ABC and Congdon End Videoblogger Relationship

TVNewser is reporting that Amanda Congdon and ABC News have ended their relationship. They list the official memo from ABC News:

"It’s been a great year with Amanda — a great experiment for both of us. We thank her for her many contributions and know that she’s about to embark on new endeavors and expect there will be times in the future that we can again work together."

Duncan seems to believe this means that online personalities can’t make the jump to mainstream. I disagree with this conclusion. Not sure how one videoblogger leaving a TV channel makes for a complete panic. If she joins a new network tomorrow, would he then believe that online personalities make the jump?

I have written about Amanda several times including calling her show a "digrace to women" after the first episode. But Amanda is an excellent marketer. She has been talking about a series for HBO and I assume leaving ABC will give her more time to work on this. She has also done work for Dupont and American Express and I expect her to work more in the "ad" space moving forward. She seems to enjoy that work more from what I can tell.

I also believe that ABC wasn’t ready for a videoblogger. Amanda’s fans bitched and moaned about no commenting, feeds, and other blog-oriented technologies. ABC seemed to always be in catch-up mode. Amanda was constantly apologizing in the beginning for ABC’s lack of current technology.

I am certain we will see Amanda back online in some video mode soon, probably back in the RocketBoom style. Hey, maybe she can be the video blogger for CenterNetworks! :)