[Neil Jones]

This is the case in general when they unfortunately crop everything to 16:9.

I just saw this music video on Clubland and while it wasn't dark at all, it was still cropped somewhat. Isn't it a thing that some music channels use youtube to source their videos if they can't get hold of an original broadcast copy?

More likely they've been passed on at some point in the past from other broadcasters, particularly for older videos.

Of course it probably depends on the artist, they'll probably give more of a monkeys about the quality of some high profile singer than the video of some obscure one hit wonder.

The same concept was alluded to in 2019 when the YouTube copies of music videos spontaneously became "remastered in 4k/HD" (or not as the case may be). Plenty of the smaller artists just got some half-arsed bodge job of a "remaster" (noting of course that "remaster doesn't mean restoration, it means recreation") and then you have the likes of Wham's Last Christmas. Which looks beautiful in the remaster ("looking like people in 2019 trying to dress like people in the 80s"). But only because it was shot on film.

Bohemian Rhapsody is the other example here, it's marked as "HD" on YouTube, problem however is that was shot on tape (IIRC it had to be slapped together quickly for TOTP and its quicker and easier (and cheaper) to edit on tape), and that means it will be never be HD.