Whatever Happened to Amanda Congdon's HBO Deal?

Rocketboom Video Blogger Not Renewed by ABC News; HBO Project Never Surfaces

By Anne Becker -- Broadcasting & Cable, 10/6/2007 11:19:00 AM

How fleeting is Internet fame? One year ago, you couldn’t click a link without turning up news about Amanda Congdon, the photogenic Web phenom who broke out as the loopy newsreader for Rocketboom.

But last month, ABC News declined to renew Congdon’s video-blogging contract. And now it doesn’t look good for her HBO development deal announced last November.

"I don’t even know really exactly what’s it’s going to be," Congdon reported in a vlog post back then. "I know it’s going to be comedy, and I know it’s going to be cross-platform … We’re really in the beginning stages right now of what the show will look like."

Apparently, there it remains, given that no program announcements have surfaced since then and such deals typically expire after a year.

HBO, under new management since the deal was struck, declined comment. Congdon’s agent at Endeavor had not yet responded to our inquiries at press time.

But you can still find Congdon vlogging away at Starring Amanda Congdon. Her latest post has her in man-on-the-street mode, trying to buttonhole passersby for a chat. Alas, no takers.

UPDATE: Lisa Harrison, Congdon's agent at Endeavor, says the HBO deal is still active: "I don't know if it will turn into anything or not, like most development deals." And Harrison says the ABC News deal didn't fall through: "There was never really the option for another year."

Congdon, she adds, has a handful of more pieces for the network and has another project "in process" that she'll announce after the ABC News deal expires. No word on whether that project is for another TV network.