Comment Re:Government sponsered (Score 1) 703
Untrue. The BBC is funded solely through the license fee, sales of it's programmes abroad, and sales of other materials.
It receives no government funds.
In 2008 the BBC's non-commercial (i.e. in Britain) operations revived 4 million GBP in government grants. Granted, that is well less than 1% of it's income, but it does invalidate the claim of receiving no government funds.
Further the BBC World Service is funded exclusively (or very nearly so) by government grants from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The BBC Monitoring service receives money from all sorts of source, including some funding by foreign governments.
That said, much of the rest of your message is valid.
Do take note that the PBS in the US receives only 15%-20% of its funding from the federal government, and 25-29% from the smaller government. That means only 40%-50% of its operations is government funded.
Such small amounts greatly limit the influence the government can exert on the the system. For most intents and purposes, the PBS system is independent.
Further, even if there was a USBC, I can guarantee it would waste money like crazy, having only a small fraction of the efficiency of the BBC, likely having about 4 channels, and 2 radio stations.