The fallout from the announced closure of the Pajamas Media blog advertising network has turned soured, not helped by a CEO who claims the company provided bloggers welfare.

CEO Roger L. Simon, not taking the negative reaction well, lashed out at complaining bloggers (via Donklephant):

Actually that part of our business has been losing money from the beginning, so the people getting their quarterly checks from PJM were getting a form of stipend from us in the hopes that advertisers would start to cotton to blogs and we could possibly make a profit. Didn’t happen. No wonder those people are kicking and screaming now that they are off the dole. I might too. [What's their beef? I thought most of them were free marketeer libertarians or something.-ed. Go figure.]

Emphasis is mine, but it’s the key line.

Dan Collins at Protein Wisdom responds:

Here’s the thing, Roger: you never once told us that the blog network you kept insisting was the next great thing “has been losing money from the beginning” — at least, not to our faces, and certainly not in any way that would suggest that you were carrying us like welfare recipients.
And really, if that was truly the case, why not let us know and offer us a chance out of contracts rather than blow sunshine up our asses? And don’t tell me you were keeping us on out of the goodness of your heart, either. Because there’s simply no way a big businessman like you would feel the tug of conscience. It’s all about the bottom line, after all.

The fact is, Roger, not everyone was given millions of dollars of venture capital to blow through. So before you go comparing people YOU SOLICITED TO JOIN YOUR ORGANIZATION to people taking welfare (you ever try paying a hooker with food stamps?), you might want to think about where it is “your” money is coming from.

It’s a bizarre turn of events, and Simon seems to be making matters worse. Pajamas Media was set up as a blog advertising network, and the content came later; that from day one it’s never made a cent from the advertising efforts brings into serious question exactly what the business was doing to lose the money to begin with, particularly when things in the industry were still good.

The other missing piece is why didn’t Pajamas Media try and make the ad network work? $3-$7 CPM is the rates mentioned for the network, but the flaw from what I can gather is how they offered it: on set inventory, paying out even when advertisers weren’t available. That’s the mistake (and why you see so many Pajamas Media house ads on member sites). Glam use to offer something similar, but in the last 12 months have amended contracts to back out of the commitment, so that mostly they’re only offering high rates when the ads are there; why didn’t Pajamas do that? Sure, bloggers may not have appreciated a pay cut either, but it would have been the sensible direction as the ad market dried up.

The other question is why close it and not offload it? That network had value, and managed properly, would have provided value to another company. No doubt some ad networks are already circling looking to sign up new blogs, but they could have walked away and said “we’re letting someone else have a shot.”

As I’ve said already: it’s all a bit bizarre, and Simon is quickly losing friends in the conservative blogosphere, people he’d really still need some level of support from to help promote Pajamas Media TV.

Pajamas Media fallout gets nasty: bloggers accused of accepting welfare is a post from: The Inquisitr

Pajamas Media is getting out of blog advertising

The Pajamas Media blog advertising network will close March 31, 2009, with the company continuing as a video content producer.

The network, founded by Glenn Reynolds and Roger L Simon had a rough start back in 2005, but quickly built a strong following in the conservative blogosphere, where is became the ad network of choice.

Here’s the memo sent out to Pajama’s Media Bloggers nominating the focus on web video as the reason for switching off the advertising network:

As you know, last September Pajamas Media began a new initiative in Internet television called Pajamas TV. When we started with our RNC coverage from Minneapolis, we noted that we would be in a Beta Phase through the first quarter of 2009. In the last few months we have strengthened the PJTV lineup with shows covering Media Bias, Education Bias, Middle East Update, Sharia and Jihad, Powerline Report, Ask Dr. Helen, Hugh News, Poliwood, Conservatism 2.0, Economy and Finance, National Security, and others.

As the end of the first quarter approaches and we near the production phase of Pajamas TV, we will continue to build our emphasis in this area. As a result we have decided to wind down the Pajamas Media Blogger and advertising network effective March 31, 2009. The PJM portal and the XPressBlogs will continue as is.

Since our ad relationship continues for the time being, you should note that in order to be paid for the 1st quarter of 2009, you must leave the current Pajamas ads up until 12:01AM April 1. We will be sending you information in mid-March on removing the ads. As of April 1, 2009, you will be free to arrange syndication or re-sale deals.

We thank you very much for participating during the formative years of Pajamas Media and we look forward to working with you in other ways. One of those is, of course, Pajamas TV. If you have any ideas in that regard, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Our best wishes in the new year and again our deepest gratitude for your participation in Pajamas Media.

Sincerely,

Roger L. Simon

CEO, Pajamas Media

Glenn Reynolds on Instapundit though admits that the ad network wasn’t working

YEAH, the PJM ad-network model isn’t working. I don’t have much to do with the PJM business side, but online ads just aren’t producing revenue like they were a few years ago, and the blog-network thing was apparently a tough sell. Hence the emphasis on PJTV. How will that work out? Stay tuned.

Some conservative bloggers are saying that without Pajamas Media,they’ll be closing down or reducing their blogging:

Protein Wisdom: “What this means is that as of April 1, I am officially out of work. So save going to a pay model, this site will likely have to shut down”

Atlas Shrugs: “I’ll have to re-think the blog a bit, now, and figure out how to either make up for the lost revenue or substantially cut my blogging time, in order to work at something else.”

Given the current economic environment, it’s not surprising to see a blog advertising network shut. Conservative bloggers talking about the end though is more than a little bizarre; surely these bloggers don’t live in such a myopic world as to not know that there are other ad networks out there, and although returns are under pressure at the moment, most companies are still taking on new sites.

Pajamas Media going forward is well placed as a sort-of Revision 3 for the conservative internet. Web video is growing, and there’s no reason to believe that they won’t be successful focusing their efforts in this space alone.

The Moderate Voice has more.

Update: Donklephant says Pajamas was paying $4-$7 CPM to its bloggers. Little wonder it couldn’t make it work.

Pajamas Media closing ad network is a post from: The Inquisitr