NEW YORK — Lupa Systems — a media and technology holding company owned by James Murdoch, son of Rupert Murdoch — has agreed to acquire New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and Vox from the digital media group Vox Media. The properties will operate as a subsidiary of Lupa Systems called Vox Media. Eater, Popsugar, SB Nation, The Dodo, and The Verge are not included in the transaction
The deal is worth a reported $300 million. New York magazine continues to be published bi-weekly and was launched in April 1968 by editor Clay Felker and was acquired by Vox Media in 2019. A print and digital subscription to New York magazine costs $100 per year.
“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,” said James Murdoch. “It will allow us to apply new tools across the businesses we are building, adding substantial production, distribution, and editorial capability to our group.”
Lupa’s acquisition of New York Magazine includes its blogs, The Cut, Vulture, Intelligencer, The Strategist, Curbed, and Grub Street. Vox brings multiplatform leadership in video, text, and podcasts like Today, Explained. The Vox Media Podcast Network, home to popular shows such as Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway, Criminal, and Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel, has been the fastest growing business within Vox Media and will immediately put Lupa at the top of the podcast field, which now reaches 58% of Americans monthly, according to Edison Research, including two out of three people between the ages of 18 and 54.
The new Vox Media will be led by Jim Bankoff, who co-founded Vox Media and has led its growth since its early days as a network of a dozen grassroots sports blogs. He will be CEO of the new company upon closing. “I couldn’t be more thrilled to partner with James and Lupa Systems. 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,” said Jim Bankoff.
Lupa’s acquisition of the Vox Media properties brings together two groups that place a premium on being at the center of the cultural conversation. Lupa’s holdings include MCH Group’s Art Basel, which sets the global art agenda at its annual events in Paris, Basel, Miami, Hong Kong, and Doha and Tribeca Enterprises, the media and entertainment company co-founded by Robert DeNiro and Jane Rosenthal. Through Bodhi Tree Systems, Lupa also holds a material stake in India’s leading streaming entertainment and sports platform, JioStar with viewership of over 750M.
James Murdoch has deep experience in media, having served as CEO of 21st Century Fox, as well as Europe’s BSkyB and Sky plc. Before that, he was CEO of Asia’s Star TV, which he built out into one of the region’s top news, sports and entertainment franchises. Since founding Lupa, James Murdoch has partnered with Uday Shankar to create Bodhi Tree Systems, which houses media and consumer businesses in South Asia, with a particular focus on India’s robust market. He and his wife, Kathryn have invested more than $50 million through their foundation Quadrivium in support of better journalism, including founding SciLine, a service that connects journalists to scientific expertise, and the American Journalism Project, which supports local journalism with better business models. They were also founding investors in The Bulwark.
