The Onion takes its satire to TV
TEXT OF STORY
JEREMY HOBSON: Well, not every publication sees the news the same way. If you check the satirical website of The Onion today one of the top stories is quote: “snowy conditions proving hazardous for nation’s idiots.” unquote.
They spoke with this fictional driver who got into a fender bender.
FICTIONAL DRIVER: It was too cold to scrape off the windshield and I really wanted a super shlush. I don’t know what else I was supposed to do?
Well the Onion is lauching a sports satire TV show tonight on Comedy Central — right before The Daily Show.
Marketplace’s Jennifer Collins looks at how The Onion might fare on the air.
Jennifer Collins: Think ESPN “SportsCenter,” but with an Onion twist.
Clip from “SportsDome”: SportsDome’s coming your way and you won’t even believe all the sports we’ve got in here. We’ve got baseball, we’ve got football and I’m totally blanking on the other sports.
Along with “SportsDome,” The Onion’s launching a news parody show on another channel next week. The Onion brings in over 7 million online visitors a month. Its print circulation has suffered, though, as waning ad revenue forced it to close operations in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Ed Atorino is a media analyst with the Benchmark Company.
Ed Atorino: They’re obviously trying to find a new market, a new way to make money.
Brad Adgate of Horizon Media says the Onion’s likely TV viewers will be attractive to advertisers.
Brad Adgate: What’s so appealing about their audience is that it’s young. It’s very popular on college campuses, it’s very popular with young adults.
So maybe it’s no surprise that a recent headline on the Onion.com says: the Federal Communications Commission will be fining Americans who fail to keep up with television shows.
I’m Jennifer Collins for Marketplace.
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