Publicly-funded, non-commercial, high quality, arguably unbiased programming? If it existed in the US, it would be decried as "socialist". Our right is often lefter than your left.

> Just curious, what do you think is the BBC equivalent in the US?

We have several public broadcasters, the most famous of which is National Public Radio (NPR). There's also Public Radio International (PRI), which rebroadcasts some BBC programming in addition to its own material

For TV, there's Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

There is no "TV license" here like in the UK. No government agency sends threatening letters to people who haven't paid a yearly tax to benefit the public broadcasters. Instead, all of the broadcasters run funding drives to request donations from viewers/listeners. A sizable chunk of revenue also comes from the government's Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), but that pales in comparison to donations, as I understand it.