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SATIRICAL NEWS SITE The Onion – known for headlines like ‘World Death Rate Holding Steady at 100 Percent’ – has been valued at half a billion dollars, more than most of the news outlets it exists to mock.
The biggest Spanish-language broadcaster in the US, Univision Communications, announced it has taken a 40% and controlling stake in the The Onion for $200 million (€183 million).
The deal, which also includes sister sites The A.V. Club and ClickHole, values the 28-year-old publisher, which started as a newspaper from two college students in Wisconsin, at $500 million (€458 million).
Univision has already been dabbling in online media, last year buying The Root – a site targeted at African-American readers – as it chases a broader audience.
The Onion / Twitter"Um. I’ll be out in a sec! Oh, I shouldn’t have eaten such spicy food!" https://t.co/oulWeDvbCb pic.twitter.com/dfSf7FDi5v
— The Onion (@TheOnion) January 20, 2016
Goodbye print, hello clicks
The Onion, which bills itself as ‘America’s Finest News Source’, ditched print for good in late 2013 and now scores more than 23 million unique visitors to its stable of sites from around the world each month, according to Quantcast.
That remains a fraction of the estimated 170 million-plus visitors to new media darling Buzzfeed, which was valued at $1.5 billion last year after an investment from NBCUniversal.
However to put the sky-high valuations in context, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos snapped up the venerable Washington Post for only $250 million (€229 million at today’s rates) in 2013. The Boston Globe fetched just $70 million the same year.
Last year, the 128-year-old Financial Times fetched £844 million (€1.1 billion today) when it was snapped up by Japanese publisher Nikkei.
Meanwhile, it was business as usual at The Onion, where the top headline this morning read:
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I’d say the guys in Waterford Whispers news are waiting on an offer to be made. 2 great sites that are guaranteed to make you laugh.
WW at least equal in terms of quality, despite being lightyears apart in terms of resources.
WW.
‘VIEWERS watching a report on RTÉ last night were left outraged after it was revealed some social welfare claimants were actually living the high life in Dublin city hotels.’
It no suprise that it worth more than so called real news sites as the real news sites produce mostly fiction nowdays as investigative journo is dead and they only write what they are told to
Love Whispers, Cadbury’s hummmm….
Some may not understand it’s apeel, but it never fails to make me cry laughing with it’s cutting edge humour.
0.5 Bn – How is this not a bubble? So what it’s a website – at this point almost everybody must have evolved peripheral vision blinders to ignore all ads.
Or use adblockers. I think anyone who actually produces something at this stage is worth money as far as these investors are concerned. Original content is valued, which is nice for the creative types I suppose.
WW humour is spot on for Ireland, it’s a good channel to reach a savvy market
I unfollowed the onion some time ago. I found the humor was not as good as Waterford whispers, daily mash or even Viz.
It had too many layers and was not appealing to you, it can bring tears to your eyes sometimes lol.
Kudos to the Onion. Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well. Pursue excellence and success naturally follow. http://www.nigerianscoop.com
Some can be very funny, others can be bad…
have your say