> I imagine this has to be due to the digital conversion?
> Seems like stations are getting away from the channel
> numbers in favor of call letters lately.
>
To me the irony is that you notice the channel number more with digital than analog. You tell people to switch to channel 8.3 or 13.6 or 39.1. On satellite, you get 39 on (surprise) 39! OTA Analog 39 is on 39 and OTA Digital XX comes across as 39...
I've seen some digital cable setups that end up labeling the Cable Digital channels 302, 308, 311, 313, 339, etc for the digital versions of 2, 8, 11, 13, 39, etc.
Everyone still calls it Channel 39 or Channel 26, even if it's on cable 4 or cable 18 or cable 205435...