Amusement of the day: Go to PBS's Frontline and see Which media conglomerate own what. Then spend some quality time with your television (heh). Pick a channel owned by any company on the list, and watch it for an hour. Count how many times in that hour you see adverts for, or references to products this company owns, as versus ads for products not related to anything the company owns.
As an example: Viacom has a pretty good reputation. They own great things like Nickelodeon, MTV, VH1, and Comedy Central. I chose them because they're the second largest media group worldwide, but they don't seem to be in the active business of mongering death. (unlike, say AOL Time Warner who owns both CNN and most of the truly profitable rap record labels)
Even on a Viacom owned channel I'll bet you'll see more ads for Paramount pictures, toys with a Nickelodeon logo, Paramount theme parks, and TV land, than for anything else.