Well then there is no saving you.

Personally, for the 5 analogue channels:

C4 > BBC2 >> BBC1 >>>>>>>>>>> ITV1 > C5

C4 though has some terrible shit to go with it's awesome bits, so it is definately arguable that it be above BBC2.
And ITV would be last if it wasn't for their ability to grab some decent films (bond in particular) although they often fuck that up by putting a half-hour news in the middle of the fucking film!

American television.... well if we are talking broadcast channels (rather than American shows aired on British channels) then I don't think we get any here in the UK... there used to be ABC1 with it's idiotic advert system whereby there was a 5 minute break immediately after the show began, but (on Virgin Media at least) ABC1 doesn't seem to appear here anymore. Not that much on it was worth watching anyway.

If you are talking about particular American programs, then they do air on British TV too, and there are of couse some good ones such as Family Guy (well, the newer ones aren't as great) and the other cartoons, Frasier, Becker, Friends (generally watching 2-3 Amercan sitcoms means you have watched them all though, so I won't name others) Stargate and other good sci-fi stuff too.

Nothing really. Maybe Sky. UK TV is fairly crap imo.

Exactly.

And don't forget That Mitchell and Webb Look. That is hilarious. And Blackadder is another BBC classic.

US TV can't come close, with a few exceptions (namely Family Guy, Futurama, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, 30 Rock and 24).

UK TV is not crap. Sky is probably the only cable service in the world which always has something worth watching.

The only circumstance in which I can understand your opinion is if you don't have Sky.

Sky doesn't make anywhere near the amount of original programming as the BBC, which is why Murdoch started to cry about it recently.

Might as well continue the list: Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy; Red Dwarf; Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle; Top Gear; QI.

good UK shows: (imo, shows that i like, probably more that I can't remember)

Top Gear (BBC)
Doctor Who (BBC)
Mock The Week (BBC)
Have I Got News For You (BBC)
Never Mind The Buzzcocks (BBC)
Question Time (BBC)
The Inbetweeners (E4)
The IT Crowd (C4)
Match of the Day (BBC)
Live F1 (BBC)

also, you can get lot's of good US shows on BBC, C4, C5 and some of the satelite channels

ITV is a channel that I avoid, only thing worth watching on it is Football

To add to the 'good BBC list': Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes, Only Fools and Horses, Casualty (it's been going for about 30 years, must be doing something right).

BBC Gives me Top Gear. I need nothing else. Best Motor show in history.

While I do love Top Gear as well, they have been known to get on my nerves on occasion.  

Here is me picking some at random out of wikipedias list of BBC shows (not necessarily produced by them, though most are)
The Wiki list is just a small selection, and I have picked a small selection of it to list some great shows that I enjoy watching, and then highlighted a small section of what I picked to show the real gems (the blue highlighting) This is mostly comedy too as I am not interested in most sports coverage, and while I wouldn't say I enjoy watching the News (and thus took it out of the list) I pretty much would not consider watching the other channels news unless it came on to the channel I was already watching.

(Any text I added is in yellow)

• 2point4 children
• 3rd Rock from the Sun (now on SCI FI Channel)
• Absolute Power (Originally on BBC Radio 4)
• Absolutely Fabulous
• 'Allo 'Allo!
• American Dad!
• Arrested Development
• Arthur
• Band of Brothers
• Bang Bang, It's Reeves and Mortimer
• Being Human
• Blackadder
• Blue Peter
• The Blue Planet
• Bottom
• The Brittas Empire
• Coupling
• DangerMouse
• The Day Today
• Dead Ringers (Originally on BBC Radio 4)
• Dinnerladies
• Doctor Who
• Dragons' Den
• Extras
• Family Guy
• The Fast Show
• Fawlty Towers
• Flight of the Conchords (TV series)
• Formula 1 From 1976 to 1996 and 2009 onwards
• French and Saunders
• Friday Night with Jonathan Ross
• Gavin & Stacey
• The Good Life
• Goodness Gracious Me (Originally on BBC Radio 4)
• Harry and the Hendersons (TV series)
• Have I Got News For You (Hat Trick Productions, Based on BBC Radio 4's News Quiz)
• Heroes
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Originally on BBC Radio 4)
• Hustle
• I'm Alan Partridge
• Keeping Up Appearances
• The Kumars at No.42
• Later with Jools Holland
• The League of Gentlemen (Originally on BBC Radio 4 as On the Town with the League of Gentlemen)
• Life on Mars
• Little Britain (Originally on BBC Radio 4)
• Look Around You See my thread for more info on this piece of pure awesome.
  Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends
• Malcolm In The Middle
• Men Behaving Badly (Two series for ITV, then transferred to the BBC)
• Messiah
• The Mighty Boosh
• Mock The Week
• Monkey Dust (wow, i'd forgotten this)
  
• Monty Python's Flying Circus
• The Munsters
• My Family
• My Hero (at least the first series anyway)
  
• Natural World
• Never Mind The Buzzcocks
• Nighty Night
• Nineteen Eighty-Four
• Not the Nine O'Clock News
• The Office
• The Old Grey Whistle Test
• The One Show
• Open All Hours
• The Pink Panther Show (Now On Boomerang)
• Planet Earth
• Porridge
• QI
• Red Dwarf
• Robin Hood
• Robot Wars
• Room 101
• The Royle Family
• Shooting Stars
• Short Circuit
• The Simpsons (Now On Channel 4)
• Steptoe and Son
• Super Mario World..... WTF?, I don't remember this.
  
• Total Wipeout
• The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air (Now on Trouble)
• They Think It's All Over
• Test the Nation
• That Mitchell and Webb Look
• That Mitchell and Webb Glimse
• The Thin Blue Line
• Thunderbirds
• Time Trumpet
• Tom & Jerry (Now On Boomerang)
• Tomorrow's World
• Top Cat
• Top Gear (1977 TV series)
• Top Gear (current format) (Repeats on Dave)
• Top of the Pops
• Torchwood (Repeats on Watch)
• The Vicar of Dibley
• Walking with Dinosaurs 
• War Walks
• Watchdog
• Who Do You Think You Are?
• The Young Ones
• Glastonbury Festival
• Olympic Games