With all the subchannels available, in Bismarck you would get around 32 channels total. Which is from 6 channels, that is true, but most of them have multiple sub channels.
(I'm getting the channels that are available from this site, if anyone is interested: https://rabbitears.info/market.php )
Dickinson and Williston each get 11 (but not ABC, because Forum has never cared about the far west, even though they own the Dickinson Press.)
Where the digital transition does suck is for towns like Bowman, like you mention. If you look at the sites that predict coverage, from this same rabbit ears site I can see in Bowman on the outskirts of town, where you are higher up you might get 1 or 2 at best. Where I'm guessing they used to get strong signals for CBS and PBS, if not NBC. The fact that congress and the FCC did not try to make sure coverage areas stayed the same for areas like this was a failure of that whole transition.