Top editorial staff at the Chicago-based A.V. Club, a sister publication to The Onion, are exiting the entertainment website en masse after refusing a mandatory relocation to new offices in Los Angeles.
The seven employees, including the managing editor, TV editor and film editor, all gave the West Coast move the thumbs-down by a Jan. 15 deadline imposed by the A.V. Club’s owner, New York-based G/O Media.
“It really was a decision based on our commitment to Chicago and to the Midwestern roots of the A.V. Club, and how that informs what we value in this work and what we believe to be the guiding principles of the website,” said Managing Editor Erik Adams, 36.
Founded in 1993, the A.V. Club started in Madison, Wisconsin, as an entertainment supplement to satirical newspaper The Onion. The A.V. Club has been based in Chicago since 2007, developing a large following on its own for incisive entertainment reviews and pop culture coverage. It preceded the arrival of The Onion, which moved its editorial operations from New York to Chicago in 2012 under previous owners — and over the protests of some staffers.
Moving the A.V. Club to Los Angeles has been in the works for two years, but was delayed by the disruption of the pandemic, according to Mark Neschis, a spokesman for G/O Media. In September, the company hired Los Angeles-based media veteran Scott Robson as the A.V. Club’s new editor-in-chief.
Last month, G/O Media notified the seven Chicago-based staffers that they would have until Jan. 15 to commit to relocating to Los Angeles or lose their jobs. The Los Angeles office is expected to open early this year, Neschis said.
“This relocation will bring the A.V. Club closer to the industry it covers, allowing the site to grow its entertainment relationships while providing more access to important events and talent,” Neschis said in an emailed statement.
G/O Media, which is owned by Boston-based private equity firm Great Hill Partners, acquired The Onion, A.V. Club and other digital sites from Spanish language broadcaster Univision for an undisclosed price in 2019. Since then, the company has locked horns several times with the Writers Guild of America, East, the union representing editorial staffers at its portfolio of websites.
In October 2019, Deadspin, the irreverent sports website, was all but shut down by a mass exodus of more than 20 New York-based writers and editors who resigned in protest over the editorial direction under its new owners, G/O Media. After a monthslong standoff with the union, G/O Media announced it was relocating Deadspin to Chicago, where it relaunched in March 2020 under the same roof as The Onion.
The union has likewise challenged the decision to relocate the A.V. Club, claiming G/O Media did not offer salary increases to the Chicago employees to compensate for a higher cost of living in Los Angeles.
“We are deeply disappointed that G/O Media refused to address the A.V. Club employees’ legitimate concerns about paying Los Angeles expenses on Chicago salaries,” Lowell Peterson, executive director of the Writers Guild of America, East, said in an emailed statement. “Seven very talented journalists, people who built the brand and crafted the content people loved, are now unemployed, and the company has deprived itself of their work.”
The union also questioned the timing of a forced move during a pandemic, especially when many business are operating remotely.
The combined Chicago office at 730 N. Franklin St. is home to about 70 employees of the G/O Media websites, Neschis said. But the offices, like many businesses, have been closed during much of the pandemic, and are currently shuttered by the omicron variant surge.
The A.V. Club has 18 employees between Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, Neschis said. But Chicago is home to the core editorial group that has shaped and guided the A.V. Club in recent years.
Adams has been with the A.V. Club for more than a decade, focusing on TV coverage and rising to managing editor in 2019. A new father, he wasn’t prepared to uproot his family and will stay on with the website from his North Center home through May 1 before receiving 14 weeks of severance pay, he said.
In addition to Adams, the Chicago staffers leaving the A.V. Club include Film Editor A.A. Dowd; TV Editor Danette Chavez; and Associate Editor Laura Adamczyk. Four of the employees including Adams have agreed to stay on until May 1, while three will stay through March 1 as the editorial locus shifts westward, Neschis said.
All of the exiting Chicago employees will receive severance packages per the A.V. Club’s labor agreement with G/O Media, union spokesman Jason Gordon said.
While G/O Media plans to hire new editorial talent to replace the Chicago seven, re-creating the Midwestern sensibilities that defined the A.V. Club’s unique take on the entertainment industry may be harder, Adams said.
“We have been able to be honest, and unmerciful in our criticism, because we are doing it here from Chicago,” Adams said. “We are doing it from the perspective of people who don’t have to worry about running into directors or show runners or actors. When we loved something, we really loved it. And when we didn’t like it, we didn’t pull our punches.”
