[James2001]

A bit more digging, and there were at least 3 different styles of burnt-in song captions from the old laserdisc days

This one was presumably in use around 1994/95 (though this recording dates from later)

   

This one was in use around 1996-98

   

And this one 1998-2000

   

At least they changed styles occasionally, the chunky, neon 1980s MTV Europe ones never changed, and they were still in use on some regional MTV versions until 2000 (even popping up on MTV UK occasionally that late- I remember seeing them on Westlife once, and they still pop up on some old videos on MTV 80s and 90s sometimes).

And a final thing I found I have a recording of- "second pick", there was a week in the spring of 1999 where you could request 2 songs per phone call. Was sponsored by Nestle Lion bars (and you got the sound of a lion roaring when you rang up)

   

Would be interesting to see some really early presentation from the channel. The first time I saw it was when friends got cable in 1997 (some family in Derby had cable as early as 1993, but I don't recall ever seeing the box on there... it might not have been on there that early, and wasn't in their packages even by 1997/98 when it was). I'm assuming the ident they've been running with the cube is a really early one, certainly not one I'm familar with so presumably pre-dates 1997.