DoJ approves Village Voice/New Times merger

No surprise there. Here is the text of the note that David Schneiderman of Village Voice Media sent to CP publisher Mark Bartel around noon today:

I am pleased to inform you that the Department [of] Justice has approved our merger with New Times. We expect to close in about a month or so. The work on integrating the two companies will accelerate, but we will still be functioning as separate entities until the closing.

Elsewhere, Chuck Taylor writes in the Seattle Weekly that the FTC posted the announcement that there would be no DoJ challenge to the merger last Wednesday, November 23, to little fanfare.