Ah that was when that newcomer, Channel 4 came along, with all it's naughty films! LOL

US, too. Some big cities had independent channels (my local area had a whopping four extra), but typically there was NBC, ABC, CBS and PBS (public broadcasting, which is how we learned about British TV). Independent channels typically showed reruns (old TV shows), cartoons, old movies, local sports and news an hour early.

You're too young ...there were just three when I was a kid.

Ironically in 2021 I now personally have access to over 100 channels, and that's not including the likes of streaming services, yet I watch less TV now then I did back then

"Do you want to watch snow or cheese?"

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Not just the UK, our town was fancy and upscale so we had 5, but when I moved out to the wilds of Central Oregon that dropped down to 2, and only one of those came in consistently clear.

I remember when the fourth one started. I was 17!

Our family lived out in the countryside in Canada, without an aerial (only "rabbit ears") so we only received the local channel clearly- there were two others that were "snowstorms" of various degrees depending on the weather outside...

In the west of Ireland, we only had two. I remember the excitement when we got a third (TV3) in the late 90's.

I still remember the channel 4 launch! And we had to go to the tv to turn over to a different channel :)

I remember the big three of ancient analog television... ABC, NBC... and CBS

When I was a kid in the 50s not everyone had a TV and we only had one channel. Black and white, 405 line, with a glass safety screen in front of the tube. When you turned it off it collapsed to a white dot in the centre of the screen. (UK)

Go back further, we used to have a switch on the side of our telly (the size of a small house) to enable us to get BBC2 so my dad could watch the cricket

And Teletext! What was on page 888 was it the subtitles or TV schedule? I can't remember but I remember using it a lot!

Same in the States. ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS. Although some markets had non network stations which mainly ran old movies and reruns.

When we had our first TV there was only one channel.

I stopped watching TV in 1974. We also had 4 stations: 2.9.27. & 33. Many many years of life I’ve enjoyed by not having a TV. (Then came the internet)

We only had 3

Nah. Some places in the US are still like this.

We had seven.

Austin Powers singing BBC 1, BBC 2, BBC 3, BBC 4 instantly popped in my head!

Lol, I remember the days before Channel 4 smh

when I was a kid in the 50s in Canada, we had 3 stations because my dad set up a GINORMOUS antenna on top of our house to get the U.S. channels. ABC, CBS, NBC.; with different colored see-through plastic paper on the front of the TV, because it was in black and white. Would anyone care to top that?....

Now there are 10,000 channels but by the time you find one you want to watch, go to the url, sign in, recover your password, sign in again, figure out how to make it full screen and mess with the volume control for twenty minutes, you actually only get the equivalent of half a channel.

US here, and in the 80's we could only rely on two channels, sometimes three, occasionally four depending on the weather or if someone wanted to go out and turn the antenna.

What!!? We only as 3 to begin with!

Why is that UK specific?

Sweden had 1 channel

That was us in Colorado in the 1960s

Rabbit-ears helped.

Lucky we had pbs and once in awhile cbs

That girl with the teddy in the test card? Creepy! Expat in the States. BTW, that helped me to never get sucked into paying for cable etc!

And only 1 and 3 were worth watching!

Same here in the US unless you bought cable.

I’m from New Zealand we have 2 till the mid 90’s and in 1995 if you could afford ‘sky’ you could have 7

Youngster! We made three by tuning to the neighboring ITV to see if it was showing something different to our local one, in snowy B&W!

I know someone who had 2 channels in the UK- you had luxury, Bill!

I had three!

Not UK specific: ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS - that's all, folks.

I did not get BBC2 untill 6 years after it launched! (and according to the other kids, there were some GREAT shows I was missing!!)

We had 2 in Alberta 😅

That was the case until 1997

And despite the naysayers claiming it doesn't really work, it absolutely did.

I keep finding myself doing that to my DVD player, I'm not sure but I think it helps 😹

I hated rotary phones with a passion