As an Irish person, I firmly believe this. While our our public broadcaster, RTE, is far from perfect (and sometimes mediocre), they are financed / run at arms length from government. They often run exposés on government mess ups and criticise their actions. On a more practical level, who else is going to make quality non sensationalist content specific to Ireland? One of the downsides of being a small native English speaking country is the onslaught of American (and to a lesser degree British) content that drowns anything local. It also drowns out most European content as people are not used to subtitled or dubbed content.

Having spent plenty of time in the USA, I can't fathom how a system with so many ads and skewed "news" could be better. Why would you trust an unelected private corporation with no motivation or mandate for transparency more than a non profit org that is at least in theory answerable to the people? If nothing else it provides a common reference to reality that allows a real conversation to happen. The lack of this has proven in the last few months to be a real problem.

Most people don't question paying for socialised defence, education, roads etc... many services they may not use personally on a daily basis, because they understand the value of having a cohesive society as a whole.

TG4 is class!

Problem is, BBC (and to a lesser extent RTE) are not these unbiased services simply presenting facts. Their staff have certain views on political issues and they present stories in a way that is biased to those views. They effectively tell their viewers the range of acceptable opinions they are supposed to have.

A lot of their entertainment shows are junk too and I do not see why they should be funded through a license fee - if there is a demand for them, they could be funded privately. The BBC website is full of tabloid-like news - that is unacceptable.

If we are to have publicly funded media, it should be boring, i.e. serious. Host 2-hour long in depth debates on highly controversial issues between the most prominent people that oppose each other, carefully moderated (arguably it would actually be better to do this in print rather than tv format). Do cultural shows that promote "high culture" that people otherwise might not have engaged with. Counter the natural tendencies to look up to sports and entertainment personalities with a focus on scientists and engineers.

The perpetual problem here is that while BBC is required to "be boring" in many respects, if it loses too many viewers its value is questioned. So they have an ongoing struggle that they're told off if they focus too much on doing things that is or becomes popular with commercial broadcasters, while at the same time they face threats of cuts in funding if they don't bring in the viewers.

I take your point 100%. I also love TG4's style of programming, but the problem with your approach is that you will be accused of "elitism" and being "out of touch with ordinary people" . I agree that a lot of the content on RTE and even BBC is a bit gimmicky or even trashy, but it is a difficult balancing act. Economy of scale is a huge issue for Ireland. We could never hope to cover even what the BBC does. I feel the answer ia more funding, not less. As for news bias, I agree that it is somewhat biased, but it is at least a common starting point for a discussion, as everyone sees the same message at least. The bias is more nieve, being towards centre left "good Irish morals" than some sinister government plot...

I firmly believe this, especially in recent times. Those mandatory fees finance the "public" radio and TV stations, which have a set budget and can freely operate within the budget. They are not depending on advertisement revenue (they have a limited amount of that too) and are not working to create a profit. As a consequence, they do have a certain degree of independence and overall can afford into a lot of good quality content. Of course, they have their share of low quality content too, but overall they do offer an environment where good journalism still can happen. Meanwhile even the most reputable newspapers, which traditionally were a place for quality journalism, are struggling a lot and it is not clear how long they can afford to present quality content.

If a state wants to fund public radio and TV stations, it doesn't need to do it through a mandatory, regardless of use flat fee. I would argue that that is the worse possible way to do it:

* Increased bureaucracy (why not add a 0.1% to an existing tax?)

* Regressive taxation (you pay the same amount regardless of your income; if you used the income tax, you would distribute it more fairly)

* No market shaping (you could instead fund it with a tax on, say, TV ads for high-calories sodas, or whatever as a society you decide should not be forbidden but discouraged)

The point of having a fee vs. a tax is, that the government has no direct control of it. So they can't just adjust it at will. The fee is set for several years in advance and increased from time to time to adjust for inflation etc. But it is an independant entitiy deciding about this.

Could you have the same independent entity decide the total funding for the BBC and then have the government pay for that out of general taxation?

> So they can't just adjust it at will. The fee is set for several years in advance and increased from time to time to adjust for inflation etc.

What stops legislators from adjusting the fee at will? There’s legislation enacting the fee, defining the fee, enforcing the fee. Surely, there can be legislation to modify the fee and remove the fee. Same as any other tax.

No, the fee is not decided by the legislators. Of course they can remove the whole system or pass new laws for its mechanics, but the fee itself is not under direct government control. The effect is, that they can just sneakily shave off the budget by 10% for the next year like with budgets under government control. They would have to fundamentally change the system first, which would create a lot of opposition, as a result, so far no government hasn't done that.

Parliament can pass any law it wants. That's central to the system the UK has.

The BBC is dependent on a fee collected by the government, as regulated by laws the government has passed and the government enforces. Insisting it's not government funded is trying to invent a distinction where none exists.

In my personal experience public funded TV stations are just a propaganda machine for the current ruling party.

I've always mostly known public funded radios to be actually quite critical of the current ruling party. I do not watch much televison but I would expect a similar behaviour.

Howerver I guess it depends on the country you're from.

A ssome else pinted out, by funding public braodcasting directly they can afford to be critical. Were the fundid by a tax, collected by the gevernment, and handed out by the government this independance goes right out of the window. One of the lessons Germany learned from the Nazi regime with government controlled media.

there is no difference if is in the government power to increase or decrease that tax.

In Germany, the government has no direct control about the TV fees. There is a complex mechanism for deciding about increases, which involves independent entities. Especially, the government can't just cut the fees to influence the media.

In order to increase the fee for public braodcasters, not a tax (small bt crucial difference), both chambers of parliament have to agree. The bundestag is directly elected, the bundesrat represents the indivdual states. This means, in order to change the fee, every state and the bundestag have to agree. For the states, that means one single state not voting for a fee change prevent any fee change. Just happened, one state government feared backlash from the AfD and the right wing from the CDU (Merkels party) and voted against an increase.

So in order to change the fee, it is not just one govnment that can do something, but a grand total of 17 (federal plus 16 states). Usually they all agreed, but with different ruling coalitions in each state, this mix of left and right having to agree in itself prevents the public bradcasters from becoming a tool for government propaganda. They do represent the establishment, so. Populists hate this.

EDIT: To be really accurate, the legislative branch sets the fees, not the executive on. The legislative consists of two houses, Bundestag and Bundesrat. The Bundesrat is controlled by the state governments, which are composed of local arms of the parties present in the Bundestag (kind of like congress) and regional parties, mostly those state and federal governments are coalitions of multiple parties. It is the party line thing where it gets blurred between executive and legislative bodies.

EDIT: I fell for a common misconception, as an other user pointed out. It s not the Bundestag and Bundesrat deciding these fees, but rather a compact of the 16 states. The same states make up the Bundesrat, the compact is not the same body, so. Which further decreases the influence the federal executive, and even legaslative, branches have o public broadcasting.

> Do they really believe these things? This is the Kool-Aid you have to drink as a society, in order not to go crazy when you pay for things you never use and benefit from.

It's the same argument for taxes, isn't it?

Do we believe that the "household-fee" serves the greater good? No, I'd say not really. It was, IMHO, public broadcasts solution to the icreasing number of people preferring streaming and the internet over traditional television. And more importantly the decreasing revenue.

Are these fees generally speaking a good thing? I'd say yes, because you get a non-add dependant news source. Is the implementation, especially in germany, perfect? Of course not. It still has a place, so.

EDIT: If you move, you declare you address change to the authorities anyway. Everything depending on your address, government-wise and some other stuff, is then done automatically. Not relevant here, but that includes ballots.

If it was just a news source it would have been fine, but it‘s not. The department that manages this tax alone has 900 employees. Then each of the two big channels has thousands of employees. How is that an efficiently run news source?

Did I say it is efficient? It pretty much is not. It is stil godd to have a news source that does not depend on add revenue, and by law they have to be neutral in Germany. In praxis, they are obviously not, and not all their news formats are good, neither is their entertainment. But for the society as a whole, they are important. And with everyone deriding their entertainment as being geared for the old, well, our older citzens have every right to whatch what they want and have someone develop content for them as well. It's not like I watch all the stuff amazon or Netflix are pushig out, and yet I pay for crap lke Tiger King and all these pseudo-true-crime sh*.

If I have an issue with publc braodcasting in germany, it's te sometimes blatant nespotism at higher positions, the abusively high salaries, especially when compared to private media outlets and the degree of party influence. Overall so, these public media outlets definetly have their place. They could be cheaper, so. But that ai't gonna happen anytime soon I guess.

He he, you’re woke man... you pay for health insurance?

/s