Honestly I don't really understand the situation there since I'm not from that neck of the woods. Here (in Australia) we have "free to air television" which we don't directly pay a fee for. Perhaps it's built into our taxes or perhaps it's all ad/commercially supported (and there's a heck of a lot of ads).

I haven't watched free to air television for many years and if they turned round and said I had to pay a fee for it, I certainly wouldn't.

For me, it seems that unless it's offering is on par with streaming services, and/or it's "fee" is similar to that of a streaming service with similar content, then it's not worth paying for... but that's coming from an outsider who's only given it a moments thought. It's likely I don't understand it enough to really make a judgement.