People that watch TV are in a literal trance. The brain goes into an alpha state and the information presented goes directly into the unconscious mind without the filter of critical thinking. They don't call it TV programming for nothing.
The Corporate Media is not a money making enterprise. That is a side benefit. The Corporate Media is a gigantic worldwide social control device 95% of which is owned and operated by 6 Corporations.
Look to who owns and controls these Corporations to find out who is programming the Matrix.
I know that when I go for a long time without watching TV, the very first time I watch a program, I can almost hear the switch snapping in my brain turning it off.
The situation is far worse than that:"People of the same trade seldom meet together even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public or some contrivance to raise prices." - Adam Smith. . . and all major journalism outlets have been in a continuous virtual “meeting” via the Associated Press newswire since the middle of the Nineteenth Century! No wonder ideological diversity among news outlets went the way of the dodo bird long ago!