About Oak Bay News

Oak Bay News

Overview

The Oak Bay News is a weekly community newspaper serving the District of Oak Bay, a residential municipality on the southern tip of Vancouver Island immediately east of Victoria, British Columbia. Published by Black Press Ltd., it covers district council business, neighbourhood issues, schools, sports and community life in a municipality of fewer than 18,000 people. The paper appears in print on Thursdays and publishes continuously online at oakbaynews.com, where its masthead promotes breaking news around the clock.

The Oak Bay News belongs to Black Press's Greater Victoria group of community papers, alongside titles that include the Victoria News and the Saanich News. The group's papers share a group publisher and a Victoria production base, but each keeps its own nameplate, its own editorial page and its own hyperlocal focus. For Oak Bay, that focus is unusually concentrated: the district is almost entirely residential, and the paper's coverage — council debates over housing and heritage, recreation programming, school news, and a heavy volume of letters from engaged residents — reflects the community it serves.

History

The District of Oak Bay's own archives record the paper's lineage under an earlier name: the municipality's local history reference files list the title as "Oak Bay News – Black Press, formerly Oak Bay Star," documenting its succession from the Oak Bay Star. The paper has long been part of the Black Press community-newspaper group and operates from the group's Victoria offices.

Under Black Press the paper has combined its weekly news edition with special publications. At the 2022 Ma Murray Awards, presented by the British Columbia and Yukon Community Newspaper Association, the Oak Bay News team of Susan Lundy, Michelle Gjerde, Lily Chan and Dale Naftel took second place in the Special Publications Award category for publications under 10,000 circulation, for the winter edition of TWEED Magazine, a magazine produced by the Oak Bay News. The paper is a member of the National NewsMedia Council, the industry body that deals with complaints about journalistic standards and ethics.

The paper's recent history is also the history of its parent company. Black Press filed for protection under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act on 15 January 2024, and on 25 March 2024 the sale of the company to Canso Investment Counsel, Deans Knight Capital Management and Carpenter Media Group was completed. Black Press emerged from the CCAA process Canadian-controlled under chief executive officer Glenn Rogers, with founder David H. Black retiring. The Oak Bay News published through the transition without interruption, and its Thursday editions appear in the publisher's digital edition archive through 2025 and into 2026.

Programming and Content

The Oak Bay News is built around municipal and neighbourhood coverage of the district: Oak Bay council meetings and committee decisions, planning and development applications, police and fire services, road and infrastructure work, and the programs of the district's recreation services. School coverage spans the district's public schools and its well-known private schools, and sports coverage follows local teams and athletes from community leagues to provincial competition.

The opinion pages are a central feature of the paper. Its "Our View" editorials comment on matters of direct local concern — examples include a January 2023 editorial on property assessment swings across the Capital Region and a September 2025 editorial marking the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation — and the paper actively invites reader response. Letters must be kept to less than 350 words, anonymous letters are not published, and the paper reserves the right to edit letters for style, legality, length and taste; letters are sent to the newsroom at newsroom@oakbaynews.com. The opinion pages also carry syndicated columns from Black Press writers.

A standing reader feature, Community Camera, publishes photographs submitted by residents; a September 2025 edition, for example, featured a reader's photograph of two orcas offshore of Willows Beach, the district's best-known waterfront, and readers are invited to send high-resolution photographs to the newsroom. The paper also carries community announcements, arts and events coverage, and display and classified advertising from Oak Bay and Victoria businesses. A news hotline, 250-480-3278, invites anyone who sees news happening to call the newsroom.

Audience and Reach

The paper's market is the District of Oak Bay, a district municipality incorporated in 1906 that covers 10.52 square kilometres within the Capital Regional District. The 2021 Census counted 17,990 residents, a density of about 1,710 people per square kilometre. It is a prosperous and notably older community: the median household income recorded in 2021 was $107,000, and 34.2 per cent of residents were over the age of 64. The district is governed by an elected mayor and council — Kevin Murdoch serves as mayor — whose decisions on housing density, heritage conservation, trees and municipal services are the paper's staple coverage.

Within Black Press, circulation for the Oak Bay News is administered together with its Greater Victoria sister papers: the print masthead directs circulation enquiries to circulation@saanichnews.com, an address shared with the Saanich News. The paper's audience extends beyond the district's boundaries online, where oakbaynews.com is read across the wider Greater Victoria area and by former residents following news from home.

Digital Presence

The paper's website, oakbaynews.com, publishes news between print editions and carries the paper's local coverage as it develops; stories dated February 2026 on the site include coverage of an Oak Bay grocery business, Red Barn Market, marking its tenth anniversary. Print editions are preserved in Black Press's digital page archive, where Thursday editions of the Oak Bay News from 2025 and from January through March 2026 can be read page by page, including the editorial and opinion pages; the archive also holds the paper's editions from earlier years, including its January 2023 opinion pages. The Oak Bay News sits within the Black Press digital network alongside its Greater Victoria sister titles, sharing the group's online presentation and advertising systems while keeping its own Oak Bay-branded website and sections.

Ownership and Organisation

The Oak Bay News is published by Black Press Ltd. from 818 Broughton Street, Victoria, BC V8W 1E4, the group's Greater Victoria base. The paper's masthead in February 2026 listed Michelle Cabana as group publisher and Laura Cross as publisher, with Janet Gairdner as managing editor. Its multimedia journalists at that time were Megan Trudeau, Christine van Reeuwyk, Olivier Laurin and Liam Razzell, and its advertising consultant was Peyton Seltenrich.

Black Press was founded in 1975 by David H. Black, who built the company from the purchase of the Williams Lake Tribune into one of Canada's largest community-newspaper publishers, employing approximately 1,200 people across its Canadian and U.S. divisions. After the company's CCAA filing on 15 January 2024, ownership passed on 25 March 2024 to Canso Investment Counsel, Deans Knight Capital Management and Carpenter Media Group. The company emerged from creditor protection Canadian-controlled, Glenn Rogers serves as chief executive officer, and David Black retired at the time of the sale.

Contact and Availability

The Oak Bay News is published weekly on Thursdays in print and continuously online at oakbaynews.com. It is published by Black Press Ltd., 818 Broughton Street, Victoria, BC V8W 1E4. Readers with news tips can call the news hotline at 250-480-3278 or email the newsroom at newsroom@oakbaynews.com; letters to the editor, kept under 350 words and signed, go to the same address. As a member of the National NewsMedia Council, the paper operates under the council's framework for handling complaints about editorial content. Advertising is handled through the paper's Black Press advertising staff in Victoria.