TV Channel Choices Diminishing?

A posting on Slashdot.org, How Many TV Channels Will There Be in the Future has comments on an article, Universe Collapses: Well, TV's, Anyway by editor Joe Mandese on MediaPost.com. The article says that a Nielsen 2004 report on the television universe shows the number of TV channels available to the average household has dropped from an average of 102.1 channels in 2002 to 100.4 channels last year. This is still a much larger number than 1995, when the article said an average of 41.1 channels were available, and 1985, when an average of only 18.8 channels were available.

The article notes the number of channels actually used by the average U.S. household, remained constant at 15 between 2002 and 2003, compared with 5 out of the average 18.8 channels in 1985.