Movies and later, TV were always a mob business. In the early days exhibitors collected a nickle at the box office was the tip of the ice berg. People would not only pay a nickle to see a movie but they'd imitate what we saw in the movies we'd buy the product and adopt the mannerism and support the political views we saw on the screen and that meant that influence could be sold to the highest bidder.
The garment industry veterans who founded the movie business set it up in California because CA courts would not enforce Thomas Edison's patents - as the 9'th circuit today finds reasons not to enforce immigration laws.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Patents_Company
“The truth is that the newspaper is not a statement of contents but the contents themselves; more than that, it is an instigator,” said Kraus in a remarkable speech made in 1914 as the first world war commenced, In These Great Times. “It would be far less shameful to be paid for committing atrocities than for fabricating them.” In the same speech, Kraus warned, “If the reporter has killed our imagination with his truth, he threatens our life with his lies.”
The presumed independence and competitive operation of entertainment and communications industry is illusory. The media may be considered as a single functionally integrated parasitic organism which includes the advertising industry.
The only way to inhibit the function of overt disinformation and covert control tactics is to expose them. NSA, US Military intelligence and allies and partners worldwide are doing this now. Whatever the ultimate extent of the public revelations, the existing damage is real, and remedial measures are required to initiate recovery with the objective of restoring function and educating the public about our collective cognitive vulnerability.
https://www.scribd.com/document/322601393/Karl-Kraus-The-Last-Days-of-Mankind-Complete-Text-pdf