$200 million dollars is usually no laughing matter. But when we’re talking about
, the Chicago-based torchbearer for online satirical news and videos, just about everything’s a matter of laughter.
This week, The Onion sold a 40 percent, controlling stake in the company to Los Angeles-based Univision Communications, which owns the country’s largest broadcasting channel for Spanish speakers. According to the New York Times, who spoke with someone close to the deal, the transaction reportedly wore a price tag close to $200 million. No joke.
Terms were not officially disclosed.
That 40 percent stake covers the company’s flagship satire news site, The Onion, as well as spin-offs like The A.V. Club (an online pop culture destination), Clickhole (which parodies viral social media content) and StarWipe (a celebrity gossip site with tongue, well, cemented in cheek).
With controlling stake, Univision now has the capacity to buy The Onion outright.
The Onion, which launched in 1988 out of Madison, Wis., originally ran offline as a weekly publication. Since then, it’s amassed a sizable virtual empire, large enough to support a total departure from its ink-and-paper efforts in 2013.
Univision, of course, is a dominating force in Spanish language television. The deal just about doubles the company’s already impressive online presence: according to the New York Times (who cited data from comScore), Univision drew in 9.5 million unique visitors in the U.S. in December. The Onion and sites under its umbrella saw 19.3 million visitors in that same period.
According to some pundits, the move to buy The Onion is an effort to position Univision subsidiaries as a viable media outlet for younger, bilingual Latino consumers who are increasingly interested in consuming media in English.
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