Suzanne Sena, as Brooke Alvarez, is pitch-perfect in her role on "Onion News Network."

Fans of The Onion have watched with interest as the company has expanded in recent years.  They've proven particularly adept at using technology to their advantage. 

They were an early player to the web, launching the enormously popular website they update daily today.  Their radio feature, "Onion Radio News," became an early radio podcast.  But one area that a lot of people have been watching carefully is their video play, which launched as a video podcast in March of 2007.

Launching a cast of characters over the course of the last four years, the Onion News Network has proven to be as rich and hilarious as its print cousin, but offering a send up of a different type of news, that of the flashy graphics and hyper-sensationalized cable news.

This month, two new programs launched: "Onion SportsDome" on Comedy Central, and "Onion News Network" on IFC. The former sends up SportsCenter at a pitch-perfect level; the latter has the feel of a program like "The Situation Room." Both parodies are both immensely faithful to their source material and particularly biting; a running bit on SportsDome about a teenager's quest to set the record for masturbation was just as absurd, and amusing, as ONN Factzone's coverage of a reporter who was suffering in a torture chamber without her hair and make-up people, causing her to look particularly disheveled.

Of the two, the ONN "FactZone," which features Brooke Alvarez, a character played by an actual former reporter from Fox News, Suzanne Sena, shows the most promise.  It has a richer history of ONN to mine, able to weave in clips from other ONN programs, like the popular "Today Now," which in the premiere had a particularly harsh, and hilarious, treatment of a teenager who was saved by a firefighter who lost his life; the entire time they guilted her while asking their audience if she should have died instead of the firefighter.

ONN also plays around with the touchscreen idea, with a secondary character, Tucker Hope, who doesn't seem as promising as the Alvarez character, who is equally scathing with her viewers who point out factual errors as the hot blonde entertainment reporter who risks stealing her sunshine.

SportsDome has its own features, like "The Pile On," where analysts yell over another analyst trying to make his point as a team of analysts yell over him; and "OSN Girlfriends," which feature the girlfriends of athletes attempting to talk about sports, despite not knowing anything.  Both jokes seem a little thinner than their ONN counterparts.

Both shows have a lot of promise, but will have to push beyond their premises with a bit of character development; The Onion hasn't shied away from giving their characters colorful histories, so they should be up for the challenge.  Both series have 10-week runs; SportsDome airs Tuesdays at 10:30 p.m. on Comedy Central; ONN airs Fridays at 10 p.m. on IFC.

Tags: 2011, 38-02, LATE JANUARY