While the general idea of this is obviously gross and greedy, this part makes perfect sense: >with some of the big studios, some of this money involves paying

While the general idea of this is obviously gross and greedy, this part makes perfect sense: >with some of the big studios, some of this money involves paying itself for advertising on its own properties. The idea of opportunity cost applies to advertising; any advertising they do on their own properties is advertising they could have sold to somebody else. So it's clearly legitimate to count that as a cost.