>>You and Charles both mentioned syndication. Is that a TV term or just US TV term, cos I've no idea what it means? I've heard it before, mind.
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>Well, you see, in non-socialist countries where there are more than 2 government controlled TV stations <bg> there are a lot of stations that fill most of their day with content previously run on the big networks. To buy the rights to a show for running re-runs ( Friends each night at 6 pm for example ) they by the program in syndication at which point they pay a fee every time they run the show, but are assured others in their market can't buy those rights as long as their contract is in effect.

If you refer to the BBC - it's not govt run and there are at least 6 BBC TV channels now.

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>Right now I get roughly 300 channels ( and there is nothing on ... <s> ) if you don't count all-musics channels ( get about 100 of those ) or foreign language or weird sports channels to which I don't subscribe.

I can pick up loads on free digital - far more than I care to even peruse.