Sean Mills doesn’t get upset when people look at his product and laugh. In fact, sometimes he can’t keep a straight face himself.
After a particularly long day last month working on the launch of a new Twin Cities edition of his wacky weekly, The Onion, publisher Mills glanced at the latest copy of the paper and broke into a smile. The headline read, “Devious Rabbit Tricks Bush Into Signing Gun Ban.”
“You have these hard days, and then you have those ‘ah-ha’ moments that remind you that you work at The Onion and the product you sell is like nothing else out there,” said Mills, 31. “We are huge believers in satire, but kidding aside, this comes down to marketing and advertising, just like any other business.”
The move into Minneapolis-St. Paul marks The Onion’s first new market since its editorial staff relocated from Madison to Manhattan in mid-2001. Yet if Mills has his way, it won’t be the last.
The Onion started a Milwaukee edition in 1994 and did the same in Chicago four years later. The newspaper also is localized for Madison, Boulder, Colo., Denver, and New York City.
By early 2006, Mills would like to expand to San Francisco, Boston and Austin, Texas. Further ahead lie Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Ann Arbor, Mich.
Those lofty goals are likely to be the free tabloid’s greatest challenge in its history. Other publications with an eye for satire, such as National Lampoon and Spy, were unable to sustain their initial popularity.
“The Onion began as this small, avant-garde publication, and if they do anything to lose that feel, say getting too big or too flashy, they could lose their readership,” said Melissa Pordy, an independent media consultant. “They have to be very strategic.”
The inside scoop
Looking for a little levity in this political season? Drop by The Rainbo Club (1150 N. Damen Ave.) on Monday evening to hear John Krewson, a writer and founding staff member of The Onion, talk about political satire.
Krewson will be at the club from 7 to 9 p.m., and a suggested $5 donation will benefit the Independent Press Association of Chicago.
– – –
The old days
A lot has changed since The Onion was first published in 1989 by two University of Wisconsin-Madison students on notebook-sized paper with advertising that consisted of coupons for draft beer and pizza deliveries.
These days, the lampoon distributes 320,000 copies a week. Publisher Sean Mills says each are read by at least three people, producing a total “pass-along” rate of roughly 1 million. The Web site, he says, receives about 3.6 million unique visitors a month.
At The Onion’s offices in a former warehouse on the west edge of Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, Mills oversees a national ad group as well as teams of between two and six reps in each of its six markets. A world apart though sharing the same office space, The Onion’s 11-person editorial staff occupies small and mostly paper-strewn cubicles covered with news clippings.
Though The Onion is based in New York City, advertising and entertainment listings give it the feel of a local publication. In each city, one Onion staffer writes music reviews and assembles listings of local cultural events.
–Tribune
Political charm
Part of The Onion’s charm is that it’s political without being stridently partial, says Tom Stolfi, a New York media consultant.
Publisher Sean Mills likes to trumpet the newspaper’s claim that “we’re not anti-Left, we’re not anti-Right, we’re anti-dumb.” For that reason, two Onion staffers went outside the company to publish a political spoof on the Bush administration called “Citizen You.”
With the presidential race well under way and Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” and Michael Moore of “Fahrenheit 9/11” enjoying wide appeal, Mills is confident that parody, political or otherwise, has a bright future.
Ultimately, he said, the company’s long-term prospects rest on its ability to expand The Onion brand. Early next year, that brand may receive its biggest boost ever when David Zucker, producer of “Naked Gun,” debuts “The Onion Major Motion Picture,” a project of Fox Searchlight.
–Tribune
———-
Edited by Lara Weber (lweber@tribune.com) and Drew Sottardi (dsottardi@tribune.com)
