Hi, Peter:
Here's a thought, are you explicitly using the N statistic in your PROC REPORT? If you are taking the default count for character variables in your table, you might be able to achieve what you want by trying something like this.
[pre]
column Product Region,N;
define Product / group;
define Region / across;
define N / format=commax6. 'CNT';
[/pre]
Proc Tabulate might also serve your needs better because with PROC TABULATE, you can apply a format to all the data cells on the TABULATE statement:
[pre]
PROC TABULATE data=something format=commax6.;
[/pre]
cynthia