Why?
News should not be entertainment. News should not be for profit.
But why?
If "news" isn't profitable or entertaining (and FWIW I agree those shouldn't be preconditions for quality news), then it will have to be subsidized by someone. Who will do that? What is their reason for putting up that money? And - most importantly - who decides whether the end product is "good enough", and what changes can they demand for the subsidy to continue?
But why?
If "democracy" isn't profitable or entertaining (and FWIW I agree those shouldn't be preconditions for quality democracy), then it will have to be subsidized by someone. Who will do that? What is their reason for putting up that money? And - most importantly - who decides whether the end product is "good enough", and what changes can they demand for the subsidy to continue?
There are a lot of things that we as a society have decided we need, and that everybody should contribute to paying for whether we like it or not.
We pay police salaries to try and prevent crime. We all pay to have waste collected regularly.
But lets be clear, we are not talking all that much money. Australia's ABC runs on about 7c a day per taxpayer. I would happily pay 10 times that.
I think the question of what is "good enough" and how the organization should be run, and how independent it is, are all good questions and something we should all have a say in.
Point of fact, the BBC was not intended to be "government-controlled", and it is not a "revenue source" for the UK government.
https://www.quora.com/Is-the-BBC-the-state-owned-and-state-c...
No, the licence fee is collected by the BBC, by law.
Section 365(2) of the Communications Act 2003:
>Sums which a person is liable to pay by virtue of regulations under subsection (1) must be paid to the BBC and are to be recoverable by them accordingly.
And the government punishes you if you don't pay.
I declined to make a distinction without a difference.