More on Amanda at ABC and HBO

Business Week has an article about Amanda Congdon's jump to ABC as well as HBO. It covers the usual turf, including such great concepts as the web being a farm for old media. I shan't get into how backward that thinking is, mostly because my intense Actionscript session over the last few days has left me fantastically inarticulate.

However, I will say this: I think agents for various people in the web world should stop looking for big Old Media deals and start looking for corporate partners to beef up the online presence. Looking at the budgets and salaries out there, you can get paid a nice hefty amount for appearing on a weekly TV show, but if your vidcast were sponsored for a year by one company at a rate comparable to just a single primetime TV ad spot, you would make a lot more cash, and have more freedom.

I guess it's the fame thing, too, though. People want to know people know them. If you believe Nielsen ratings are accurate, vidcasts still have a ways to go before they are in the same league... but the gap is closing fast.

So to some enterprising former-advertising-exec out there: start a new business connecting vidcasters with sponsors, take a cut, and become rich quick. All the other agents are looking in the wrong direction!