About Viet Times

Viet Times

Viet Times is a free Vietnamese community newspaper serving Melbourne, Victoria — in print and online. Published as the Viet Times Weekly, it is the free Vietnamese community print and online newspaper of Melbourne: the real-estate, food, education, car-guide, and classifieds paper of the Vietnamese-Australian community, distributed through the community's heartland suburbs of Springvale, Footscray, St Albans, Sunshine, and Richmond.

Overview

Viet Times is the newspaper of Melbourne's Vietnamese community — one of the largest Vietnamese diasporas in the world, centred on Springvale and Richmond in the south-east, and Footscray, Sunshine, and St Albans in the west. The community's story is the paper's story: the refugees of the late 1970s and 1980s, the family-reunion migrants, the second generation, the international students — the Vietnamese-Australian journey from the boat decks to the professions, chronicled in the community's own language. The paper is free: the community's print and online newspaper, carrying the real-estate listings, the restaurant guides, the education advertising, the car guides, and the classifieds (raovat) that serve the community's daily life. The free model is the ethnic press's compact with its readers: the paper costs nothing, the advertisers pay, and the community gets its news — the Vietnamese-Australian marketplace and noticeboard in one.

The paper operates online at vtimes.com.au — "Vietnamese Newspaper in Melbourne - Vietnamese Local Print and Online Newspaper Advertising | Bao Viet tai Uc - Tin tuc nuoc Uc" (Vietnamese news in Australia — Australian news). The site's keywords map the community paper's world: real estate, feng shui (phong thuy), horoscopes (tu vi), classifieds, Vietnamese media, tabloid, online radio, Magazine 168, Adpro Media, overseas study (du hoc), scholarships (hoc bong).

History

Viet Times is part of the Vietnamese-Australian ethnic press — the newspapers that have served the community since the refugee arrivals of the late 1970s and 1980s. Melbourne's Vietnamese community — built by the boat people and the family-reunion migrants, now one of the city's great multicultural communities — sustains a Vietnamese-language media ecology: newspapers, magazines, radio, and online platforms.

The community's geography is the paper's distribution map. Springvale — the south-east's Vietnamese capital, the Springvale Road shopping strip with its restaurants, grocers, and professional services — is the community's commercial heart. Richmond's Victoria Street was the original Vietnamese precinct, the first port of call for the refugee arrivals. Footscray, Sunshine, and St Albans are the west's Vietnamese heartlands — the suburbs where the community put down its deepest roots. The Tet (Lunar New Year) festivals — Springvale's and Richmond's — are the community's great public celebrations, and the Vietnamese press is their chronicler.

The Viet Times Weekly is the print edition: the free Vietnamese community tabloid distributed through the community's suburbs — Springvale (the south-east's Vietnamese capital, the Springvale Road shopping strip), Richmond (Victoria Street, the original Vietnamese precinct), Footscray, Sunshine, and St Albans (the west's Vietnamese heartlands). The print weekly is the community's paper in hand: the real-estate pages, the restaurant guides, the classifieds — the Vietnamese-Australian marketplace in newsprint. The paper's online platform — vtimes.com.au — extends the weekly beyond print: the in-depth coverage and analysis of current events, politics, business, and cultural developments across Australia, aimed at keeping the Vietnamese-Australian reader informed and engaged. The online platform is the daily habit: the Australian news in Vietnamese, the community's digital front page, the print weekly's online extension.

The paper is associated with Adpro Media and Magazine 168 — the Vietnamese-language media stable behind the print and online titles — and with Vietnamese online radio: the community's audio as well as its print. The stable's model is the ethnic press's classic: the free print weekly supported by community advertising — the real-estate agents, the migration agents, the education providers, the car dealers, the restaurants — and the online platform extending the reach to the Vietnamese-Australian reader wherever they are.

The community the paper serves is one of Australia's great migration stories: the refugees who arrived with nothing and built the businesses of Springvale Road and Victoria Street; the second generation in the professions; the international students (du hoc) who are the community's newest arrivals. The paper's keywords — overseas study, scholarships, feng shui, horoscopes — map the community's concerns: the education aspirations, the cultural traditions, the daily practicalities of Vietnamese-Australian life.

Content

Viet Times provides Vietnamese-language news and community information for Melbourne's Vietnamese community. Its coverage spans:

• Community news: the Vietnamese-Australian community's news — the community organisations, the temples and churches, the cultural events, and the district's life, from the Tet festivals to the community association announcements.
• Australian news: current events, politics, and business across Australia — "tin tuc nuoc Uc" (Australian news) for the Vietnamese reader, the mainstream agenda in the community's language.
• Real estate: the property listings serving the community's home-buyers and investors — the Springvale and Footscray markets, the community's property pages, the agents who speak the community's language.
• Lifestyle: food, education, cars, feng shui, horoscopes — the lifestyle journalism of the community paper, from the restaurant reviews to the property guides, the community's consumer life in print.
• Classifieds: the raovat — the community's buy-and-sell, jobs, and services marketplace, the Vietnamese-language trading post that has served the community since the print era.
• Magazine 168: the Vietnamese magazine stable's lifestyle content — the glossy companion to the weekly tabloid, the community's magazine as well as its newspaper.

Coverage & Audience

Viet Times is a free weekly newspaper serving Melbourne's Vietnamese community — Springvale, Footscray, St Albans, Sunshine, Richmond, and the Vietnamese-Australian suburbs — in Vietnamese, in print and online. The weekly rhythm is the community's heartbeat: the free paper that arrives with the week's news — the community announcements, the Australian agenda, the classifieds — the Vietnamese voice of Melbourne, in print and on screen. Its audience is the Vietnamese-Australian community — the families of the south-east and west, the business owners, the students, and the elders — who rely on the paper for the community news, Australian news, and classifieds that connect the diaspora. For the elders, the print weekly is the familiar paper; for the young, the online platform is the daily habit. Together they are the community's media: the Vietnamese voice of Melbourne, free to every reader — the paper of the diaspora's past, present, and future, in print and online.

Ownership

Viet Times is published within the Adpro Media stable — the Vietnamese-language media group behind the Viet Times Weekly, Magazine 168, and the community's online radio. The group's details are those of the ethnic press: the independent community publisher serving Melbourne's Vietnamese diaspora — the print weekly, the magazine, and the audio, the community's complete media.

Digital Presence

The paper operates online at vtimes.com.au — "Vietnamese Newspaper in Melbourne - Vietnamese Local Print and Online Newspaper Advertising | Bao Viet tai Uc - Tin tuc nuoc Uc" — the site's title mapping the paper's world: the Vietnamese newspaper in Melbourne, the local print and online advertising, the Vietnamese news in Australia. The site's keywords — real estate, feng shui, horoscopes, classifieds, Vietnamese media, tabloid, online radio, Magazine 168, Adpro Media, overseas study, scholarships — are the community paper's table of contents.

For Melbourne's Vietnamese community, Viet Times is the free community paper — the weekly of Springvale and Footscray, Richmond and Sunshine: the real-estate and raovat paper, the Australian-news-in-Vietnamese paper, the community's own voice in print and online, free to every reader, every week, without fail.