Venture capital, as distressed as other financing vehicles these days, could be a critical link to sustaining recession-time research and development.

An upside to the downside of this brutal recession will be the widespread rejection of broken old business models and the development of new structures fit for the digital age.

Media and electronics executives, whose balance sheets rely on collapsing consumer and advertiser spending, can hardly be blamed for lining up behind the big three automakers screaming "Tarp Me!" Perhaps key companies can prove to the Feds that they are too big to fail, thereby earning a bailout.

With broadcast network companies such as NBCU, News Corp. and CBS increasingly relying on online sites and digital platforms for distribution, local station owners fear broadcast network owners will exit the TV station business and sell shows directly to cable and new digital media.

The Feds won't bail the media industry out. Valuations are evaporating and revenue losses are mounting. Companies must seize control of their own destinies. Here are five ways to create your own safety net.

Last week's grim warnings from advertising and consumer-dependent Big Media notably culminated with Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger conceding that this economic downturn and ad falloff have been faster than any he has witnessed in 30 years. It has spread like wildfire to every media platform. What can stop it?

Big media executives concede that the ad bottom is falling out of their Teflon earnings proclamations earlier this year. The best will develop enterprising new business ventures to survive. A deep, protracted recession is one thing; a permanent digital shift in industry economics is another.

There is a lesson in president-elect Barack Obama's calculated win for all media and advertising players struggling to crack the targeted demographics code: Know your constituents. It is one of a handful of ways that the fortunes of the new Democratic administration and the media world are joined at the hip.

An Obama administration will seek to advance, integrate and monetize technology, the Internet and all media in new and innovative ways. He'll also pursue a vigorous antitrust policy, singling out the media as a consolidation-prone industry.

The tumultuous 24 months of presidential campaigning feels like an eternity. It has been bound by digital interactivity that has played an unprecedented role intensifying voices and votes and will continue redefining American politics and democracy. That is a bipartisan victory for all the people.