memes

It was channel 4 for us, because channel 3 was the local CBS affiliate and it would interfere with the signal from the NES. There was a switch on the console to flip between 3 and 4, because it varied depending on location which channel was optimal.

Channel 3 was CBS, 5 was ABC, 12 was NBC, and that was it.

The ABC affiliate would also broadcast Sesame Street because for most of my childhood, we didn't have a local public television station. When we finally did get one, you had to get cable to pick it up where I lived. I have vague memories of having cable in the house for a brief time around the time the ABC station stopped carrying the show, but my parents dropped it pretty soon afterward when we started to want to watch exclusively Nickelodeon. At least I always assumed that was the cause, but the cost of cable was probably a bigger factor. They compensated for that by recording movies that came on network TV with the VCR, and we happily rewatched those constantly instead of whatever we were missing on cable. We had whole shelves full of just VHS tapes full of movies recorded off the TV.