Vox Media Signs Three-Year Deal to Sell Ads for The Bulwark's Podcasts, Video and Live Events

Vox Media will become the exclusive advertising seller for The Bulwark's podcasts, videos, newsletters and live events under a three-year deal announced Nov. 11, 2026. The companies say the combined lineup will give the Vox Media Podcast Network nearly 200 hours of original current affairs programming a month starting in 2027.

Nov 12, 2026 - 15:18

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Vox Media will become the exclusive advertising seller for The Bulwark under a three-year advertising sales and marketing deal, Axios reported on Tuesday, Nov. 10, citing executives at both companies. The partnership, formally announced by Vox Media on Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2026, covers The Bulwark's podcasts, videos, newsletters and live events, and the two companies said the combined lineup will give the Vox Media Podcast Network nearly 200 hours of original current affairs programming each month starting in 2027.

According to the Vox Media announcement, the company will host The Bulwark's podcasts on its advertising platform. Axios reported that Vox Media will also support The Bulwark with analytics, cross-promotion and marketing across its network, while The Bulwark will continue to handle its own production. Vox Media will receive a share of advertising revenue, chair and CEO Jim Bankoff confirmed to Axios, but the companies declined to disclose financial terms. Barrett Media reported that neither company disclosed how advertising revenue will be shared.

The shows joining the network

The Bulwark programs named in the Vox Media release are The Bulwark Daily with Tim Miller, The Focus Group with Sarah Longwell, The Next Level with Miller, Longwell and Jonathan V. Last, Psycho Politics with George Conway, and Receipts with Catherine Rampell. They will sit alongside Vox Media current affairs shows including Stay Tuned with former Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, High Stakes with Hillary Clinton and Kara Swisher, Hacks on Tap with David Axelrod and Mike Murphy, and Today, Explained with Noel King and Sean Rameswaram, among others, the release said.

Vox Media described the arrangement as creating "the largest and most influential slate of current affairs programming," and said its sales team will represent an audience that includes "top decision makers in government and public affairs." Inside Radio reported that the deal gives Vox Media's advertising operation a much larger presence in current affairs programming as the 2028 presidential election approaches, a timeline TheWrap also cited.

The companies plan to expand into live event sponsorship in 2027 and beyond. The Vox Media release said that effort will build on The Bulwark's live tour program, Longwell's tour supporting her book How to Eat an Elephant: One Voter at a Time, and Vox Media's live tours for Pivot and Prof G Markets.

The Bulwark's growth and revenue

The Bulwark, which Axios said launched in 2019, has grown into a multimillion-dollar media business. TheWrap described it as an outlet founded by conservatives opposed to Donald Trump that has expanded from a political commentary website into a producer of podcasts, newsletters, video and live events. According to the Vox Media release, The Bulwark has doubled in size year over year, its podcasts have recorded 92 million audio downloads so far in 2026, and its YouTube channel has drawn 1.4 billion views since 2018, with 8 million unique viewers each month. The company's team has grown more than 120% in the past year, the release said.

Longwell told Axios that The Bulwark is on track to exceed $30 million in revenue this year, split roughly evenly between advertising and subscriptions. Axios reported that the company has about 167,000 paid subscriptions, including 147,000 on Substack, roughly 15,000 on YouTube and about 5,000 on Apple, along with more than 1 million free Substack newsletter subscribers and nearly 2 million free YouTube subscribers.

Longwell told Axios the company's inventory has been undermonetized and that building its own advertising sales operation "was more than we wanted to take on." She said a more sophisticated advertising strategy would help keep much of its content free. "You can't save democracy from behind a paywall," she said, as quoted by Axios. She also told the outlet she has no current plans to sell the company.

In the joint announcement, Longwell said, "We became one of the largest and fastest-growing media companies in the country by focusing relentlessly on building community." She added that the company is "excited to partner with them as we look ahead to this next chapter of our growth in a post-blue-tsunami America."

From Cumulus to Vox Media

The Bulwark previously sold podcast advertising through a deal with Cumulus Media, Inside Radio reported. Cumulus announced in February 2022 that The Bulwark's podcasts had joined the Cumulus Podcast Network, under an agreement in which Cumulus would monetize, market and distribute all existing and forthcoming Bulwark podcasts, according to a Cumulus Media release at the time.

The new agreement comes months after a change in Vox Media's ownership. The Hollywood Reporter reported in May that James Murdoch's Lupa Systems had acquired New York magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network and Vox.com, with terms undisclosed and The New York Times putting the value at more than $300 million. TheWrap reported that the acquisition was completed four months before the Bulwark announcement, and that the businesses now operate under the Vox Media name with Bankoff as CEO. Axios noted that The Bulwark is also backed by Murdoch through Quadrivium, the family foundation he runs with his wife, Kathryn; Longwell told Axios that investors are a "super small part of our portfolio."

Bankoff told Axios that "The Bulwark represents a big leap forward" for Vox Media's network, which Axios said has mainly served creators and well-known individuals such as Swisher, Clinton, Esther Perel and Sue Bird. "We've always been a curated network," Bankoff said, adding that Vox Media wants "partners that have a quality threshold that really matters to marketers." In the release, he said, "I've greatly admired what The Bulwark has built, and couldn't be happier to team up with them to accelerate growth."