The A.V. Club

The A.V. Club is an entertainment website covering television, film, music, games, anime and books. By its own account it “began in the back pages of satirical newspaper The Onion in 1993” and grew into a separate title.

Ownership

Paste Media acquired The A.V. Club in 2024. The site describes itself as “part of the Paste Media family of sites — including Paste Magazine, Jezebel with Splinter.” Its masthead lists Danette Chavez as editor-in-chief, Erik Adams as senior TV editor, Jacob Oller as film editor, Drew Gillis as news editor and Monica Castillo as film critic.

Coverage

The site publishes criticism and recaps alongside entertainment-industry news, and runs a newsletter and reader comment sections, which it describes as a part of the publication it actively maintains.

Sourcing Note

The g-o-media ownership connection was wrong and has been corrected: the site’s own about page states that Paste Media acquired it in 2024. The clickhole sister-brand connection is removed — the two titles no longer share an owner. Also removed as unsourceable: the reach line “millions of monthly readers”; the claim that the site “closely follows writers’, actors’, and animation union negotiations”; the assertion that it analyses “how copyright law, media consolidation, and content moderation influence creative expression”; the list of podcasts, festival panels and trivia nights; and the closing claim that it “bridge[s] entertainment and civic dialogue.” None of these appear on any page that could be fetched.