What is the theory behind cable channel business operations?

I have been watching a program on a cable channel — one that is very well known mainly for news coverage — and something has been bothering me for a while. It seems like there are very few commercial advertisements from corporate sponsors.

I may have missed some commercials, but within what I could confirm, only 4 commercials aired during what appeared to be a 15 to 30 minute ad slot — probably no more than 2 minutes of actual advertising.

I understand that cable channels do receive subscription fees from viewers through cable operators.

However, I believe it is one of the responsibilities of a company’s leadership to maximize profits by maximizing the utilization rate of assets within their operation — including available ad inventory.

So my question is: am I actually wrong about this? Is it acceptable for cable channel executives to not even bother pushing for that kind of efficiency?