Hi, we’re The A.V. Club, and we’re for sale
Over the many years of its operation, The A.V. Club has been occasionally accused—often by people very angry about our opinions of Zack Snyder Batman movies—of being a bunch of corporate sellouts, pawns of that demon devil Money and the siren call of its sweet, filthy lucre. Well today, we’re happy to announce that all those caps-locked, spittle-flecked screeds have finally come true, folks: The A.V. Club is for sale, and it could be yours for the low, low price of whatever our parent company, Univision Inc., can get.
Univision—which purchased a controlling stake in Onion Inc. back in January 2016—sent an all-staff email and issued a press release about the potential sale this afternoon, announcing that it was “initiating a process to explore the sale” of the Gizmodo Media Group and Onion Inc. sites, which include Gizmodo, Jezebel, Deadspin, Lifehacker, Splinter, The Root, Kotaku, Earther, and Jalopnik, plus The Onion, ClickHole, The Takeout, and the words that you’re reading on your screen right now. The news comes shortly after a number of consultant-dictated budget (and personnel)-reducing buyouts at the GMG sites, and reports from The Daily Beast that a similar process was happening at Onion Inc. Which is to say, potential digital media moguls: We’re lean, mean, and ready to knowingly skewer and analyze the pop culture landscape… for you.
Obviously, this pitch is most especially aimed at all of the billionaires in our audience, who we have to assume are salivating at the chance to acquire 25 years of hula-hooping Peter Dinklages and comment posts where someone cheerfully yells “OF COCK!” Dear Elon: Now’s your chance, buddy! And not to add any undue pressure, but we did just hear a bunch of online trolls say that you couldn’t buy the GMG and Onion Inc., even if you wanted to, which we know couldn’t possibly influence your decision to buy. Or, hey, Bezos! You want an epic, Game Of Thrones-esque drama? Just wait until you see the Slack arguments that break out every time we have to collectively decide what to order for lunch. And Warren Buffett, Buff-man, baby: We’ve got a whole buffet of content for you to sink your teeth into over here. (Speaking of, we’d also like to assure any potential Silicon Valley billionaires out there that the entire staff of The A.V. Club is filled to the brim with delicious, life-giving blood, and none-too-attached to it, wink.)
But regardless of where our corporate fortunes might end up, we here at The A.V. Club remain confident that there’s a workable place in the online ecosystem for smart, funny, thoughtful examinations of the movies, music, TV shows, games, books, and everything else that drives our pop culture passions. This site is driven by love—not just of art, but of the conversations and feelings that art spawns—and you’d have to be some sort of goddamn fucking morons not to be able to make money off of that.