I can only speak for Ku-band, as my C-band experience has been limited to the mini-BUD experiments
PBS has grown beyond NOVA, (in addition to new networks such as Create TV and World TV) but point taken. KTV2 and Ebru TV carry a variety of family programming (well, they call themselves the "family" channel anyway). They do sometimes carry movies that are quite violent in nature. Both channels have cartoons/kids shows, programs from US/Canada/UK/Australia that you would see on HGTV, Food Network, BBC America, SyFy, etc., a news hour, and so on. Other stations surprise you with some English programs:
http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/314998-Interesting-finds-on-97W and you can check out the 97W channel guide here:
http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/319698-Galaxy-19-(97W)-Ku-band-channel-guide-Sept-7-update (I'll probably update it again this weekend).
The Luken mux Iceberg mentioned is on 83W Ku-band, too, for the time being. Pentagon channel on 101W sometimes has some good stuff, as does Shalom TV on 99W. I have watched the Dutch station BVN on that satellite occasionally, though I don't speak it! If you set your skew right, you can get NBC feeds and COZI TV on 103W. Free Speech TV is on 123W. 87W besides Louisiana PBS feeds, has The Patient Channel which can be interesting or dull. 72W often runs some popular NBC network programming feeds that are typically only found on cable/pay satellite (random ones throughout the day). 95W has CCTV-4, sometimes subtitled in English, CCTV English News, and CCTV English Documentary (mostly about Chinese geography and culture). I also enjoy the radio networks on several stations: In-store on 95W and hidden ones on 103W, and a few networks on 97W, too.
The fun stuff are the things not documented: sports, news, educational, conference, medical and entertainment feeds. Lots of them up on Ku-band. You're almost guaranteed to find one at any time during the day. C-band supposedly has better choice of English programming -- I know they do have a great selection of Spanish programming (so I'm drooling for the day I can hook into the Satmex satellites on a permanent basis with a big dish!). FTA certainly isn't a replacement for pay TV, but I notice on the rare occasion when I sit down and try to watch a show on my dad's Dish Network setup, I spend about 50% of the time looking at commercials. Flip the channel to another program, and voila, another commercial. After watching FTA and using Netflix for a year and a half, I've gotten used to limited or no commercials, so I find it bothers me a lot more than it used to.
