jb_nc, even if the commercial networks are biased, I still don't believe it makes sense to publicly fund an ABC that is un-accountable.
In any case, broadening the funding base (with perhaps more corporate sponsors) would probably have the effect of strengthening rather than weakening the ABC's independence.
The way it is at the moment, any government that seeks to change the ABC is seen as 'tampering' with it, and the opposition can score easy points by just claiming that its independence is being interfered with.
What we've got is a problem where the legal owner of the ABC(the government) is involved in what is a conflict of interest trying to be independently assessing itself. As for us 'notional' owners (the ones actually paying for it), the only say we get is a vague vote once every 3 years for one party or another who might not even keep their election promise.
This problem doesn't exist for private media organisations who are judged continually by being made to compete for consumer dollars, the ABC is funded by us whether we want to or not.