I found that European TV is a lot drier and more educational than US TV, but I don't know if that's because of interest, regulation, a smaller market (in each language), or ?

In the U.S. we have no non-commercial media free of commercial influence. Our "public" broadcasting services rely on commercial advertisements.

Is the European programming you're impressed with publicly funded by any chance?

I've only watched European TV but if you say US TV is even worse... it must be like in that movie Idiocracy

Worse. In the next hour, the History Channel has a show about UFOs, the Travel Channel about ghosts, National Geographic about drugs, TLC (formerly The Learning Channel) has a dating show, and about 10 channels have shows about murders.

Cable TV is hardly relevant at this point. Its about streaming services, social media, and other internet media.

This may be a cliche, but I seriously don't understand why anyone still watches cable TV - it's been unbearable for many years and it's expensive. I sort of understand that some people enjoy sports broadcasts that are only available on cable, but the rest is just unbearable and incomprehensible to me.

If you had said “I haven’t watched TV in 20 years. Do people still watch TV?”, that would have been cliche.

But I agree with you. My wife and I are doing thr digital nomad thing traveling across the US staying in hotels. The first thing I do when I arrive is plug in my Roku stick.

Sports and local news I guess

My youngest daughter’s favourite TV show is operation ouch which is aired on the ABC and produced by the BBC.

Having a publicly funded TV network goes a long way to producing good content.

PBS Digital Studios [1] also funds several high-quality YouTube-style creators. Some of my favorites are "It's Okay to Be Smart" and "PBS Spacetime". Crash Course, a staple of high-school review material has also partnered with PBS.

[1] https://www.pbs.org/franchise/digital-studios/