Local news media organisations are facing a crisis, and during this week’s Webinar, members heard just how dire the situation has become. In the U.S., more than 3,200 local and regional newspapers have shuttered since 2005, and in Canada, nearly 2.5 million people live in an area with one or fewer local news outlets, said Amalie Nash, lead of INMA’s Newsroom Transformation Initiative.

“A new report in the Neiman Lab the other day [said] people in the U.S. don’t trust national news as much as they trust local news. So that’s good news for local news,” Nash said. “But at the same time, a lot of Americans are not willing to pay for local news. Only 23% who say that they pay for online news report paying for a local or regional newspaper.”

But Village Media, based in Sault St. Marie, Ontario, Canada, is thriving despite this challenging landscape. CEO Jeff Elgie, who founded the company in 2013, shared with INMA members how the company is amplifying local news and maintaining growth.

When he acquired Village Media, it was a digital-only local news Web site that offered online coupons for local businesses. Since then, it has grown into a network of 26 local community news sites, has five other publications in Canada, and licences technology to about 130 other publications in Canada and the U.S.

“Village looks at ourselves as more than just a local news organisation,” Elgie explained. “In fact, we define ourselves today as a community impact organisation.”   

As such, he said Village Media affects communities in four ways:

• Inform: Provide local news and community information.
• Support: Through its CARES division, it offers community support initiatives in each of its markets.
• Connect: Village connects online through its locally focused social media platform called Spaces.
• Grow: Its community-based marketing programmes are designed to strengthen the local economic base whilst supporting the community.

Inside the Community Model

Village Media operates on a strategy it calls the Community Model, and Elgie explained how the company decides to enter a new community.

“We’re right in the middle of our 27^th community right now, which we’ll launch in a couple of weeks,” he said. “So this is timely and top of mind.”

Several factors influence the decision to launch in a new market, he said:

• Size and proximity: Smaller markets near existing operations offer economies of scale, enabling teams to share news and sales resources. Village Media targets towns and cities with populations ranging from 10,000 to 200,000 people.
• Sense of identity: Markets that perform well tend to have a strong civic identity. That is measured by such things as high voter turnout, local school enrollment, and engagement in service organisations, but determining that isn’t a perfect science, he said: “Figuring out the sense of identity becomes fairly complex, and I don’t think it’s always 100% predictable.”
• Competition: Contrary to popular belief, Village Media doesn’t seek out news deserts; in fact, some of its best-performing markets are home to competing media outlets. Such things as the sudden closure of a local daily can create a high-opportunity environment, but he cautioned that news deserts may mean that readers “don’t have the muscle memory of a daily news habit.”
• Talent: A critical deciding factor is whether strong editorial talent — especially editors and reporters — can be recruited in the community. “We have actually cancelled entering markets because of the inability to attract good talent,” Elgie said.
• Community demand: If local stakeholders — such as mayors or chambers of commerce — express interest, that can dramatically boost launch success.

Once it finds a community that meets its criteria, Elgie said the path to news sustainability has three core components: audience acquisition, content strategy, and audience re-engagement and retention.

“Then that gets monetised primarily through a very proprietary set of local ads, advertising products, a bit of programmatic ad inventory at the national or regional level, and then some amount of reader and membership contribution,” he explained.  

The magic number

Village Media’s long-term goal in every market is to cultivate a “daily reader segment” that makes up 25% of the population, or about 40% of adults over 25. These loyal readers, who typically visit the site 32 to 37 times per month, represent only about 10% of unique users but drive 60% of all pageviews.

Achieving this goal relies on a combination of tactics:

1. Newsroom staffing: Markets that reach 25% daily readership usually maintain a ratio of one journalist per 15,000 residents. Village Media centralises certain functions (like comment moderation and social media) so reporters can focus purely on original journalism.
2. Content mix: Only 38% of pageviews come from original articles, and within that, about two-thirds come from completely original reporting. Obituaries alone account for another 20% of traffic, despite being maintained by only two people across the network. Village Media also prioritises topics such as weather, public health, housing, and human interest stories, which helps build consistent engagement.
3. Marketing and outreach: The company promotes itself using billboards, social media, influencer marketing, and events. A typical launch includes coffee meetups, ribbon cuttings with local officials, and creative campaigns specific to the community. Such activity is designed to drive awareness and get residents signed up for newsletters or following on social media — ideally reaching 25% of the population on both.

Becoming part of the community

Village Media doesn’t just launch within a new community; it becomes part of that community. Thanks to its CARES team, which begins its work before the publication’s launch, Village Media is seen not just as a news provider, but as a community partner.

The team does things such as reaching out to local nonprofits and charities to offer them free online profiles, organising events, locating community sponsors, and coordinating initiatives like the Community Builders Awards and local fundraising drives.

“They make sure that Village is an integral part of the community, that the community understands we’re not just here to take, but we’re there to give a lot back. We want to truly execute on the mission to strengthen the communities we serve,” Elgie said.

Measuring success

Results from this model are compelling, and Elgie shared examples from some of its markets. Guelph, Ontario — a community of approximately 140,000 people — has 30,000 newsletter subscribers (just 25% of its target), and generates 3.7 million page views monthly. It is served by a staff of seven reporters. In the smaller town of Collingwood, with 22,000 people, two and a half reporters create content that generates 765,000 pageviews monthly — a 90% penetration rate.   

Following its formula for entering a community continues to prove successful for Village Media, although Elgie noted that there will be variances across markets that can affect traffic and where it finds audiences.

To ensure consistency, the company has developed playbooks and protocols outlining how it launches in a new community and how the newsroom operates.

“We now have a fairly detailed community health check process where, once a year, we do a deep dive on every one of our publications,” he explained.

This involves a two-hour meeting with the local editor who reviews various aspects, including reader surveys, non-reader surveys, analytics, peer reviews, editorial results from community advisory board meetings, business performance, and CARES team performance. The performance is gauged against target metrics, such as the 25% daily reader segment.  

“We track about 50 different variables across every community on a daily basis,” Elgie said. And that gives Village Media the insight needed to identify where improvements and investments are required in each market.

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