Village Voice Media, the publisher of 15 weekly papers and daily Web sites as city guides for major U.S. cities, including New York's Village Voice and the LA Weekly, on Monday launched a locally orientated online ad network, the Voice Local Network. The service allows publishers to market their content to local advertisers, utilizing Village Voice Media's strength in local, niche markets, Marketwire reported on Monday.

The network has begun selling advertising for New York based blogs, the Eater.com, Curbed.com and Racked.com, according to an article in AdAge.com on Monday. Other partner sites include music hub Wolfgang's Vault. The network hopes to allow similarly focused publishers to use the Village Voice's strong relationship with local advertising groups in major U.S. cities to reach ad revenue and for advertisers to reach specific target demographics.

"As other media companies struggle in the digital age, we've been able to adapt, adjust and remain successful -- and a big part of that success is our full commitment to local content and local ads," said Scott Tobias, president & COO, Village Voice Media. "We've been working the streets, merchant to merchant, for years developing personal relationships in all of our cities. Through these connections, we've developed a very high local CPM Web business, and it's a natural evolution to help other publishers tap into our network of advertisers. We're looking for high quality content publishers that reach similar audiences and want to partner with a growing national media company to help better monetize their properties. With Voice Local Network, we're aiming to help both national and local Web sites looking for hyperlocal sales representation."

Tobias, quoted the company's local advertising sales as making up 90 percent of Village Voice's online ad bracket with relationships with over 12,000 advertisers, some for more than 20 years.

"These partners have very good local content, and we have the boots on the street," he added.

"We're excited to be working with Village Voice Media on this," said Joshua Albertson, general manager of Curbed.com. "Through our network of city-based sites (Curbed, Eater, and Racked), we reach a targeted, engaged audience. It's our hope that Voice's excellent sales team can help us connect that audience to a host of new, relevant advertisers."