I have to , believe it or not, Frog, agree with you. I think all media is in it for the $$$$$$$. If it didn't make money, they wouldn't do it.So contests, controversial content are all factors to get people to buy. I think that there are very few who are in the business  that are there to make a difference. If it didn't make money, they would search until they found a topic that did.

But sometimes the media make a mistake. The topic they have chosen to make money also happens to touch the human heart. They have no control over this.

I think that magazines have two purposes.  One is to provide a service.  That is they try to fill a niche - to provide information or entertainment for a particular segment of the population.  Perhaps they aim at parents of young children and have stories, articles, information about child rearing.  Or perhaps they aim at new homeowners and have articles about decorating, landscaping, home repairs, managing your mortgage.

My son once looked into starting a glossy magazine about Canadian (particularly Eastern Canadian) sports.  He planned to have articles about various sports in season, scores for the games played, reports of the play, with lots of coloured pictures, interviews with players, information about the latest in equipment, etc.  But long before he launched into the publishing business he realized that he would have problems with the second purpose.

The second purpose of a magazine is to make money; enough money to pay expenses, including salaries, and to make a profit for the investors.  Some money comes from subscriptions.  By far the bigger amount comes from advertisements.  And companies advertise in magazines with a wide readership. 

So a contest is intended to be of interest to the readers - whether it be beautiful babies, or gardens, or perfectly developed muscular bodies - or love stories, or recipies - it has to attract readers, get people reading the magazine. And in doing so it will attract or keep advertisers who pay the bills and provide a profit.   If it also provides a public service like promoting a healthy lifestyle, or beautifying the neighbourhood, or providing information about new programs for home schooling then that is a bonus.

By the way, profit is not a bad word.

Right, seeler, and I don't think that the majority of magazines look for controversy when starting a contest, nor do most companies.

The goal is to influence our behaviour in some way -- try a product, come and read our site...or determine who is reading the site by general distribution of population.

I'm not that makes it bad?  I guess, though I don't want cbc radio having ads, i get that cbc television does...

I'd say yes but so what. Any business wants to turn a profit. I don't object to that. The question is how do they do it. Having a contest for favorite love story or cookie recipe is pretty innocuous. There are far worse things they can do. Let me give you an example, as best I recall. It was discussed in a college class so it's not remotely recent. One of the major women's magazines (cosmo, elle, or some such) had an article on preventable health problems that affect women. No where on the list was smoking, the number one thing both men and women need to avoid for the sake of their health. Why? This magazine took advertising from cigarette companies. If they said "dont' smoke" it's possible they would have lost that ad revenue. That to me is a million times worse than running a feel good contest.