We rate this acquisition an 8.7.
Condé Nast, the media giant that owns Vogue, Vanity Fair, Wired and The New Yorker, announced Tuesday that it has acquired Pitchfork Media, the 20-year old online music publication that came to rival more established print outlets like Rolling Stone among younger readers.
Terms of the acquisition were not immediately disclosed.
“Pitchfork is a distinguished digital property that brings a strong editorial voice, an enthusiastic and young audience, a growing video platform and a thriving events business,” Bob Sauerberg, president and CEO of Condé Nast, said in a statement announcing the acquisition.
Fred Santarpia, the Conde Nast executive who handled the acquisition, explained the reasoning more bluntly in an interview with The New York Times: It's about attracting "millennial males," a group that is apparently underrepresented in Conde Nast's mix of legacy brands and women's publications.
Conde Nast has acquired a handful of new media operations over the years including Ars Technica, the technology news publication, and Reddit, the popular and sometimes controversial social news service.
Pitchfork was founded in the early days of the dot com era 1995 by Ryan Schreiber, then a 19-year-old record store clerk and music aficionado. The site gradually established itself as the arbiter of cool with edgy writing, super precise reviews on a 10-point scale and a focus on the full breadth of new music rather than simply rehashing the latest Bob Dylan albums.
Pitchfork has since moved into print with a quarterly magazine and launched multiple music festivals. More recently it expanded its reach beyond music with the launch of a movie review site called The Dissolve. That effort was shuttered this summer.
“Pitchfork is incredibly fortunate to have found in Condé Nast a team of people who share our commitment to editorial excellence,” Schreiber said in a statement. “Their belief in what we do, combined with their additional expertise and resources, will allow us to extend our coverage of the artists and stories that shape the music landscape on every platform."
I can't imagine a more insufferable dinner party than one hosted by Conde Nast and Pitchfork Media— John DeVore (@JohnDeVore) October 13, 2015
conde nast acquires goths— Brandon Stosuy (@brandonstosuy) October 13, 2015