To emphasise, our national broadcasters are not our only broadcasters, so the funding of our media is not dependant on the government. There are commercial broadcasters as well.
Partially. Most of the funding comes from corporate sponsors and individual donors and those tend to be on a station by station or program level. The funding sources for NewsHour, probably the most relevant part of PBS, are listed here for example: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders
Which leads to hilarious results like the Koch Brothers funding NOVA.
That said, Sinclair and the like excluded, the splintering of television networks into individual markets and restrictions on O-and-O stations are world-class exemplary parts of the US media landscape.
Also, what I meant is that put it funding somewhere out of reach of the general taxation pool. Tie it to property taxes, have a licence fee, a foundation with an endowment, a levy on something or other, individual sponsorships, that kind of thing.
Tying the funding and thus existence of your media to a healthy democracy is like giving a horse its own rope, they'll trot off into the sunset never to be seen again.
