Japanese TV.

Ok ok. So most everybody knows that there's weird stuff on Japanese TV. SNL skits have been made on the subject. But what surprised me when I came here is the channel selection. There are only 7 TV channels. Seven. You can get 3 more with the basic cable option (known as BS... yeah yeah, I think I've heard all the jokes already). There's the premium cable option... but I dunno how many more channels you get. I'm guessing not too many. I'm yet to go to house equipped with CS. And of course there's satellite TV.

I once talked with some Japanese friends about how a few of my friends back home have something like 600 channels right now. Unimaginable. Jaws dropped to the floor. Yeah, America is the couch potato nation. Where else can you get channels in the hundreds? On the flip side, the American audience is quite a bit more diverse in their tastes than many other nations of the world. So, it could be argued that all those channels are necessary to keep America's diverse audience entertained... maybe. Yeah, maybe not.