Cable Co. claims this was my fault:

[Jeffhs]

Please explain to me in words I can understand (not technical jargon) why my TV channels are all mixed up on my TV dial. As I said, I get three five and eight on their right numbers, but the other stations are mixed up terribly -- PBS 25 is on 10, MyTV 43 is on 6, CBS 19 is on 4, and so on. The only other station that comes in on its right number is the ION station on channel 23. I don't know if this is all because a thunderstorm, power surge or whatever damaged the on-screen channel dial on my TV or if the cable company is trying to confuse its subscribers to death. I cannot afford a new TV. How do I tell now where the stations are?

BTW, what on earth is going on with CBS? All I get on the CBS channel here is basketball all day and all night, except between six and seven when the news is on--sometimes. If the game slops over past six p.m. EST, I lose the evening news.

If I were to give up my cable and put up an antenna with a rotor, could I get the CBS network without the basketball games? I don't care what city the station comes from -- in this area, Erie, Pennsylvania, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne, Indiana -- whatever. I just want my CBS service back. If this is for any reason not possible, when will CBS be back on its regular schedule? For that matter, why weren't the basketball games put on one of the sports channels, rather than hogging CBS for goodness knows how long? I saw the same nonsense going on with NBC when it dropped all its programming for the 2000 Olympics in a place called Vancouver, wherever that is. That nonsense lasted two weeks and almost drove me nuts.
Why aren't these sporting events put on channels intended to be sports channels, such as ESPN? I don't think this is fair to people like myself who aren't interested in sports; as a matter of fact, I think the news is much more important than sports any day of the year.