IIRC, NPR and PBS are primarily funded through donations. Federal funding only makes up something like 10 or 15% of their budgets.
IMHO, this is what "state-controlled" media looks like:
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/19...
> Entertainment, social and international news should be edited in the “right direction”, just like domestic news, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Friday as he told state media and tabloids to alike to uphold the Communist Party leadership.
> Party-owned media should put political awareness first and let “positive propaganda” be the majority of the public voice, Xi told heads and veteran journalists from media outfits including People’s Daily, CCTV and Xinhua.
> “Party-owned media must hold the family name of the party,” Xi said. “They must embody the party’s will, safeguard the party’s authority … their actions must be highly consistent with the party.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith%E2%80%93Mundt_Act
There was a Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, but I can't tell if that had any meaningful impact on whether the VOA can advertise to Americans.
(I know Facebook is used worldwide. Can the entities which purchase ads say that their ads must never be shown to people of certain nationalities? Would that suffice in the face of a Federal law?)
As for BBC vs NPR, the BBC is funded by what is essentially a tax, the license fee, whereas NPR is mostly funded through fees, grants, sponsorships, and contributions; in 2012, 10.9% of its funding came from Federal sources.
I wanna know what they do about radio Yerevan.
People seem to not be distinguishing between running targeted ads and allowing news to be transmitted. It doesn't seem like the latter requires allowing the former.