The New York Times reports that publishing company Condé Nast has purchased Chicago- and Brooklyn-based music website Pitchfork Media for an undisclosed sum. The sale brings one of the most influential publications of the internet era into a stable that also includes longstanding print titles such as Vanity Fair, Vogue, GQ, Wired, and The New Yorker.
According to the Times, Condé Nast's chief digital officer Fred Santarpia said the acquisition brings "a very passionate audience of millennial males into our roster." Meanwhile, Condé Nast's chief executive Bob Sauerberg said in an email to his staff that the sale "reinforces our commitment to building Condé Nast’s premium digital network, focusing on distinctive editorial voices and engaging high-value millennial audiences." Pitchfork founder and chief executive Ryan Schreiber, who began the site in 1996, had this to say about the sale:
Pitchfork is incredibly fortunate to have found in Condé Nast a team of people who share our commitment to editorial excellence. 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.
The sale includes all Pitchfork properties including quarterly print magazine The Pitchfork Review and the Chicago and Paris editions of the Pitchfork Music Festival. Here is Condé Nast's press release about the transaction via Poynter's Ben Mullin:
Women are a huge part of Pitchfork’s staff and readership. We’re totally about reaching all music fans everywhere.
— Ryan Schreiber (@ryanpitchfork) October 13, 2015
UPDATE 2: Schreiber gave Variety some background about the sale: Talks began a year ago when Condé Nast approached Pitchfork about being part of their video platform the Scene and snowballed from there when "it became increasingly clear that we had a lot of things in common." Schreiber and Pitchfork president Chris Kaskie were the only owners of the company, and this sale represents the first ever influx of outside money. Pitchfork has no plans to move out of its Brooklyn offices into Condé Nast's headquarters in lower Manhattan "at least for the next year," though Schreiber did make a comment that could be construed as a hint at future Pitchfork offices in Los Angeles and Miami:
I like following where things are happening. Now I’m splitting my time between Los Angeles and Brooklyn. And Miami has a really interesting and vibrant music scene that is making some waves. There’s a really cool grassroots thing happening there.
He also talked about the likely prospect of adding another festival and making it different from the already established Chicago and Paris events:
There are a lot of different ideas about where to do something else and how we might do something different than the other festivals that we’ve done. It’s something that is very much in the cards but we haven’t made any firm decisions on what the next city might be.
Read the full interview here.
