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Village Media is a Canadian media company, which operates a number of local, online news and community websites throughout Ontario. Based in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, the company's properties include the internet news sites SooToday.com in Sault Ste. Marie, BayToday.com in North Bay, BarrieToday.com in Barrie, GuelphToday.com in Guelph and TimminsToday.com in Timmins.
The company formerly operated the video news portal local2.ca in Sault Ste. Marie, and the VM Radio network of internet radio streams. Local2 was fully integrated into SooToday. VM Radio was shut down.
Village Media's news sites focus on providing local stories written by local journalists in the communities that they serve. In addition to local news, the sites offer weather, events, obituaries, and a wide range of community information. Village Media is known for supporting local events, charitable causes, and recognize our neighbours’ achievements.
The company has no operations in Sudbury, the region's largest city; instead, it launched a content-sharing and marketing partnership with the Sudbury-based community newspaper Northern Life in 2014. Village Media also has strategic partnerships with TBNewswatch.com in Thunder Bay and Manitoulin.ca on Manitoulin Island. Village Media is also a partner with LocalXpress in Halifax, providing them the publication platform.
History
SooToday.com was originally launched in 2000 as a regional tabloid shopping and business directory, owned by former broadcaster Dick Peplow.
Following significant news cutbacks at MCTV, which merged all of the region's local television newscasts into a single regional program produced in Sudbury, SooToday began producing locally focused news content. In doing so, they became one of the first prominent Canadian ventures in hyperlocal web-only media. Peplow launched sister site BayToday.ca in 2003.
Following Peplow's death in 2007, local IT consultant Jeff Elgie, formerly a minority investor in the site, increased his ownership stake, and eventually became CEO.
Inspired by the SooToday.com model, a different company launched TimminsToday.com, which was acquired by Village Media in 2014.
The company launched BarrieToday.com in October 2015 in Barrie and GuelphToday.com in February 2016 in Guelph.