The BBC doesn't offer a broad range of stuff, in my experience, so I can't name anybody else, because they are no better than anybody else. It's often claimed, but nobody has ever offered me any proof of that. The most I ever hear is merely "Doctor Who", and that makes the claims that the BBC offers broad output seem a bit odd to me...
In my experience, the BBC are exactly the same as the rest, and in many cases less interesting*, but they aren't expected to fund and compete like the rest and have fought against it tooth and nail because they know full well that if people had the choice they wouldn't choose to fund the BBC. I find them to be a national disgrace, myself. There is a reason that every other country finds our TV Tax to be a mindboggling laughing matter, and that almost every country that once had the same scheme has long since dropped it.
*Their attention to the animation industry has gone waaaaaaay downhill since I was younger, just to give one example that springs readily to mind (I'm an animation enthusiast, after all, and early exposure to a wide variety of productions from across the globe had a hand in that**
). Back then, they licensed quality animation from around the world (from the likes of the Spain/Japan co-production, Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds, to the US-made Bucky O'Hare, to domestically-produced stuff like SuperTed, and so on), and nowadays they just fund
leftist dogma whose stated aim is to teach young children that there should be no consequences or punishment for breaking the law.
Our animation industry seems to be dead in the water, and this makes it appear that the only way to get a corporation who evidently has lots of money to spare to fund it, is if the productions teach absolutely appalling values to the impressionable. (Again, exactly what I expect from the BBC, unfortunately.)
**That said, a mere couple of years after some of the stuff I cite above, everyone I know along with myself came to find the BBC's output to have quickly become poncey and out-of-touch until the late '90s, when they had a hit with The Demon Headmaster.
As an aside, I also find it disgraceful that you have to pay the BBC Television Tax even if you're blind. Even with the discount granted, something about that strikes me as rather audacious.
Anyway, I'm getting way off-track from the Computer Literacy Project 2012, and I think that this is an interesting discussion in and of itself, so I'm going to split it off into another thread in order to keep the two separate.
EDIT: There, split. The original thread is
here.
