a result, the board of directors of the Alternative Weekly Network (AWN) has taken several actions to protect the interests of its members and its clients.

The AWN board of directors suspended the membership of all Village Voice Media publications as well as AWN board members (Jim Wolf and Rob Klein both employees of VVM). Also, all VVM-represented AWN advertising accounts have been reassigned to other AWN sellers and an account transition process is now under way.

AWN remains committed to delivering the highest-caliber customer service to our advertising clients, and will not abide any course of action that jeopardizes the ability of our clients to reach their target customers by advertising in our member publications.

AWN is a cooperative made up of 110 member publications. While we will deeply miss the loss of our friends and partners in VVM, we are proud of the strength of our entire membership, and confident in our ability to find strong replacement partners in key markets. Most importantly, we want to ensure our members that we will aggressively represent their interests.

For more information, contact:
Brian Hieggelke, AWN president
(312)243-8786 x29 or brian@newcity.com