By Tali Arbel, Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --The Spanish-language broadcaster Univision is buying a stake in the owner of satirical website The Onion, in what may be considered a serious grab for younger viewers.
"I'm happy to announce that we've just finished a deal with what might at first seem like an unusual partner: Univision," wrote Onion Inc. CEO Mike McAvoy in a memo to employees. He said Univision has acquired "a good chunk" of Onion Inc. as of today, and may acquire the remainder down the line.
Once solely comedic enterprises have earned younger audiences who rely on them as a news source.
The Pew Research Center found that 12 percent of Americans cited "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central as the place where they got their news, with that number skewing heavily toward younger viewers.
While The Onion veers well outside of news boundaries, its preposterous articles regularly involve politics, health care and science.
Univision says it sees comedy as crucial in covering news for young people, particularly with the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
Univision Communications Inc. said Tuesday that it is a minority investor. Univision spokeswoman Rosemary Mercedes and Onion spokeswoman Lauren Pulte both declined to specify the size of Univision's investment.
There is a scramble by TV networks for younger viewers and their spending dollars. Disney, the owner of ABC, Disney and ESPN, has invested in digital video network Vice, which is getting its own U.S. TV channel; Comcast's NBCUniversal has put money into online content and news hubs BuzzFeed and Vox.
And it isn't Univision's first digital foray. The company, which last summer filed to go public amid declines in TV ratings, in 2015 bought The Root, a news and opinion site aimed at African-Americans, and launched a digital video site, Flama, aimed at English-speaking young Hispanics in 2014.
Onion Inc. scuttled its print version, and today also includes pop-culture site The A.V. Club; ClickHole, a swipe at viral-stories generator BuzzFeed; and Onion Labs, an ad agency. McAvoy says it has been searching for a year for a "partner" to help it grow. Univision says it will have oversight of Onion Inc., but the company will operate independently.
Sean “Diddy” Combs seeks bail, citing changed circumstances and new evidence
Sean "Diddy" Combs filed a new request for bail on Friday, saying changed circumstances, along with new evidence, mean the hip-hop mogul should be allowed to prepare for a May trial from outside jail.
Lawyers for Combs filed the request in Manhattan federal court, where his previous requests for bail have been rejected by two judges since his September arrest on racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges.
He has pleaded not guilty to charges that he coerced and abused women for years with help from a network of associates and employees, while silencing victims through blackmail and violence, including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings.
He has been awaiting a May 5 trial at a federal detention facility in Brooklyn.
In their new court filing, lawyers for Combs say they are proposing a "far more robust" bail package that would subject the entertainer to strict around-the-clock security monitoring and near-total restrictions on his ability to contact anyone but his lawyers. But the amount of money they attach to the package remains $50 million, as they proposed before.
They also cite new evidence that they say "makes clear that the government's case is thin." That evidence, the lawyers said, refutes the government's claim that a March 2016 video showing Combs physically assaulting his then-girlfriend occurred during a coerced "freak off," a sexually driven event described in the indictment against Combs.
They wrote that the encounter was instead "a minutes-long glimpse into a complex but decade-long consensual relationship" between Combs and his then-girlfriend.
The lawyers argued that the jail conditions Combs is experiencing at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn violate his constitutional... Read More