The Onion might be fake news, but it is a very real business and one that will now be co-owned by Univision.
Univision, which specializes in programming for Hispanic audiences in the U.S., announced today that its digital group is now a minority investor in Onion Inc. The company includes The Onion, the most popular satirical news site in the U.S. The Onion has more that 25 million monthly unique readers and Univision hopes to tap into that audience.
Onion Inc. will continue to operate independently, but Univision Digital will work with The Onion to develop new opportunities online.
“Comedy is playing an expanding role in our culture as a vehicle for audiences to explore, debate, and understand the important ideas of our time,” Isaac Lee, chief news and digital officer of Univision and Fusion CEO, said in a statement. “It has also proven to be an incredibly engaging format for millennial audiences, and is expected to play a key part in the 2016 presidential election process via our robust content offerings in Spanish and English.”
Lee added that The Onion is “a leading force of this phenomenon of intellectual, social, cultural and satirical commentary online.”
As USA Today notes, The Onion began as a newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin in 1988. Its staff will stay in Chicago. Their most recent success is ClickHole, a site that mocks clickbait.
Today’s deal gives Univision a 40 percent stake in The Onion and does have the option of completely buying it.