In the UK we pay £145 per year [0] - call that US$250.
For that we get 3 HD channels, 2 SD channels, 2 kids channels, a 24 hour news channel, a dozen national radio stations, and a bunch of local stations. All FTA via your aerial.
Most countries have public service broadcasters. However, the UK has the largest broadcasting corporation in the world, with arguably the highest quality programming. PBS in the US and CBC in Canada have far smaller budgets, which is weird given population size of their respective countries. Perhaps if tax payers would ask to pay more for public broadcasting, we wouldn’t even need commercial stations.
EDIT: I just found out that most of the funding for public broadcasters in the US doesn’t even come from taxes. Canada's CBC receives two-thirds of its funding from taxes.
Oh, and you get the BBC websites.
All without adverts.
Totally worth it.
[0] http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/tv...