> Advertisement is like a reverse Midas touch. Everything relying on it is on a race to the bottom.

Not necessarily though - I can think of plenty of partially ad-supported media and publications that have retained their reputation for quality for decades or even centuries, for example, The Economist and the BBC World Service News channel.

...the thing is that the aforementioned don't generally run mass-market ads: the kinds of ads you see in the Economist or in-between World Service news segments is stuff like Rolex watches, Credit Suisse, and Chase Private Client Banking.

The two examples you chose, demonstrate the opposite of your point.

One is a subscription service, meaning they aren't reliant on their advertising for most of the finances.

The other is a quasi-govt entity, whose funding comes substantially from a tv license fee.

The BBC as a whole, yes - but “BBC Worldwide”: the arm that runs the World Service channel and foreign broadcasting is self-sufficient and does run ads. Though I’m unsure how the accounting works for profits it gets for programs it licenses out when they’re made by the BBC’s domestically funded divisions.

Yeah, those are the exceptions, though, and god knows how long they're gonna last. The effect of algorithmic advertisement and pay-per-impression/click is visible even on reputable newspapers: lots of them are resorting to clickbait because that's what generates pageviews.

Are they the exception to the rule? It's not like The Economist is free.