Yes, it is a bit more complex than that. But it's pretty clear that readers don't know who has editorial control, so they won't get driven away if that changes.

Yes, it is a bit more complex than that. But it's pretty clear that readers don't know who has editorial control, so they won't get driven away if that changes. It's also surprising how few advertisers there are in each paper, if you're maximising your profit you need only a few big accounts to fund the paper, diversifying to a bunch of smaller clients is going to be difficult and costly. To maximise revenue you want clients to compete for your ad space (in some cases, just to be in there instead of their competitors). Editorial control just goes out of the window, so long as the baseline quality is high enough to keep people reading, you're good.