A hyperlocal online media company with sites in 41 communities in Fairfield County CT—including New Canaan—and Westchester County NY has closed 11 sites in Massachusetts, according to The MetroWest Daily News March 4.
The network of online news sites, originally called Main Street Connect, was the brainchild of Carll Tucker, former publisher of Trader Publications. Its flagship weekly was the Patent Trader of northern Westchester. Tucker sold the company to Gannett in 1999. The Journal News shut the weekly down several years later.
Tucker started Main Street Connect with the Daily Norwalk in 2010. The plan was to expand into a national network of hyperlocal news sites. There are 41 Daily Voice sites in Westchester and Fairfield counties.
On March 4, the Daily Voice laid off 11 editorial and sales staffers in Massachusetts, The MetroWest Daily News reported:
Daily Voice Board of Directors Chairman and interim CEO Carll Tucker Monday said the company closed the sites in hopes of turning a profit this year.
"We were very close and unfortunately we couldn't do it with our friends in Massachusetts," he said.
Tucker said the company plans to focus on its websites in Westchester County, New York, and Fairfield County in Connecticut, which have a combined 41 sites.
An article by Jerrod Ferrari in The Hour citing former Daily Voice employee Mark Chapman, reported at least three people were let go from the company's Norwalk location. In Westchester, at least eight people were laid off.
Daily Voice CEO Zohar Yardeni, profiled in this January 2013 article on hyperlocal news by StreetFight, resigned March 1, The MetroWest Daily News reported.
