Unless you were in a big media area like NY/LA most of the country had 4-5 stations (CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, then Fox) of varying reception quality. Cable's (and s

Unless you were in a big media area like NY/LA most of the country had 4-5 stations (CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, then Fox) of varying reception quality. Cable's (and satellite TV in more remote regions) 40, then 100, then 100s of channels were the boom in channel surfing. When you can flip between all the channels in <15sec there's not a lot of reason (dopamine boost) to keep flipping. Commercial breaks were shorter and more simultaneous as well.