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104 channels ... and nothing’s on

Bruce Springsteen once grumbled about having 57 TV channels, with "nothin' on." Now, the average American has nearly double that.
/ Source: The Associated Press

Bruce Springsteen once grumbled about having 57 TV channels with "nothin' on." Now, the average American has nearly double that.

The typical American home received 104 television channels in 2006, Nielsen Media Research said on Monday, up from 61 in 2000.

In 1990, the typical number of channels was 33, Nielsen said. Two years later, Springsteen's "57 Channels (and Nothin' On)" was released.

The number of channels Americans receive at home is growing faster than the desire to actually watch them.

Last year, viewers watched only 15 percent of the stations available to them for any appreciable length of time; in 2000, they watched 22 percent of what they could surf through, Nielsen said.