The Onion Rings In L.A. Edition With Local Sections, Advertising

0

Should a responsible journalist take a press release from the Onion seriously? Recently the humor paper famous for its stories about non-existent subjects peppered with made-up quotes from fictitious sources circulated an announcement that it would start a Los Angeles edition this month.


Everything inside the Onion may be bogus, but several L.A. newsstand sightings have confirmed that the expansion plan is legit. Law enforcement should heed the warning of Editor-in-Chief Scott Dikkers when he declares: “We hope that every commuter in L.A. will read the Onion every day while driving.”


The weekly will appear in more than 1,200 retail locations including restaurants, bars, gyms and music stores. In addition, the paper will have 100 street boxes concentrated in Hollywood, West Hollywood, Santa Monica, Venice, Silver Lake, Echo Park, Los Feliz and surrounding the UCLA and USC campuses. The Onion distributes for free every Thursday officially, although it often reaches the newsstands by Wednesday afternoon.


Besides the main section of the paper, which duplicates the editorial content of the Onion in seven other cities, the L.A. edition has two sections of local interest. The A.V. Club section has reviews of films, music, television, books, video games and DVDs. The column Hater looks at the ridiculous side of celebrity news. Another section focuses on the local scene with nightlife listings and cultural events.


The Onion accepts both local and national advertising. Nationally, more than 4 million people read theOnion.com each month, while more than 3 million read it in print. According to Rob Bedell, sales manager for the Los Angeles edition, a buy in the Onion delivers an audience with an average age in the early 30s with at least a college education and often an advanced degree.


“We describe our audience as over-educated, overpaid money-squandering fools, and they enjoy being called that,” Bedell said. “Everyone really wants to join that demographic.”


Local ads can appear anywhere in the paper, depending on what works best for the advertiser, according to Bedell. The Los Angeles edition starts with a circulation of 50,000.



Auto Buff TV


OctaneTV, a new Video-on-Demand channel for auto enthusiasts, has launched with a network of 22 million screens. That number includes all Comcast and Time Warner VoD homes, broadband (at www.OctaneTV.com), and mobile. The channel expects to be available on 40 million screens by early 2007.


Ripe Digital Entertainment, the Los Angeles-based company behind OctaneTV, specializes in short-form “attention-deficit friendly” television, according to the company. It consists of shows lasting five to 15 minutes, providing viewers exactly the type of high-impact visual stimulation they want. Advertising figures in the programming in ways that discourage fast-forwarding or skipping to avoid commercials.


“There’s a huge audience for automotive lifestyle programming currently underrepresented in the marketplace,” said Ryan Magnussen, chief executive of Ripe Digital. “We’ve got programs for the Import Tuner, the ‘Fast and Furious’ crowd, such as ‘Hot Import Nights.’ There’s ‘Racing Beat’ for the racing enthusiast. We have a show with Travis Pastrana doing his motorcycle back flips for the first time. Viewers want this programming and advertisers are hungry for the venue as well.”


Advertisers for the OctaneTV launch include Dodge, Craftsman and Cingular. Audience tracking will come from Rentrak for VoD, Webside Story for broadband, and various mobile carriers for phone traffic.



Radio Deportes Rules


Less than one year after switching to the ESPN Deportes Radio format, KWKW-AM (1330) ranks fifth among all AM stations in the Los Angeles market. The Spanish-language talk broadcaster earned a 1.2 share and posted 50 percent more audience than its closest Spanish-language competitor, according to the Spring 2006 Arbitron book.


In its primary demographic of men 25-54, the station has advanced from fourth place to first place among Spanish-language AM stations. During the two Arbitron periods (Winter 2005, Spring 2006) since ESPN Deportes Radio has been on the air in Los Angeles, the station’s audience has grown 120 percent among men over age 18.


“During my tenure of more than 20 years with Spanish-language radio in Los Angeles, I have never seen an AM format change that produced such robust results so rapidly,” said Jim Kalmeson, president of Lotus Communications and KWKW. “Nobody expected us to surpass music stations in our target demographic.”


ESPN Desportes Radio, owned by the Burbank-based Walt Disney Co., offers a 24-7 sports talk format heavy on soccer. Its biggest on-air personalities are soccer play-by-play veteran Jorge Ramos and baseball aficionado Armando Talavera.



News & Notes


Subscribers will be getting the Los Angeles Times without the TV Times, the local TV listings that slip inside the Sunday newspaper unless they really want it. Starting September 30, subscribers must request the TV schedule by telephone to receive it. TV Times will continue as a free supplement for requesters. The move comes on the heels of other cost-cutting announcements at the Times.


Michael Abrams will serve as president of Live Nation Studios, the music-recording unit of Los Angeles-based concert producer Live Nation Inc. Since starting in 2003, the operation has sold more than 250,000 CDs and digital downloads of concert music. In his new job, Abrams will re-wire 120 Live Nation venues and festival sites to make them live recording studios.


Apparently quality and success can co-exist in TV news. In May, KCBS-TV (Channel 2) announced it had won the late-news ratings battle for the first time since the 1970s. On August 12, the CBS affiliate and sister station KCAL-TV (Channel 9) won eight Emmys for their joint news operation. By itself, KCBS took home an additional three trophies and KCAL another five.



Staff reporter Joel Russell can be reached at (323) 549-5225, ext. 237, or at

[email protected]

.

No posts to display