Industry News
At one point the world’s most visited online snow sports portal, OnTheSnow.com (owned by Vail Resort’s Mountain News Corp) announced over the weekend that they will be shutting their site, as of July 13th, 2020.
Ski and snowboard enthusiasts from around the world:
We have been proud to provide you with free access to snow reports, resort guides, and more, and we are beyond grateful for your readership and contributions to our community over the years.
Unfortunately given the changing media landscape, Mountain News Corporation has experienced financial declines in recent years. With additional economic challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic now facing our business, it is not financially viable to continue operating.
Mountain News Corporation and our OnTheSnow and Skiinfo websites will stop operating on July 13, 2020. We will explore the possibility of selling, partnering, or contributing assets to another media outlet if there is an opportunity to allow for a consistent or enhanced online experience. For inquiries about Mountain News Corporation, please email Feedback_OTS@mountainnews.com.
We want to thank our loyal employees for their tireless work over the years to bring great information to all of you. We take comfort knowing that our collective passion for the sport of skiing and snowboarding will certainly live on.
We’ll see you on the mountain.
According to Snow Industry News, “the operations of MNC, including editorial content, will be maintained separate and independent from Vail Resorts’ mountain resorts and lodging and real estate businesses.”
In 2010 Vail Resorts acquired California based ‘Mountain News Corp’, which at that time operated the world’s most visited online snow sports portal, OnTheSnow.com. OnTheSnow.com featured snow reports for more than 2,000 ski and snowboard resorts around the world, along with live resort webcams, video, resort information and news, vacation packages and deals, user-generated resort reviews, and a comprehensive ski and snowboard gear guide. Through their global platform, they reached skiers and snowboarders in five markets around the world, including the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Europe (U.K., Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Norway, France, Sweden, Italy, and Benelux) and the South Pacific (Australia & New Zealand).
MNC is the top provider of snow reports to more than 1,200 web sites throughout the world, including approximately 400 news media websites. The Company’s pre-produced radio snow reports are delivered to affiliate stations in 17 radio networks and 800 stations across the country. In addition to their snow reports and website, OnTheSnow.com publishes and delivers a weekly e-mail newsletter to its database of more than 250,000 subscribers worldwide.
According to the Nielsen Audit & Demographic Study in January 2010, OnTheSnow.com is used by more snow sports enthusiasts to research and plan their ski and ride vacation than any other online source with more than 2.2 million unique visits per month during peak periods. The website logged more than 2.8 million user sessions and over 12.5 million page impressions, with 4.44 average page impressions per user session. OnTheSnow.com was the most visited snow sports web site as measured by Experian Hitwise in January 2010.
