{"podcast":{"title":"Channels with Peter Kafka","slug":"channels-with-peter-kafka-487706","podcast_index_feed_id":487706,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/recodemedia","website_url":"http://podcasts.voxmedia.com/show/channels-with-peter-kafka","image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/e4384094-e69c-11e8-8066-d3e055e78c28/image/c9e40c7e1baaea55eee29ba9541579b7.png?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"Vox Media Podcast Network","episode_count":598,"summary":"Media and tech aren’t just intersecting — they’re fully intertwined. And to understand how those worlds work, and what they mean for you, veteran journalist Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers - and gets them to spell it out in plain, BS-free English. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.","last_synced_at":"2026-09-02T20:20:06.224097+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/channels-with-peter-kafka-487706"},"episode":{"title":"Vox Media's Jim Bankoff Explains Why He's Selling to James Murdoch","slug":"vox-media-s-jim-bankoff-explains-why-he-s-selling-to-james-murdoch","published_at":"2026-05-20T20:18:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/channels-with-peter-kafka-487706/vox-media-s-jim-bankoff-explains-why-he-s-selling-to-james-murdoch","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/channels-with-peter-kafka-487706","url":"https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/pscrb.fm/rss/p/mgln.ai/e/257/traffic.megaphone.fm/VMP5889222567.mp3?updated=1779308656","audio_url":"https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/pscrb.fm/rss/p/mgln.ai/e/257/traffic.megaphone.fm/VMP5889222567.mp3?updated=1779308656","summary":"Jim Bankoff has spent nearly 20 years building Vox Media. Now he’s selling a big chunk of it to James Murdoch, who is acquiring Vox Media's Podcast Network - the same one that produces this podcast - along with New York Magazine and Vox.com. We do all the disclosures at the top of this interview, but let’s do it all here too: I’ve worked for Jim for a long time, and I work with the podcast network he’s selling, and I just like him as a human. So this one’s way more conflicted than a standard Channels chat.Still, I have some straight-ahead questions for him. Like: What does it mean when multiple buyers were interested in his podcast business, but much less interested in the rest of the portfolio he’s been assembling for years? What changes for the properties Murdoch acquires? And why is Jim staying on to work for Murdoch, when he can almost certainly do something else? And, because it’s Channels, we also gaze backwards a bit, and poke at some of the steps and missteps Vox Media took along the way. But if you’re looking for a wake for a digital media startup, this isn’t it. Jim is very optimistic about what comes next, and I have a vested interest in him being right. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices","meta_description":"Jim Bankoff has spent nearly 20 years building Vox Media. Now he’s selling a big chunk of it to James Murdoch, who is acquiring Vox Media's Podcast Networ…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1738,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/channels-with-peter-kafka-487706/episodes/vox-media-s-jim-bankoff-explains-why-he-s-selling-to-james-murdoch/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/channels-with-peter-kafka-487706/vox-media-s-jim-bankoff-explains-why-he-s-selling-to-james-murdoch.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}