" Talking with an economist who was serving on an unemployment commission, I asked him whether he had considered newspaper reading as a form of paid employment. I was not wrong in supposing that he would be incredulous. Nevertheless, all media that mix ads with other programming are a form of "paid learning".... Advertisers pay for space and time in paper and magazine, on radio and TV; that is, they buy a piece of the reader, listener or viewer as definitely as if they had hired out our homes for a public meeting. They would gladly pay the reader, listener or viewer directly for his attention if they knew how to do so. The only way so far devised is to put on a free show. Movies in America have not developed advertising intervals simply because the movie itself is the greatest of all forms of advertisement for consumer goods."
Marshall McLuhan, 1964, from "Press".
