James Murdoch is purchasing roughly half of Vox Media, including the digital media titan’s sprawling podcast network, eponymous website and New York magazine.
The more than $300 million acquisition, according to the New York Times, was made through his investment company Lupa Systems. Vox Media CEO Jim Bankoff will remain the portfolio’s leader once the acquisition closes, which the company estimates will take about four to six weeks. LionTree advised Vox Media on the sale.
“This acquisition aligns well with our existing holdings and investments and reflects both our interest in the forward edge of culture and our deep commitment to ambitious journalism and agenda-setting conversations,” Murdoch said in a statement. “It will allow us to apply new tools across the businesses we are building, adding substantial production, distribution, and editorial capability to our group.”
Murdoch’s acquisition — roughly 50 years after his father, the conservative media titan Rupert Murdoch, first purchased New York before selling it in 1991 — helps cap the last decade’s rise and fall of high-value digital media outlets, many of which reached market valuations of up to and over $1 billion only to sell years later.
G/O Media collected outlets such as Gizmodo, the Root and the Onion, but sold them off over the last several years. Businessman Byron Allen last week purchased a controlling stake in BuzzFeed for $120 million, down from its $1.7 billion peak valuation in 2016. Vox Media was reportedly worth $1 billion in 2015, though it was then comprised mostly of websites. It purchased New York magazine in 2019.
The purchase will see the network’s roughly 40 podcasts, including Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway’s “Pivot” and its explainer series “Today, Explained,” sit alongside Lupa Systems’ holdings such as Art Basel and Tribeca Enterprises, which produces the Tribeca Film Festival.
The purchase will not include outlets such as The Verge, Eater, SB Nation, Popsugar and the Dodo. Those outlets will retain their editorial leaders and be folded into a new independent company led by Ryan Pauley, currently Vox Media’s president.
“I couldn’t be more thrilled to partner with James and Lupa Systems,” Bankoff said in a statement. “Each one of these Vox Media divisions is marked by its strong relevance with audiences, its commitment to quality, and its enormous growth potential. We are incredibly proud to have built and scaled several of the leading media properties of this generation. Together under Lupa’s stewardship we are primed to be the best home for talent and the most dynamic media company of this new era.”
Bankoff told staffers in a memo on Wednesday that the arrangement will allow both companies, and their suite of brands, “to lead and prosper in the changing media landscape.”
“Accomplishing what we have together with you and so many others has been the greatest source of pride and joy of my career,” Bankoff wrote, according to the New York Times. “Performance and teamwork at the highest levels with so many talented, motivated and kind people is what defines us. At this pivotal milestone, I’d like to express my enormous gratitude to all of you for all you’ve contributed to bring us to this moment.”
Versant, the parent company of MS NOW and CNBC, reportedly considered purchasing Vox Media’s podcast network, though CEO Mark Lazarus told Business Insider that Bankoff wanted to “maximize return” on the company’s assets beyond the podcasting network — such as Vox.com and New York.
Murdoch’s interest in the deal was first reported earlier this month.
