Channel 9 was available Friday SNA-SFO in an A320. The guy next to me, who was also an FF, was not aware of the existence of channel 9, and didn't understand why its even there (he slept the whole way).
However, my previous flights LAX-SJC had NO channel 9 (or channel 8, or 1, or even a place to plug in headsets) on the dreaded CRJ.