The Media sell audiences, not papers or programmes

“The papers sold on their contents and derived their profits from the pennies or halfpennies paid by the readers. Gradually there came a change, almost without the proprietors noticing it. The papers came to depend increasingly on the money they received for advertisements. Larger circulation meant higher advertising rates. Hence circulation mattered in itself, even when each additional copy sold involved a slight additional loss. The reader no longer bought newspapers. Newspapers bought readers.”  The newspaper war of the 1930s, described by AJP Taylor, English History 1914-1945, p387, Penguin

“All the papers that matter live off their advertisements, and the advertisers exercise an indirect censorship over news.” England your England, George Orwell, 1941