Funked - you're a little off about the BBC. Yes, it is one of those Nationalised entities, receiving government funding as it needed to in the days before TV when the BBC broadcast only radio. No, it is not a state monopoly as such. There are independent channels as well. First there was ITV (Independent TV) which has been running as long as I can remember. In 1982, we got Channel 4 - quite a good channel, shows some controversial stuff and doesn't hold back, and Channel 5 - old movies, some current American stuff like the Crime and Punishment series. These are the
terrestrial channels. Only BBC1 and BBC2 do not have commercials. They are funded by the licence fee which, for colour sets is about £112 I believe. There's also cable and satellite stations of course, so a true TV nut can get about 100 channels or more.
I explained all the above
in this thread, along with reasons why I prefer the current system of paying a licence fee - beats the hell out of wall-to-wall commercials.
As to news coverage, I think it's a case of the BBC
appearing to be biased in their attempts to remain neutral. We
want them to report on how well our guys are doing. That's what we want to hear. The BBC has long had a policy of neutrality/perceived bias. In the 1982 Falklands war, Thatcher got upset with them for reporting things like
"We were told by senior members of the British Armed Forces..... and if they are to be believed..." - that sort of thing. The opposite of this is the Iraqi Minister of Information saying that there is no fighting in Baghdad - to the sound of gunfire outside...
Anyway, the BBC has come a long way. 30-40 years ago, they believed that only THEY had the right to broadcast radio. In 1964,
Radio Caroline was launched, breaking that BBC monopoly. (The Caroline website has a history section) The BBC didn't like that, and for a time they jammed Caroline's transmissions with a continuous "parp-parp-parp" sound that made it basically inaudible. Those days are gone.
