remember when they’d only broadcast a few hours a day?

I remember more than that. For a while, the first thing I’d do after getting home from school each day was to switch on HBO. At that time of day it wasn’t broadcasting any programming, only a static text display listing the evening’s schedule or showing a copyright notice or something. The display was unchanging — mostly. But at a particular time each day shortly after I got home, the screen would go dark, there would be a couple of electronic chirps (to signal a tape change?), and I’d get a little thrill of anticipation. Suddenly a music video would come on! This was years before MTV. Undoubtedly very few people ever saw these proto-videos, aired as they were entirely without any kind of fanfare or promotion. Some of them were very cool. No one even knew what a music video was, unless you happened to be “in the know” as I felt privileged to be.

As soon as the song was over, the display would revert to a boring program listing again, like a video Brigadoon.