Voice Media Group has reached an agreement to sell its LA Weekly newspaper business to downtown-based Semanal Media, according to sources with knowledge of the deal.
Terms of the sale were not disclosed.
Voice Media plans to inform the members of the weekly publication’s local bargaining unit this afternoon, and company Chief Executive Scott Tobias expects the deal to close within two weeks, according to sources.
The deal for LA Weekly caps months of speculation about future ownership of the alternative weekly paper, founded in 1978. Voice Media Group announced its intention to sell the publication in January.
VMG still owns several publications across the country, including Phoenix New Times, Houston Press, and Miami New Times, among others.
It sold the SF Weekly to the San Francisco Newspaper Company and the Seattle Weekly to Sound Publishing in 2013, and more recently sold its OC Weekly to Duncan McIntosh Co. in Newport Beach.
The source said the sale of the LA Weekly is another step in the company’s ongoing transformation from a traditional print newspaper company to a web forward enterprise specializing in digital advertising services.
VMG’s digital advertising arm, V Digital Services, now operates in the 13 major cities and serve business clients in search engine optimization, paid media, social media management, web development, and both programmatic and pay-per-click advertising.
Media and entertainment reporter Diane Haithman can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @dhaithman.