The Onion Unbound!

After over a decade pumping out parody news, The Onion is finally going for the gusto and offering a premium subscription option. For $30/year ($7/mo.) subscribers will get access to archives, and new features like games, webpages, and such.



This is very exciting for two reasons:

1) The Onion has done what it's done extremely well, but it's been fanatically unambitious. The opportunity to expand beyond the fake news story is an opportunity for them to really show what they can do. I can't wait--some really great brains there, probably the best staff since the early days of The National Lampoon.

2) Paid circulation is the "adult table," and here's where we find out whether The Onion is a flash-in-the-pan (albeit a very bright one), or the humor institution The National Lampoon should've become. The Onion's business model has always been rather suspect as a base for anything more than an overgrown college paper. The free-paper-plus-internet model can sell books and ancillary stuff, but it hasn't launched a single national institution that I can think of (is the Village Voice on YOUR local newsstand?). As I'm always reminding the students at Yale, readers are nice, but somebody has to fork over the dough. Historically, the humor magazines that have thrived have done so by single-copy newsstand sales; but the internet does change the game, and this new model smells right to me.



My fingers are crossed--and even more importantly, I'll open my wallet, too.



Also: I can't find it online, but The Daily Telegraph had a big article on the rise of parody in the UK--with pics of Barry and quotes from me. I'll post it when I find it.