I wonder if the incentive actually is to "produce as good a product for their customers as possible," or if it's to find the optimal place on the "price to produce" vs. sale price*popularity curve.

I would also posit that in spite of the fact that, while perhaps "For profit operations produce most good things in this world" (for some very specific definition of "good"), news media is in fact a niche where not-for-profit organizations do have a history of being superior to for-profit counterparts (e.g. BBC, NPR, AP, etc)