Well in our area Comcast has gone to all digital. I am sure that most other cable companies will do the same in the future. So you will have to have a box at every tv. In our area that has made the average house cost about 70 for BASIC.
Ditto here when I had cable. Unless you had a converter box, all you got was basics - abc,nbc,cbs,fox,pbs, etc. When I had 2 HD DVRs w/ HBO and internet the bill was regularly over $130.00