The channel allocation is still being determined, based on need, availability of content, and funding.
Individual broadcasters can decide how many channels they want to broadcast at a particular time.
To begin, think of bandwidth as a fixed-size pipe through which digital information is carried. The digital television pipe will be capable of carrying 19.4 megabits of digitally encoded programming and data per second. Let's take the metaphor a step further and imagine that the pipe's interior can be subdivided into different sections or channels. This subdividing makes multicasting and datacasting possible. In the digital world, a channel is like a stream.