The TV Licence funds the BBC content, which is Free to Air TV, online stuff, Radio etc. It has no ads and aims to have as much diverse stuff as possible.
I'm also happy to pay, and feel sorry for Americans who have to put up with inferior public TV services.
Not only is the BBC awesome, the licence fee is much lower than cable or satellite charges, and BBC programmes are not stuffed with mind-numbing adverts.
The BBC is awesome, but the TV License is incredibly regressive (it's basically a poll tax), and has failed at making them independent of parliament (instead of a parliamentary debate over how much money to give the BBC, we just get a parliamentary debate over how much the license fee should be). And their enforcers are... not nice, and an incredibly inefficient use of human labour. It would be better to fund the BBC from general taxation.
The BBC is awesome, I happily pay my tv tax :)