THERE’S A CURIOUS case of life imitating art going on in the media world right now.
Last week, Rupert Murdoch’s son James bought Vox Media. A second generation media tycoon buying digital assets? Sounds like the plot line in Succession when Logan Roy’s son, Kendall, bought Vaulter, a slick new media start-up.
In the TV show, the acquisition doesn’t work out well for anyone. Vaulter is shut down, everyone is fired and Kendall ends up being exposed as his father’s lackey – oh, and spat on to boot. So the question is: Will Vox go the way of Vaulter, or is the similarity purely superficial?
Well, the fact versus fiction media landscapes are very different for a start. Succession’s Vaulter storyline takes place around 2019, when buzzy news outlets could just about claim to have a scalable business based on digital ads, supported by traffic from search and social distribution. How times have changed!
Since then, the economics have shifted. Platform traffic has dried up, ad budgets have migrated elsewhere and publishers have struggled to build sustainable businesses. As a result, digital news outlets don’t look as appealing to billionaires (or their sons) as they used to. Recent acquisitions make this clear. Buzzfeed just sold a 52% stake to businessman and comedian Byron Allen for $120 million (€103 million): that’s around 86% below its peak valuation. Former new media darlings like Vice, Mic, and Food52 have all recently sold at over 90% below their highest valuations. Ouch!
And while Murdoch has paid a lot for Vox – a rumoured $300 million (€258 million) – he didn’t buy the lot. Unlike Kendall Roy, he just bought the good stuff. He bought New York Magazine, which has a large online audience and 400,000 paying subscribers. He got the Vox Media Podcast Network, one of the largest US podcast publishers, which has an enviable roster of talented podcasters. Furthermore, he got vox.com. Current CEO Jim Bankoff will remain to run the acquired group.
Murdoch hasn’t taken Popsugar, the Dodo or the Verge. It’s a pick ‘n’ mix of properties that give his company, Lupa Ventures, the best assets that deliver long-term value.
“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,” crowed Murdoch in fluent Corporatese.
This indicates another difference. James Murdoch is no Kendall Roy. He’s unlikely to ever be his father’s lackey at this stage in his career. Following a prolonged legal dispute, Rupert Murdoch created a new family trust that consolidated controlling shares in Fox Corporation and News Corp under his favourite, Lachlan. James, and his sisters Prudence and Elisabeth received around $1.1 billion (€944.7 million) each to walk away and end years of litigation. So James is out of the line of succession and free to do as he pleases.
Lupa Systems seems to be building a more liberal, more modern media empire. Its holdings include MCH Group’s Art Basel, which runs high-end events; a stake in India’s leading streaming platform Jio Star; and Tribeca Enterprises, the media and entertainment company co-founded by Robert DeNiro and Jane Rosenthal. It’s a strange but influential mix.
Infrastructure of influence
From working with his father in the past, James knows that media isn’t merely a spreadsheet business. For those with deep pockets and clear vision, it can be a political instrument.
That said, James Murdoch doesn’t seem to be chasing coolness in the same way Kendall Roy was. Neither is he as antagonistic as Roy.
Roy’s tension with Vaulter CEO Lawrence Yee adds to the dramatic plot.
“I’m gonna stuff your mouth with so much money, you’re gonna shit gold figurines”, he tells Yee.
In contrast, Bankoff has described Murdoch as a “steward who gets this business extraordinarily well”.
“In the Murdochs,” he said, “we have partners who have it all – expertise, funds, and the right values.”
This isn’t exactly what Vaulter’s CEO said to Roy when he bought the company. That was more like: “You’re a bunch of bloated dinosaurs who didn’t even notice the monkeys swinging by until yesterday. Well, fuck you, daddy’s boy.”
And here’s where we get to some areas where maybe James Murdoch’s purchase of Vox is a bit like Kendall Roy’s purchase of Vaulter. No, not necessarily the daddy issues; maybe Murdoch wants to build his own media empire as two fingers to his father. Or maybe he’s just working where he’s always worked: in media.
The real similarity is that billionaires, whether real or fictional, like the look of media businesses. And the depressing truth is that every modern media business could probably do with a sugar daddy. Vox is highly unlikely to go the way of Vaulter, but no digital media company – on TV or in real life – can afford to say no when the guys with the real money come calling.
Steve Dempsey is a media and technology expert and commentator. He is also director of advocacy and communications with the Irish Cancer Society.