Business News

The Onion Announces Four Media Partnerships in Strategic Bid to Expand Print Distribution

Tuesday 26. October 2010 - The Onion, the award-winning satirical news organization, recently announced four new business partnerships in cities across the U.S. The company views these partnerships as components of a broader, strategic plan to expand its national print distribution. Four media organizations teamed up with The Onion in the past four days: Austin American-Statesman,St. Paul Pioneer Press, Wisconsin State Journal and The Denver Post.

Under the terms of each deal, The Onion maintains exclusive rights and responsibility for all creative content, while the media companies assume business management responsibilities, including advertising sales, printing and distribution.
The Onion began opening itself up to franchise and partnership opportunities over the last year as a means of expanding the paper’s distribution nationwide. The plan was to attract business partners within the eight markets where The Onion currently publishes and grow from there. This past summer, The Onion joined forces with The Chicago Tribune, making Chicago the first partnership market. Under the new arrangements, Austin, Denver-Boulder, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Madison all will become part of the new partnership program, covering six of the eight original markets.
“These new business partnerships are win-win situations,” said Steve Hannah, President and CEO of The Onion. “We get to concentrate on doing what we do best: creating award-winning comedy and pop culture content for a young, educated, conspicuously consuming audience nationally and internationally.
“Meanwhile, our partners get to add an iconic brand to their media portfolio and reach the most coveted demographic in advertising.”