Comment Re:The BBC isn't state sponsored media? I must be (Score 4, Informative) 250
It seems like you have a perspective problem. If you're used to only having self-funded or advertising-funded media, then all "state-funded" media must be the same. But they're not.
The BBC collects its license fee itself. If you don't feel like funding the BBC, don't buy a TV. RT is funded centrally from tax money. Russian income tax pays for it whether you have a TV or not.
The Russian government owns RT. The British government does not own the BBC. At best, they own the decision about which private corporation has the right to be the national broadcaster and could take that away from the BBC.
The Russian government decides at all levels who runs RT, as it owns it. The UK government only gets to decide the BBC's director general and its charter; much like shareholders in a private company, the UK government is an outsider with a stake in the BBC, rather than the operator.
The Russian government likely tells RT what to say. The BBC frequently says things the the UK government doesn't want broadcast and has to take the BBC to court because it has no control over what the BBC says beyond "we might recommend to the independent review body that they cut your funding in 2016".
If the BBC was located in Russia and acted the way it does in Britain, the Russian government would have closed it down and murdered its chief executive by now.
The BBC's equivalent to RT is a small part of the BBC called the World Service - this is not the same as BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC. The World Service has always been funded directly by the state, from taxes, but from 2014 onwards the BBC has to pay for it by itself.