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The A.V. Club is an entertainment website affiliated with The Onion. Originally a print publication, it features reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its parent publication, The A.V. Club is not satirical.
The A.V. Club is based in Chicago.[1]
In 1993, five years after the founding of The Onion at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, UW student Stephen Thompson launched an entertainment section, later renamed The A.V. Club as part of the newspaper's 1995 redesign. (The name references "The Audio-Visual Club"). While the section was initially viewed as an afterthought to the publication's flagship fake news stories, Thompson credited it as becoming "very important" in allowing The Onion to expand distribution nationwide, as it was easier to sell advertising next to movie reviews and concert listings than satirical news items.
Both The Onion and The A.V. Club made their Internet debut in 1996, although not all print features were immediately available online. The A.V. Club website was redesigned in 2005 to incorporate blogs and reader comments. In 2006, concurrent with another redesign, the site shifted its model to begin adding content on a daily rather than weekly basis.
In December 2004, Stephen Thompson left his position as founding editor of The A.V. Club.[2]
According to then Onion president Sean Mills, the A.V. Club website received over one million unique visitors for the first time in October 2007.[3] In late 2009, the site was reported as receiving over 1.4 million unique visitors and 75,000 comments per month.[1]
On December 9, 2010, it was discovered that a capsule review for the book Genius, Isolated: The Life And Art Of Alex Toth had been fabricated; the book had not yet been published or even completed by the authors.[4] The offending review was removed from The A.V. Club, and editor Keith Phipps posted an apology on the site.[5]
At its peak the printed version of The A.V. Club was available in 17 different cities.[6] Localized sections of the website were also maintained with reviews and news relevant to specific cities. The print version and localized websites were gradually discontinued alongside the print version of The Onion and, in December 2013, publication ceased in the final three markets.[7]
On December 13, 2012, long-time writer & editor Keith Phipps—who oversaw the development of the site for eight years after Stephen Thompson left—stepped down from his role as editor of The A.V. Club stating, "Onion Inc. and I have come to a mutual parting of the ways."[8][9][10]
On April 2, 2013, longtime film editor and critic Scott Tobias stepped down from his role as film editor of The A.V. Club stating, "After 15 great years @theavclub, I step down as Film Editor next Friday."[8]
On April 26, 2013, it was announced that longtime writers Nathan Rabin, Tasha Robinson and Genevieve Koski would also be leaving the site to begin work on a new project alongside Scott Tobias and Keith Phipps,[11] with Genevieve Koski stating on her Twitter that she'd continue to write freelance articles.[12] In the comments section of the article announcing the departures, writer Noel Murray also announced he would also be joining their project but would continue to contribute to The A.V. Club in a reduced capacity.[11] On May 30, 2013, it was announced that the six writers would be a part of the senior staff of The Dissolve, a film website run by Pitchfork Media.[13]
In 2014, senior staff writers Kyle Ryan, Sonia Saraiya, and Todd VanDerWerff left the site for positions at Entertainment Weekly, Salon and Vox Media, respectively.[14][15]
The formerly available print version included subsections containing local content such as event previews and dining guides and comics such as Postage Stamp Comics by Shannon Wheeler and Wondermark by David Malki.
In 2002, The A.V. Club released a collection of 68 interviews that had been featured in previous issues, entitled The Tenacity Of The Cockroach: Conversations With Entertainment's Most Enduring Outsiders (2002, ISBN 1-4000-4724-2).
On 13 October 2009, the second A.V. Club book, Inventory: 16 Films Featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls, 10 Great Songs Nearly Ruined by Saxophone, and 100 More Obsessively Specific Pop-Culture Lists (2009, ISBN 1-4165-9473-6) was released, featuring a combination of never-before-published lists and material already available on the AV Club website.
The A.V. Club released My Year of Flops: The A.V. Club Presents One Man's Journey Deep into the Heart of Cinematic Failure (2010, ISBN 1-4391-5312-4) on 19 October 2010. The book consists of entries taken from the site's recurring My Year of Flops column along with new material not previously available. It is A.V. Clubs first release credited to a single author, Nathan Rabin.
The A.V. Club began publishing website consensus year-end album and film lists beginning in 2006. Before that year (starting in 1999), only individual writers' lists were published. Lists for individual writers continue to be published alongside the website consensus list.
New York City, United States, American Civil War, Hawaii, Western United States
Jay Z, GOOD Music, Rihanna, Chicago, U2
Oclc, Chicago, Barack Obama, Madison, Wisconsin, Wikinews
Ontario, Quebec City, Quebec, Ottawa, Aboriginal peoples in Canada
The A.V. Club, John Ridley, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Pitchfork Media, Louie (TV series), Charles Scribner's Sons
Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová, Los Angeles Times, Falling Slowly, The A.V. Club
Werner Herzog, Errol Morris, Medan, North Sumatra, The Village Voice
Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Jonathan Demme, Jenny Lumet, Debra Winger
Modern Family, Frasier, All in the Family, 30 Rock, Cheers
Justin Timberlake, Aaron Sorkin, David Fincher, Mark Zuckerberg, Ben Mezrich