I didn't want to respond in the topic where the following was written as I had scant little to say on topic...

siLLy puPPy wrote: Not exactly on topic but i recently discovered a video of the very first two hours played on MTV. Amazing that these videos were cutting edge at the time and look so dated now!

... but after viewing much of that (kind of skipped through it) it made me think about the 80s music video programs I watched that were local to my home town, Vancouver, BC, Canada (specifically I grew up in West Vancouver on the North Shore).

One of the shows I used to try to catch every Friday night in the early to mid-80s if I was in was the  late night music video show called Soundproof.  This was put out by the local cable channel (Shaw in North Vancouver on the North Shore), and I found they had some really neat stuff.  There was I think be a raunchier one that came later still, or maybe that was part of it (good on community service television!)  This is what introduced me to a lot of music including Kate Bush and Laurie Anderson.

There was very fine program, i thought, that came out of Vancouver called Nite Dreems.  I was not watching it back in 1980 yet, but here is part one from an episode from 1980

How cool (for me)!  It starts off with a Tim Curry song (I love me some Curry), mentions Rocky Horror Picture Show and then talks about three of my favourite films of 1980 for a bit by three of my favourite directors, The Tin Drum, the Shining and Altered States.

Frank Zappa is interviewed in the second uploaded part of the episode.

And continued fr a little in part three

Vancouver was a punk town and a lot of alternative music was popular here so one got a lot of punk bands on those shows. There was a big cress-pollination with guys from the (UBC) university radio station (those guys would play adventurous and "different" music -- heard Henry Cow first there, and The Residents).

Later Canada got Much Music, much more mainstream, but I had found these local shows much more engaging, and there was really weird and erotic stuff late night.  Ah, the good old days.  Vancouver was a great place to grow up in.; changed so much over the years.