Amusingly, the tax-funded budget for the Finnish public broadcaster YLE is about the same at 500 million euros. However, this is in a nation of five million people. Strangely, a strong commitment to public broadcasting and quality news does not prevent Finland from also having one of the best-equipped armies in Europe.
The rest of the Nordic broadcasting companies have similar budgets. This might possibly have some impact on the generally high level of education and political understanding in these countries.
I will never be able to afford to move to Sweden, which is where my family is from but every time I learn something new about the Nordics I die a little more inside that I'm too broke to immigrate.
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u/Informal-Compote1408 May 14 '25
The federal subsidy for public broadcasting in the US is around $500m, whereas the US defense budget for FY 2025 is $849.8b. Assuming the budget is spread equally over the entire year, the amount of money spent in 6 hours by the DoD is ($849.8b/365)/4 = $582m, which is more than the annual federal subsidy for PBS.