MessyMedia, an attempt by Yahoo’s (NSDQ: YHOO) former European news director to set up a Gawker-style UK blog publisher, has just been shut down - or at least, the blog publishing part was.

Lloyd Shepherd, also a former Guardian deputy digital publishing director, started the brand with fellow Yahoo alum Andrew Levy in September ‘07, launching Westmonster for politics and Glitterditch for celeb news. But Glitterditch was killed last month and Westmonster was shut off this afternoon.

Shepherd explained on his blog: ”The audiences for these titles didn’t warrant continued investment, particularly in the light of the advertising downturn the media sector is wrestling with.”

While in the U.S., the likes of Gawker, WeblogsInc and b5media attract some high-profile bloggers, Shepherd said he just couldn’t find the talent in the UK: “While we were able to find some very dedicated and talented writers, the effective advertising CPM we’d have needed to pay them a reasonable wage only existed at an audience size orders of magnitude larger than we were able to achieve.” Shepherd and Levy will now concentrate on consulting in media, NGO and advocacy.

• UK Round-Up: BBC Newsroom Integration; Messy Media Starts
• Ex Yahoo, Guardian Digital Director Shepherd Starting Blog Publishing Enterprise