Also, for such an important thing as broadcast media, you must factor in the cultural consequences of the content regardless of how many people would watch it (or, more accurately, use it as a recreational drug to calm down after a hard day off work, as stated somewhere above).
The networks aren't in business to give people what they want. They're in business to make money, and doing what sells easily is the usual way to make that money. The BBC have a different business model, so they don't have to chase the money that way.
Jobs is talking as if people can afford the things they want - if he instead said that "the construction industry builds tons of cheap, shitty housing, because that's what people want! It's the truth!", it'd be immediately obvious that he was speaking blubbering nonsense.