…the International Channel. It aired blocks of programming from all different countries, right on basic cable, with ethnically-targeted commercials and everything.

Part of what I loved about it was the music shows. Samba, Bollywood, tango, Afropop, Hungarian operettas, Japanese techno, and much much more. And it was all curated by and for folks of these various ethnicities themselves! It was the real stuff, not Paul Simonized for baby-boomer comfort listening.

Some of this joyous cacophony is back, thanks to the National Geographic Channel. It’s got a post-midnight music block, Nat Geo Music. The block runs in Italy as a 24-hour channel; Geographic’s talking about launching it as a separate channel here.

The show compiles music videos (remember those things?), documentary shorts, and concert clips by lots of different people in lots of different places. Sure, the show’s got mellow folkie stuff, reggae, salsa, etc. But it’s also got digital cut-up music and raucous celebratory stuff and dissonant percussion. (And, in good National Geographic tradition, they’re not afraid of a little artistic nudity in the videos.)

About all you won’t hear on Nat Geo Music: Elmer Bernstein’s bombastic orchestral theme from the old National Geographic network specials.