With advertising, the free market does not yield a neutral system in which final buyer choice decides. The advertisers’ choices influence media prosperity and survival.43 The ad-based media receive an advertising subsidy that gives them a price-marketing-quality edge, which allows them to encroach on and further weaken their ad-free (or ad-disadvantaged) rivals.44 Even if ad-based media cater to an affluent (“upscale”) audience, they easily pick up a large part of the “downscale” audience, and their rivals lose market share and are
