NYC public access was a totally wild thing and a real First Amendment test in the '80s, '90s, and '00s.
On any given night, you could watch: a cooking show hosted by a Hell's angel who loved spicy food, hardcore gay S/M, an amateur talk show devoted to Broadway, an even more amateur variety show hosted by rich Upper East Side skate kids, Screw magazine publisher Al Goldstein yelling about restaurants that wronged him while fawning over porn stars, Zionists in costume claiming the New York Times is a Nazi organization, Black Israelites in costume claiming that "The Real Jews Are Black," early weed advocates getting high on tv, a paranoid guy w/a home camera nervously roaming around the East Village ("The Church of Shooting Yourself"), live footage of the Contortions and Suicide playing in the '70s, Latino guys drinking beer and talking about their sexual conquests, New Age energy stuff proffered by a singing woman in flowing robes (which she might sometimes remove), high-quality drag performances, NAMBLA supporters weakly attempting to make their case, rapid-fire video collages of extreme gore and porn set to thumping techno, montages of close-ups of random people's asses shot from a window while they walk down the street...
None of it was censored, despite this stuff being part of every New Yorker's basic cable program. Easily offended parties should also note that most of it wasn't particularly "edgy" (in fact, a lot of it was quite boring) just... deeply weird, in an everyday, your-neighbors-are-into-truly-strange-things kinda way. It really served as a reflection of the city's diversity, in many ways.
And—this part is important—all of it was free of the monetization, data-selling, and corporate crap you'd associate w/YouTube and social media. Was a nonprofit endeavor. Never mind that the shows usually involved a little more effort than that b/c their creators actually had to leave the house and go to a studio.
I have no idea if the four or five channels of the Manhattan Neighborhood Network are still as nuts as they used to be:
https://www.mnn.org/faqs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_J