They make money a bunch of different ways, and one big one is advertising, but don't forget that a pretty significant chunk of their revenue (and Fox's) is carriage fees: money they get mechanically from cable providers, just for existing.
Re:The Meltdown at CNN
by lotsofpulp on Monday June 05, 2023 @11:52PM
(#36207862)
Where do you read that? They are a part of the conglomerate discovery time Warner, and I do not see where CNN’s financials are separately broken out in the 10-K.
Like I agree that cable news seems to be a declining business with bad programming incentives, but if I had to choose between something like the profits from a nice restaurant that people widely appreciated and hundreds of millions of dollars from CNN, I'd have an easy time of it.