Cobalt Bridge

Air America–the liberal world’s most recent and most expensive attempt to counter the perceived influence of conservative talk radio . . . expired this afternoon.

Actually it had been hemorrhaging cash and on financial life support for several years, kept alive only by the largess of deep pocketed socialists like George Soros.

The whole undertaking was built upon a multi-layered foundation of deeply-flawed premises. First liberals assumed that millions of Americans tuned in to Rush and Sean and Glenn to be told what to think. Wrong. The reality was, millions of conservatives, weary-to-death of a uniformly liberal mass media culture, tuned in to hear someone articulate what they already were thinking.

Secondly, liberals assumed there would be a listening audience for liberal talk radio . . . that there was unmet demand out there for Al Franken’s and Janine Garafolo’s views on current events. Wrong again. Politically liberal media consumers need only to flip on any radio, television or DVD player at random to have their world view smugly validated.

In other words, talk radio thrives because conservative opinion in other media is so rare. Liberal talk radio failed because it was utterly and completely redundant. Superfluous.

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That is, indeed, the question a lot of content-centric web sites are facing these days.

Recently, Rupert Murdoch (along with AP’s CEO, Tom Curley) put that question in the global spotlight with remarks at a conference in China. As you probably know, Murdoch owns most of the media stuff in the world that is still actually making money–including the only major newspaper currently making a profit–The Wall Street Journal.

What Murdoch suggested in his remarks in Beijing amounts to heresy among the high priests of the new economy. Namely, that stuff shouldn’t be free just because it’s on the Internet.

The battle between old media and the Web gathered steam Friday, as two of the most prominent news publishers said it was time for Internet sites to pay for news content that now flows for free.

Rupert Murdoch of News Corp. decried “content kleptomaniacs” and said websites that aggregate or borrow reports from companies such as his “will soon have to pay a price.” News Corp. owns the Wall Street Journal, one of the few large newspapers that has successfully charged fees for access to its website.

Later, Associated Press (AP) chief executive Tom Curley said, “We content creators have been too slow to react to free exploitation of news content by third parties without input or permission.”

The AP is pursuing plans that could be “game-changer” in the elusive quest for online revenue, he said.

Just what does this mean for regular folks like us? Jon Simpson and I will be discussing the implications of all this–for businesses and non-profits–in the next few installments of our podcast, “The Report from the Bridge.”

Stay tuned. By the way you can subscribe to the podcast here and never miss another thrilling episode.

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Running a radio station was already a pretty complicated game for industry professionals and now it’s becoming an interactive and fun one for the masses. “Wha’ the heck…,” you say?

Meet Jelli. It’s a radio station, it’s an internet entertainment vehicle, it’s a game… It’s all 3 in 1!

How does it work? Click on the player below to watch an interview with Jelli CEO, Mike Dougherty:

I first read of this new venture at Mark Ramsey’s blog at hear2.com. (Go ahead and read his post…I’m not going to try to improve on it).

Now, before you go trashing this interesting startup, you ought to know that Jelli is catching on since it appeared in October. Most radio program directors might initially hate the idea (that the people pick the songs — in real time). But, the people (who have nothing better to do than to while away the hours on the Internet) will love the live opportunity to “Rock” a song they like and to “Bomb” a song they disdain.

Hey, it’s a game.

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