Internet Celebrity Doesn't Translate: Amanda Congdon Let Go By ABC
Amanda Congdon, best known as the original host of Rocketboom, has been let go by ABCNews.com. — ABCNews.com said in a statement: … During her time at ABCNews.com Congdon did a number of projects, including …
Context & Ripple Effects
Congdon was the defining face of early videoblogging — the same scene CNET captured at Vloggercon in June 2006, where 'everyone's the media' was the working thesis. Weeks later she was gone from Rocketboom in a very public falling-out (the July 2006 rift that played out across blogs), and ABCNews.com picked her up as its bet on web-native talent.
The verdict is now in from both directions: ABC dropped her after roughly a year, while Rocketboom — the show she left — announced a direct sponsorship model in June 2007 after previously running out of money, suggesting the property monetized without its original star. The headline lesson cuts against the assumption that an internet audience follows the personality into old media.
First-order effects
- ABCNews.com loses its most visible experiment in importing web-video celebrity, and Congdon exits a network platform roughly one year after leaving Rocketboom for it.
Second-order effects
- Networks weighing similar hires get their cautionary data point: if Congdon's audience didn't transfer to ABC, the value of a web star may sit in the community around the show rather than in any single host — which is exactly what Rocketboom's sponsorship launch implicitly tested.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, legacy broadcasters stop buying personalities and start buying formats or ad models instead, while independent shows route around networks entirely with direct sponsorship — two paths converging on the same conclusion about where online-video value actually lives.
The trend: In 2007's online video land-grab, legacy broadcasters are discovering that hiring internet-famous talent doesn't import the audience, while the shows those stars left are building direct-sponsorship businesses of their own.