What Pageviews Mean to Advertisers and Website Owners?

As far as I know, online users are usually driven to websites that feature articles or news that generate high page views. Some websites pay their article producers on the basis of pageviews the the article generates. Some sites pay a dollar per thousand views, others pay more. Likewise advertisers pay website owners based on the page viewership. In this case the items or services that are advertised get maximum exposure. I also believe that websites like DJ become even more popular when their articles or news items generate so much page views. I know that there are other considerations for compensating content producers but I still think that pageviews should be the main consideration.