Terry Teachout writes in the Wall St. Journal that today’s new media/old media transition is a lot like the switch six decades ago from network radio to network TV.

Eh, not really.

Teachout mentions a few of radio’s many stars who didn’t make it in the new medium, for one reason or another. Yes, the likes of Fred Allen and Fibber McGee and Molly star Jim Jordan basically found their careers over and done. But the business model of U.S. network broadcasting moved almost seamlessly to the video arena. CBS and NBC remained in control, with ABC a distant third, with independents and noncommercial broadcasters as budget-challenged also-rans.

The three-network system survived the ’70s rise of PBS, and accommodated the mid-’80s debut of Fox. But as cable channels began competitive original programming in the ’90s, the old networks began to lose their massive economies of scale.

Then, TV as a whole was challenged by DVDs, video games, and assorted online entertainments. It’s hard-to-impossible to make money in these new media under an old-media business model. Indeed, for a lot of content categories (including news), everybody’s still trying to figure out how to make money.

No, 2009’s media transition isn’t like 1949’s. It’s much bigger, and much more disruptive.