I have to agree with Calum there. The BBC do produce some of the best television available in the UK. Being completely free from having to provide airspace attractive to advertisers they are able to show a good mix of popular television and also programmes of some actual merit - even during prime viewing hours.
Having said that, Channel Four also do a sterling job of programming some excellent television even though they do have commercial sponsors to suck up to. They even make their own (almost invariably excellent) films.
Compare these to the channels that wholly rely on advertising and you get:
Channel 5 - nauseating game shows of no intellectual merit whatsoever and made-for-tv films (eeek!).
Sky One - Star Trek, Buffy and the Simpsons? All the time? Hardly varied... sometimes entertaining but not really worth much.
Of course there are more, but they're mostly terrible.
There are some issues at the moment with the BBC trying to muscle in on markets that are not really part of its remit as a broadcasting entity - educacation markets for example. I think the press in this case has been a little alarmist. They are not using any really unfair means (with the possible exception of advertising such services on their own channels to the exclusion of all others) to do this, and they do still provide those services at a level unrivalled by most other commercial companies.
Oh yeah, and... we don't drive on the wrong side of the road, we drive on a DIFFERENT side of the road. Or sometimes the middle if we want. That's when we're not drinking Martini's on the banks of the Thames, of course.
