In each case, whether broadcast or cable, Murdoch and Diller chased audiences believed, one way or another, to have fallen through the cracks, who had somehow disdained, or been disdained by, the mainstream. Not every new program worked, needless to say: Babes, a sitcom about three overweight sisters sharing an apartment, didn’t last long, nor did Get a Life, about a thirty-year-old paperboy who moves back in with his parents. But hits like The Simpsons, together with the Fox News Channel, with its steady rise of market share, more than made up for the duds.

Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, loc. 623