• by Tony Silber , November 10, 2021

Voice Media Group, the publisher of five alternative newspaper brands in Denver, Miami, Dallas, Phoenix and South Florida, announced Wednesday that it is selling the 32-year-old Houston Press to an unspecified new owner.

The new buyer plans to “continue the normal operations of the Houston Press for years to come,” VMG said in a cryptic statement.

“VMG is proud of its history in Houston and is excited to move forward serving its digital customers in the Bayou City,” the statement said. VMG, through its digital arm V Digital Services, will continue to service and support its digital agency customers in Houston.

As the digital marketing arm of VMG, VDS operates in more than 300 American cities and offers premier white-label solutions for a growing number of affiliated media entities and agencies.

The Press, founded in 1989, developed a following with an irreverent tone and strong investigative reporting — essentially the formula for all alternative weeklies starting with the godfather of the genre, The Village Voice. But strong headwinds in the print-media space forced the layoff of much of the publication’s editorial staff, a shift in 2017 to a digital-only presence, and the use of only freelance writers.

The Pressreports a monthly readership of 1.6 million online users.