Australia has ad free tv too, and radio stations and all the same kinds of initiatives as the BBC (admittedly the tv is terrible by comparison to the BBC so) called the ABC.

there are no TV licenses in Australia though.. its just included in your tax which is how it should be here in the UK. Paying people to police the TV license is absolutely retarded

The ABC is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay underfunded compared to the BBC. And conservative governments hate it and throttle it wherever they can. Despite being shown time and time again to be even-handed by both internal and external reviews, the conservatives treat it as a mouthpiece of the progressives.