James Murdoch is acquiring roughly half of Vox Media, a dramatic expansion in American media for the younger son of the industry titan Rupert Murdoch.<\/p>\n
The deal includes Vox Media\u2019s podcast network as well as New York magazine, a publication once owned by Mr. Murdoch\u2019s father.<\/p>\n
Mr. Murdoch, 53, emphasized that he was not looking to acquire a \u201cdaily news business\u201d but rather wanted \u201clonger-form, thoughtful journalism that can really speak to the culture,\u201d he told The New York Times in an interview on Tuesday. \u201cWe want to create platforms where really amazing, talented people can come and do the best work of their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
The deal is the biggest acquisition for Mr. Murdoch since he and his family struck a $3.3 billion agreement<\/a> last year to resolve a painful battle over the control of its media empire, which includes Fox News and News Corporation, the parent company of The Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n Mr. Murdoch left the board of News Corporation in 2020 amid disagreement over the company\u2019s direction<\/a> and spoke out against the \u201congoing denial\u201d of climate change at some of its outlets. So is he trying to do something deliberately different from his father this time around?<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d said Mr. Murdoch, who is buying the Vox Media properties through his company, Lupa Systems. \u201cI\u2019m just trying to build a great business.\u201d He said his father\u2019s previous ownership of New York magazine held no special significance for him.<\/p>\n The deal is also a coda for an earlier era of digital publishing. Vox Media was one of a spate of digital properties, including BuzzFeed and Vice Media, that raised hundreds of millions of dollars at sky-high valuations a decade ago. But Vice has since gone bankrupt; BuzzFeed recently said it was selling<\/a> a 52 percent stake for $120 million, a small fraction of its earlier $1.7 billion valuation. Vox Media was reportedly worth about $1 billion in 2015, when it mostly encompassed websites \u2014 not a robust podcast network nor a print magazine.<\/p>\n Lupa Systems declined to disclose the price of its Vox Media deal, but people familiar with the matter said it was more than $300 million. It is expected to close in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n The new Vox Media will operate as a subsidiary within Lupa Systems \u2014 but will, ideally, according to Mr. Murdoch, also collaborate with other companies backed by Lupa Systems. Those include the parent company of Tribeca Film Festival; the owner of Art Basel; and Bodhi Tree Systems, which backs a popular streaming service in India. Mr. Murdoch and his wife, Kathryn, have separately backed news start-ups such as The Bulwark and The 19th.<\/p>\n Vox.com, an explanatory journalism outfit founded in 2014 by Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias and Melissa Bell, is also included in the sale.<\/p>\n But several other websites owned by Vox Media, including The Verge and Eater, are not. They will continue operating under a new independent company, still unnamed, and will be overseen by the company\u2019s president, Ryan Pauley.<\/p>\n Sitting beside Mr. Murdoch in Lupa Systems\u2019 sun-splashed downtown Manhattan office, Jim Bankoff, the chief executive of Vox Media, said he \u201cwanted a long-term steward\u201d who cared about innovation but also \u201cquality and ethics in journalism.\u201d He also opted to stay with the half of Vox Media devoted to \u201cmultimedia talent,\u201d now under Lupa Systems.<\/p>\n \u201cAs the present C.E.O., and the person who cares about it all, and was the architect of it all, I would say that I couldn\u2019t be more excited for both halves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Mr. Bankoff said he was proud of his company\u2019s ability to endure and grow despite technological, cultural and financial challenges like the \u201cdecimation of search traffic.\u201d For many publishers, declines in search traffic \u2014 a result of the rise of summaries generated by artificial intelligence \u2014 have taken a wrecking ball to digital advertising revenue.<\/p>\n