No Joke: Univision Buys Big Stake in The Onion

Here’s a media deal so out there it could almost be in The Onion: Spanish-language broadcast network Univision is making a major investment in, well, The Onion.

Univision’s digital arm is becoming a minority investor in Onion Inc., the company behind the satirical news site as well as properties such as ClickHole (which parodies the viral web) and StarWipe (which pokes fun at celebrity gossip coverage), Univision announced Tuesday. It will have a 40% stake, USA Today and the New York Times report.

Univision partnered with Disney-owned ABC in 2013 to launch the website Fusion, and in 2015 the company acquired the The Root, a website aimed at black audiences.

“Comedy is playing an expanding role in our culture as a vehicle for audiences to explore, debate, and understand the important ideas of our time,” Isaac Lee, CEO of Fusion and the chief news and digital officer of Univision, said in a statement. “It has also proven to be an incredibly engaging format for millennial audiences, and is expected to play a key part in the 2016 presidential election process via our robust content offerings in Spanish and English.”