Amanda Congdon Gone From ABCNews.com
Tipped off by our friends from FishbowlLA, TVNewser can confirm that Amanda Congdon and ABC News are parting company. Congdon shot to web stardom on Rocketboom and has been working for the network for the last year. Here's the statement from ABC:
Context & Ripple Effects
Amanda Congdon's exit closes a loop that opened in July 2006, when her very public split from Rocketboom played out as an internet soap opera and left her, briefly, the most famous face in videoblogging. ABC hired her within months as one of the first web-native talents to cross into a network newsroom — the exact move NewTeeVee catalogued in July under 'old media jumping to new media.'
Now TechCrunch's same-day verdict — that internet celebrity doesn't translate — lands alongside word that ABC is pushing its prime-time shows out free through AOL. The timing frames the parting less as one host's miss than as a network choosing portal-scale distribution over personality-driven web video.
First-order effects
- Congdon is out of ABCNews.com after a one-year run, and the network's web video operation proceeds with no marquee hire from the vlogging world to show for the experiment.
- Rocketboom, which announced a new sponsorship model in June after running short of money the year before, remains the property she left behind — now carrying on without either of the principals from the 2006 rift.
Second-order effects
- Other broadcasters weighing web-star signings get a data point against paying for audiences that may not follow the personality to a new URL; distribution deals like ABC's AOL arrangement become the lower-risk alternative.
- Independent video blogs gain leverage: if the network route ends in a quiet parting, sponsorship-funded independence looks less like the consolation prize and more like the viable path.
Third-order effects
- The 2007 talent exchange between broadcast and web video settles toward asymmetry — networks can buy or license web content far more easily than web creators can import their audiences into TV-style operations, pushing the industry toward portal distribution plus sponsored indies rather than star hires.
The trend: Broadcasters' 2007 experiments with web-native talent are giving way to distribution-first strategies, as online video professionalizes around sponsorships rather than network contracts.