Ever since I’ve watched television, there’s never been anything on at channel 1. What’s up with that?
Cecil’s column on the subject: Why is there no Channel One on television?
Here’s some boring articles on the topic
http://anarc.org/wtfda/channel1.htm
http://members.aol.com/jeff560/tvch1.html
http://www.discovery.com/area/skinnyon/skinnyon971031/skinnyon.html
Interestingly (to me anyway) here in New York we have a tri-state cable news channel called NY1 which is on channel one (only with a cable box of course).
Channel 1 in the digital cable world in our area is reserved for Comcasts On-Demand channel.