[firstworldman]

Well, first of all, these kinds of things are really just insider baseball, aren't they? I don't think most readers of magazines are interested in or knowledgeable about the portfolio of the magazine publisher. So the influence is primarily on people involved in the industry. But secondly, as the other commenter points out, being associated with The New Yorker is something that just about any journalistic enterprise would die for.

I suspect the web will eventually cannibalize GQ (not because it's bad, but because it's not specific enough), but The New Yorker will outlive us all.