VVM Sites Now Get 40 Percent Of Traffic From Blogs

This is actually quite a transition. Those involved in traditional media can understand the challenges of transforming 1 news organization around… print staff becoming web savvy, retail finding and shifting to new forms of revenue, IT staff gearing up for a complete digital transition… now try that times 15. We have a dedicated organization driven to succeed in this new arena. Thank you techcrunch.com for giving us a little pimpin’

techcrunch.com – The future of the weekly city paper is the daily blog. Hints of this future can already be seen at Village Voice Media, which owns and operates 15 of the top weeklies in the country, including the Village Voice, SF Weekly, and LA Weekly. Bill Jensen, the director of new media who oversees all the Village Voice Media sites tells me that 40 percent of pageviews comes from the blogs on the sites, up from 20 percent a year ago. Some of the more popular ones include columnist Michael Musto’s blog, Nikki Finke’s Deadline Holywood Daily, and Topless Robot.

Of course, the sites feature music listings, restaurant reviews, and articles from the print editions as well, but the blogs are driving an increasing portion of the traffic. The online and print newsrooms are combined and everyone is expected to post on the Web. Long gone are the days when a music reviewer could attend a rock show and turn in his copy three days later. “I don’t care how drunk you are,” says Jensen, “you post by 9 AM.”

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