From Parenti’s Inventing Reality:

Owners themselves must have a care not to offend other large financial interests, especially those of big corporate advertisers. Todd Gitlin reports:

The knowledge of who pays the bills can’t be dispelled, even though it doesn’t always rise to consciousness. Network executives internalize the desires of advertisers. CBS’s Herman Keld … didn’t qualify his answer when 1 asked him whether ad agencies—and affiliates—are taken into account in programming decisions. “I would say they are always taken into account. Always taken into account… .”

The notion that the media are manipulated by big moneyed interests is dismissed by some as a “conspiracy theory.” But there is nothing conspiratorial about it. Because they pay the bills, advertisers regard their influence over media content as something of a “right.” And media executives seem to agree. As erstwhile CBS president Frank Stanton said: “Since we are advertiser-supported we must take into account the general objective and desires of advertisers as a whole.”