I’ve just had word that UK new media/blogging network Shiny Media has gone into administration.
Despite this year’s cutbacks and new additions, it doesn’t seem to have been enough to save the company.
Bright Station Ventures ploughed $4.5m of funding into the company in 2007 (Update: apparently the self-reported news that Shiny Media received $4.5m in funding was incorrect but was never retracted.). There’s no official word yet on how the relationship between the two companies stands, but I’m sure you can speculate on that.
In fact, there has been no official announcement from the directors at all. Chris Price sent a memo to staff and freelancers briefly explaining the situation, while access to Movable Type, on which most of Shiny Media’s blogs run, was lost/removed yesterday.
(Update: Katie Lee tweeted “Looks like everyone knows Shiny Media has gone into administration. Still not entirely sure what’s going on tbh. Sorry for all writers.”, followed by “As far as I know, Shiny Media has already been bought (before I even knew it had gone into administration). So hopefully some jobs OK.” soon after this article was written.)
(Update 2: Paid Content reports that the cell phone and email of director Chris Price were switched off by a minority shareholder)
We’ll let you know more as and when we hear it.
Disclosure: Author has worked on several of Shiny Media’s blogs.