Doc Searls reposted something from a few years back, and it makes even more sense now than it did then: the legacy advertising model is utterly broken, and it's held up more by inertia than by anything else:

...imagine what would happen to the TV business if mute buttons delivered "we don't want to hear this" feedback directly to advertisers. It would crash the whole industry's business model in a heartbeat.

Let's face it: there are only two kinds of advertising demanded by their consumers: yellow pages and classifieds. It's not coincidental that they're both ugly. Beauty isn't a value when the only purpose is to answer the simple demand for useful information.

Changing the current model isn't going to be easy. Not only are there the (mostly useless) MarCom types to shove aside, there's also an entire business model. Consider professional sports, especially the big ones (here I'm focusing on the US): the NFL and the NBA. TV networks pay huge amounts of money for the broadcast rights. That money is paid back to the networks via advertising, and the outflow to the leagues pay the huge salaries.

Reconsidering that model is like being the little dutch boy who pulls his finger out of the dike. It's a seemingly small act, but the side effects are huge. Ultimately, sports should all go subscription. Most likely the rest of TV should, too. Getting from here to there is going to be an interesting thing to watch.

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