But Santarpia’s quote reveals that Pitchfork’s value to Conde Nast—at least in part—lies not in its ability to reach “all music fans” but rather a very particular segment of them that indeed includes an outsized portion of the publication’s audience. In 2012, the site ran a poll of readers asking about their favorite music to be released in the 15 years that Pitchfork had existed; 88 percent of respondents were male (and perhaps not incidentally, so were most of the poll winners). Traffic statistics by Quantcast—imprecise as they may be—say that men make up 82 percent of the site’s visitors, and that a majority of readers are between the ages of 18 and 34.

This is a group of people that has been of particular concern to ad-supported media companies like Conde Nast in recent years. The 2014 Nielsen report The Men, the Myths, the Legends: Why Millennial “Dudes” Might Be More Receptive to Marketing Than We Thought opened with a new industry stereotype: “Millennial males are, in theory, elusive creatures. They’re commonly thought of as cord cutters who can’t be—and don’t want to be—reached.” But it went on to explain that while Millennial men were watching less TV than other demographic groups and had otherwise shifted their consumption habits in comparison to previous generations, advertisers could still reach them. One of the top observations seems particularly relevant in light of the Pitchfork news:

Millennial men are also heavy music listeners. Eighty-eight percent of all Millennial males in the U.S. listen to radio each week, spending more time than their female counterparts tuned in (11 hours and 42 minutes vs. 10 hours and 46 minutes). They also show greater interest in personalized streaming audio services—think Spotify or Pandora—than other demographics.

Conde Nast’s Details, GQ, Wired, and Reddit, theoretically, already reach many of these young men. But Santarpia’s quote indicates that the company would like to reach more of them. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Pitchfork will be pushed back towards catering more to male readers (the site’s press release touted its continued editorial “integrity”), and it doesn’t even mean that Conde Nast won’t be interested in the site’s female readership. But it does serve as a reminder that larger discussions around pop culture aren’t always in sync with the business practices shaping pop culture. The day’s other big media news contains the same lesson. To hear Playboy tell it, the magazine didn’t nix its nudity because of feminist criticism for how it commodified bodies; it did it because online pornography made its photos less exciting to the kind of people who used to subscribe. In other words, it changed because of the spending habits of some of the same men that Conde Nast just paid to reach.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.