Might be a European thing. I remember that, here in the UK, on my Vic-20 connected to my parent's Bush portable tv, it was channel 36. I believe the C64 was the same.
And sometimes you had to twist/jiggle the aerial lead to get a good connection.
Eh, if only I had one. I have some relatives living next to me through and I think I remember an old TV in their basement, I might check it out, that's a good idea.
That should have been a real CRT monitor to give this picture a true feeling of the 80s!