>The vast majority of essential services (e.g. food, housing) are not publicly funded, so the analogy doesn't really work

Those aren't "services", so there's that.

In many countries, however, power companies, the water company, central banks, rails, the hospital system, universities, etc, are, or were before the neoliberal attack, public.

And, of course, to the point, many have a state paid public broadcaster for news and other programs (BBC, France does, Germany iirc does, Italy, etc) - and it's not some niche channels delegated to upper middle class viewers (like, I think, NPR is, if that's indeed public).