Ask a Ninja Cuts Ad Deal With Federated Media
Posted on January 30, 2007
Ninjas may spend too much time enjoying deadly rounds of niniature golf but they still make time to sell ads. Heather Green at Blogspotting reported last week that the Ask a Ninja video blog had cut an advertising deal with the Federated Media ad network that "guarantees them a contract for sales in the low seven figures this year." Federated Media also represent sites like Boing Boing, Dooce and Digg. NewTeeVee is now reporting that the deal was for a $300,000 upfront payment plus 60 percent of ad revenue. Not bad at all for a vlog. It's good to see that some content providers are getting deals that include upfront payments. That's much better than the more typical "we will sell ads for you and split the money" ad network arrangements.
Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine, the dynamic duo behind the web's most deadly source of advice, Ask a Ninja, have struck gold with a Federated Media payday, which includes a $300,000 upfront payment along with 60 percent of ad revenue, according to our sources. In a phone conversation today, Nichols declined comment on the monetary terms of the deal beyond confirming what's already been reported by Heather Green at BusinessWeek.Heater Green's post said each Ask a Ninja episode is downloaded about 300,000 and 500,000 times. There's money in vlogging if you can just build a huge audience. Unfortunately, neither building a huge audience or selling ads is an easy thing to do.A $300,000 payment alone makes Ask a Ninja (which we profiled in December) the best-paid online video show in the business, topping the $250K Andrew Michael Baron says Rocketboom made last year.
