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The money for PBS has dwindled over the years, not to mention the fact that before when Siskel and Ebert, Julia Child, and Nova were the only way to see that kind of programming. Now there are whole channels devoted to the kind of programming further eroding their niche.
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Exactly.
The more channels, the more content, the more splintered the audience and the harder it becomes to capture the eyeballs that are required to generate revenue.
And yes, there are other models outside of the US. Just about every nation (other than the US) has a state run broadcaster (British Broadcasting Corporation, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Australian Broadcasting Corp., Danmarks Radiotelevision, Television France, etc.) While many of them still run ads, some do not (i.e. BBC). It should be noted that most of these are arms length from their respective governments, some are just mouth pieces for their governments (usually in nations that have more centralized governments, such as China)