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No more pies – Shiny Media seeks buyer for football blog Whoateallthepies

Posted: 03/09/08 By: Judith Townend

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Blog publisher Shiny Media has pulled football site Whoateallthepies.tv in its current form, its editor announced today.

Ollie Irish said the blog would no longer exist in the same format, as published by Shiny.

"I won't go into the reasons why - I'm just the editor, and the decision was not mine - but fans of the site will be happy to know that Pies may still have a future, so watch the web for more news on that," he wrote.

After summing up what he will miss, and what he is thankful for, he left the following message for readers: "Writing for a site like Pies is not much fun without feedback, and you did us proud. Cheers to you."

Irish, former deputy editor of The Observer’s Sport Monthly magazine and editor of Stuff magazine, said he will continue blogging at Gridcrasher.com.

Whoateallthepies.tv is the latest of the commercial blogs to feel the pinch with the exit of Messy Media’s two blog titles in July.

The company is looking for a buyer for Whoateallthepies.tv and will try and keep some activity on the site until they do, Chris Price, managing director of Shiny Media, told Journalism.co.uk.

"Pies is very strong editorially, but I don’t think its any secret that sport is very hard to monetise," said Price.

While Shiny could carry on subsidising the site, he said, 'it's a constant struggle to get advertisers interested'.

Instead the publisher will concentrate on its fashion, technology and lifestyle blogs, which are a commercial success, he added.

The end of Pies follows the departure of Shiny Media co-founder Ashley Norris last month. In an article for TechCrunchUK, Norris compared the ‘depressingly different’ situation for blog publishers in the UK with the success of publishers in the US.

"There have been several attempts to develop a UK-based blog network (Mink Media, Blog Nation and Messy Media are the most high profile) but many have crashed just months after their launch," he wrote.

Shiny Media co-founders Katie Lee and Chris Price responded here to Norris’ view of the industry.

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