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I think we've got around 55-60 channels on our analog cable. Over the past couple of years, they've removed 8 to 10 channels from the analog package and moved them to digital. Comcast has a type of starter digital package that includes the regular expanded basic channels + the channels that were moved to digital + a bunch of music cahnnels. I think the idea is to get a digital cable box in as many homes as possible. I just wonder how long it will be before a digital cable box will be required to receive anything on cable. At least now, I can still use the mechanical tuner on channels 2-13.
Speaking of prices, expanded basic cable here runs around $56/month. I remember about 15 years ago, when the price hit the $40 mark, my Dad saying "if it goes up again, I'm cutting it off because there ain't nothing on that TV worth this much money a month". He passed away not too long after that. I can also remember, back in the early '80's, when the cable bill was less than $20/month. There wasn't as many channels; but, the quality of programming on what channels we did have was better. Heck, we didn't know there were any cable channels above 13 until we got our first cable ready set in '84. Even at that, there were more channels above 13 that were scrambled than not. We could still hear the audio, though.
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