Village Voice Media is a privately held corporation that owns the Village Voice, the nation's oldest (founded in 1955) and largest alternative weekly newspaper, as well as LA Weekly, OC (Orange County) Weekly in Santa Ana, California, Seattle Weekly, Minneapolis City Pages, and Nashville Scene. The Village Voice is a New York City-based weekly newspaper featuring investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts reviews and events listings for New York City. ... The L.A. Weekly is a weekly free paper in Los Angeles, owned by the same parent company as New York Citys Village Voice. ... OC Weekly is a weekly paper circulated in Orange County. ... Seattle Weekly is the third most popular newspaper in Seattle, Washington, United States, with a circulation of over 100,000. ... City Pages is an alternative weekly newspaper serving the Minneapolis-St. ...

In 2002, Village Voice Media entered into a noncompetition agreement with New Times Media, another national publisher of alternative weeklies, whereby the two companies agreed to stop publishing New Times LA (a product of New Times Media) and Cleveland Free Times (a product of Village Voice Media), so that the companies would not publish two, competing newspapers in any single city. This agreement and phasing out of the two newspapers, led to an antitrust investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. The investigation resulted in a settlement, requiring the companies to sell off assets and the old newspapers' titles to any potential competitors.[1] The New Times Media corporation is a national publisher of alternative weekly newspapers. ... An alternative weekly, alternately referred to as an alternative newsweekly or alternative newspaper, is a form of alternative media newspaper found in many centres in the United States and Canada. ... It has been suggested that competition law be merged into this article or section. ... The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) is a Cabinet department in the United States government designed to enforce the law and defend the interests of the United States according to the law and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans. ...

On October 24, 2005, New Times Media announced a deal to acquire Village Voice Media, creating a chain of 17 free weekly newspapers around the country with a combined circulation of 1.8 million and controlling a quarter of the weekly circulation of alternative weekly newspapers in North America. The deal is subject to approval from the Justice Department.