I am not American. European. But in my city and country and Europe, for that matter, everything coming out of NY was always viewed with the highest interest. From already the Velvets to, from the mid to late Seventies, Richard Hell, Patti Smith and everything else. There's a theory I first heard about in Legs McNeill's Please kill me, an oral history of the American punk, that holds that punk was birthed in NY, when Malcolm McLaren was there managing the NY Dolls. And that he eventually returned to Britain and implemented it there. Mixing in situationist ideology. That is Paris 68. That was new. But he took what he had seen in NY. And I give that theory credibility. Specially considering McLaren's penchant to making a quick buck outta scandal.
But where I discovered Television I don't remember. Probably through reading magazines. I was always very interested in counterculture. And that was when I was 16. But I also never saw them as punk. More psychedelic. Which was what I was into. I never really warmed to the whole punk thing. Though I liked (very much) what came afterwards: postpunk. Which drew a lot from 60s music.
They were from earlier. Late 70s. And maybe early 80s.