• by Shankar Gupta , January 5, 2007

PerezHilton.com, the unapologetic celebrity gossip blogger whose site features paparazzi photos of Hollywood stars at their less-than-finest, is proving to be the hot spot this week for TV networks, garnering ads touting six different series in as many days.

The ad formats have varied from featured spots in the right-hand skyscraper unit to full site takeovers. Series promoted include "Grey's Anatomy" and "Gay, Straight or Taken" on Lifetime, "Wildfire" on ABC Family, "Dirt" on FX, "Beauty and the Geek" on The CW Network, and "Surreal Life: Fame Games" on VH1. Spots on the site--arranged by blog ad network Blogads--range from $800 per week to $9,000 per week for placements in the skyscraper to significantly more for full site takeovers. Blogads declined to disclose the exact figure.

The no-holds-barred PerezHilton.com, which often posts rumors about matters such as celebrities' rumored drug use, has been considered risky ad territory in the past. Last month, live music production company Control Room pulled ads for an upcoming concert by Pink after press coverage highlighted that slogans like "See the Real Pink" would be running against photos of female celebrities accidentally exposing themselves. Crew Creative, which placed ads for Lifetime Network promoting "Grey's Anatomy" and "Gay, Straight or Taken," and OMD--media buying agency for The CW Network, promoting "Beauty and the Geek"--both declined to comment on the PerezHilton media buys.

Henry Copeland, founder of Blogads, said that brands are willing to advertise with Perez to tap into the blog's enormous readership. Blogads reports 15.6 million ad impressions weekly on the premium ad spot on PerezHilton.com, making it the most highly trafficked space in the entire Blogads network. "The most important factor: everyone at agencies and the clients is reading Perez," he said. "They know their target audience is reading it. And they know they have to be there if they want to hit America's 2 million trend-mavenest women in their twenties and thirties--the women who are the queen bees in their offices for entertainment news."

Copeland said that despite Perez's racy content, it's consistent in its level of lewdness, and certainly not the worst that social media has to offer. "It's finite and as an advertiser, you know where the limits are," he said. "You don't have to worry about people punching each other, or sex offenders, or sex videos, or excrement, or high school kids hazing each other, or Saddam's execution, or racist rants."