James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems is in advanced negotiations to buy Vox Media-owned New York magazine and the company’s podcast network, in a move that would put one of the Murdoch family’s best-known names back near a magazine once owned by his father. The reported that the deal could still fall apart.
The talks center on a property with deep Murdoch history. Rupert Murdoch seized New York magazine in a hostile takeover in 1976 and sold his magazine holdings in 1991. Bruce Wasserstein later bought the title in 2004 for $55 million, and Pam Wasserstein was chief executive of New York Media before the company sold to Vox Media in 2019. That sale brought in the flagship magazine and the Vulture pop-culture site.
For Lupa, the discussions would extend a media portfolio that already reaches beyond publishing. The firm owns a controlling stake in Tribeca Enterprises and a 49% stake in MCH Group, which runs the global Art Basel fairs. It also previously held a stake in Vice Media Group, though a post-bankruptcy sale of Vice to a consortium of former lenders wiped out the value of other shareholders, including Lupa.
The deal talk lands at a moment when Vox Media has been testing the market for parts of its audio business. In March, reported that Versant Media was in early talks to buy Vox Media’s podcast portfolio. Vox’s slate includes more than 40 original podcasts, among them Pivot, Pretty Tough, Stay Tuned With Preet, Waveform: The MKBHD Podcast, Brené Brown’s The Curiosity Shop and The Downside With Gianmarco Soresi.
The timing also carries family weight. In September 2025, the Murdoch family announced a settlement of a long-running legal dispute, with Lachlan Murdoch buying out the stakes of James Murdoch, Prudence MacLeod and Elisabeth Murdoch. Each of the three other children received about $1.1 billion in the deal. James Murdoch served as chief executive of 21st Century Fox from 2015 to 2019 and resigned from the News Corp board in 2020 over disagreements over certain editorial content published by the company’s news outlets.
Vox Media declined to comment on the talks, and representatives for Lupa did not respond to a request for comment. The magazine and podcast package now appears to be in play, but the question is whether the parties can close before the market, or the deal itself, changes again.
