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Coin-Operated TV's

S

Stanislav

Reading this recent article from the Early Television website on a 1947 "Pay as You Look" concept TV reminded me of a couple of times I encountered coin-operated TVs back in the day.

The first time was at a Motel 6 -- one of the "old-style" Motel 6 locations -- that my mother and I stayed at once when I was a kid (we're talking maybe late 60's). One of the combination cost-cutting/revenue-generating concepts of the old Motel 6's was to provide not free color TV, but instead a coin-operated black-and-white set.

The other time was passing through JFK Airport in New York in circa 1975. With a couple hours to kill waiting for a connecting flight, I noticed that they had a whole section of seats that had small (maybe 7") coin-operated B&W TV sets attached to them. I believe a quarter got you 15 minutes of viewing, but you could pay for multiple increments in advance (i.e., feeding four quarters in one after the other would get you an hour of TV). Probably had at best a rudimentary (if any) antenna feeding them, as while they got all the major NYC channels, most all suffered from a great deal of ghosting and such.

So, have any of you encountered "pay as you view" TVs in your travels?
 
...the Greyhound depot in Milwaukee had those things for years in the '70s and '80s. Problem was, they only tuned to the VHF stations (4, 6, 8 [an LPTV that was on the Marc Plaza tower just a couple of blocks away], 10 and 12) but none of the UHFs (18, 24, 30, 36, 58 and the LPTVs that hopscotched all around the band). That drove me nuts. Luckily, I always had my radio with me while I was there and listened to whatever oldies stations were on AM ;-) ...
 
Stanislav said:
The other time was passing through JFK Airport in New York in circa 1975. With a couple hours to kill waiting for a connecting flight, I noticed that they had a whole section of seats that had small (maybe 7") coin-operated B&W TV sets attached to them. I believe a quarter got you 15 minutes of viewing, but you could pay for multiple increments in advance (i.e., feeding four quarters in one after the other would get you an hour of TV). Probably had at best a rudimentary (if any) antenna feeding them, as while they got all the major NYC channels, most all suffered from a great deal of ghosting and such.

So, have any of you encountered "pay as you view" TVs in your travels?
Click to expand...

On a June 1983 high school Spanish Club trip to Spain, our group had a REALLY long layover at JFK (about 8 hours) while waiting for a couple of other groups around the country to join us. I do vaguely recall coin operated tv's there at JFK.
 
This is going to date me - but in 1973 I stayed in my first Motel 6 in Redding, CA. Inflation had already hit them on price (originally $6 per night for a single). So I paid $9.00. The room had a 12 inch black and white coin operated TV. 25 cents per hour, if I remember correctly.
 
I just talked to a new announcer to come to my area today.. he commented that many bus stations STILL have them. I guess the guy likes to travel cheap.
 
Lkeller said:
This is going to date me - but in 1973 I stayed in my first Motel 6 in Redding, CA. Inflation had already hit them on price (originally $6 per night for a single). So I paid $9.00. The room had a 12 inch black and white coin operated TV. 25 cents per hour, if I remember correctly.
Click to expand...

Sounds like the long defunct Tides Motel in Virginia Beach when I stayed there in the early 80s. Back then they were the oceanside version of Motel 6 or at least they way most of the Motel 6 places were back then such as no pool, no on-site restaurant, very cheap rooms ( $40 on the beach !!! ) and they also had those black & white coined operated TVs. Oddly the TV only offered TWO channels...only WVEC ( ABC ) and WTKR ( CBS ) ..no WAVY ( NBC ) or anything UHF ( for the record their sister motel down the street offered WAVY but no UHF and that set wasn't coin operated ).

I think the set was 25 cents an hour but since I had my battery operated COLOR set in the room and was able to pick up not only all of the Hampton Roads channels but even some Richmond, Salisbury MD, and few North Carolina stations as well, we didn't even bother watching their coin operated set.
 
My first (and only) Motel 6 stay was in Yuma, AZ in the summer of 1981, when I was on my way from Phoenix to San Diego.* I don't remember if the TV was coin-op or if you had to pay extra at the desk but we went without the telly that night. Instead we drove down to San Luis, AZ, parking at the border and walking through the gate into San Luis Rio Colorado, Mexico.

*My mother and I flew from Philly to Phoenix to join my stepdad, who'd been in AZ on business for about a week prior. From there the three of us went to SD (stopping at that Yuma Motel 6), then on up to LA, Big Sur, and San Francisco before flying back to Philadelphia.

ixnay
 
The first and only time I saw a coin-operated TV was fairly recently, in June 2002 at the Greyhound Bus Station in Philadelphia, where, in the waiting area, were coin-operated black and white TV's which picked up VHF signals only. I thought they were a hoot. I haven't been back there since so I have no idea if those TV's are still there.
 
The Beave said:
I just talked to a new announcer to come to my area today.. he commented that many bus stations STILL have them.
Click to expand...

I'll be interesting to see what happens to them after February, after the analog shutdown. If they're the old-style B&W coin-op TVs, it'll be impossible (if not, nuts) to upgrade them to digital.
 
My occupation took me on the road between 2000 and 2002. Occasionally I would see a coin operated TV in some of the smaller airports. Just for kicks I tried one. The set had a preset electronic tuner and a fuzzy picture. The antenna was a TV/VCR connector coax feed under the seat. Being the rebel I touched the center conductor to the metal chair and the picture cleared up, imagine that.
 
Coin-Operated TV's were in Europe too. I recall seeing them at either the Frankfurt or Berlin airport.
I didn't try one but I seem to recall the ones in the States at least, ran for 25 minutes increments, thus making you fork over more money to see the end of a half-hour program and (hopefully) get interested in the next show that came on so you'd have to feed more quarters in the box to see the end of that show.
 
Travelling through Montreal in the early 90s, the bus station had them too...they were gone by the time I was back in the city in 2000.
 
neo11 said:
The first and only time I saw a coin-operated TV was fairly recently, in June 2002 at the Greyhound Bus Station in Philadelphia, where, in the waiting area, were coin-operated black and white TV's which picked up VHF signals only. I thought they were a hoot. I haven't been back there since so I have no idea if those TV's are still there.
Click to expand...

As far as I can tell you...no longer. They remodeled this terminal a couple of years ago. They now have two widescreen TVs on either side of the terminal (on the Filbert Street side and above one of the bus gates by the snack bar). Sadly, these two TVs are always running the same channel and are in God-awful Stretchovision. It was painfully obvious when I saw KYW-TV (CBS) channel 3 one time. They had it on the Cal/Maryland college football game this past Saturday (from ESPN).
 
I think most Greyhound stations in large cities had them. In the past I've seen them in Cleveland, Columbus and Pittsburgh. I know in Cleveland, theyve gone with the wide screen color sets, similar to the setup in Philadelphia.
 
The only time I've seen coin-operated televisions was at the old Savannah International Airport (this one closed when the new one, now known as Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport, opened in 1994.) in the mid '80s.

I think one the DTV switchover occurs, any of these that still remain in public places will be removed. The cost of upgrading these is most likely not worth the effort, money-wise.
 
I don't find myself on this thread, so if I have already said this, I say it again. Sorry about that.
I remember staying at the High Tide Motel in Clear Water Florida back in 1955. It was brand new then, and one of the "up to date" features it had was a coin operated TV. You got one hour for 25 cents. One dollar for an eening of TV back then was quite a lot of money, so my Dad disabled the timer by unplugging the TV from it and plugging it in to the regular outlet in the wall. He remembered to put it back when we checked out. The High Tide is no longer there, and I don't even think that the building is still standing. I wonder what ever became of all of those TV sets. It might be fun to have one of them.
BTW, I have been trying to find out what we could have watched back then. Dors anyone have a TV listings from the Tampa Bay airea from back then? If memory serves, it was March of 1955. I was 3 years old back then.
 
WMC2006 said:
Stanislav said:
The other time was passing through JFK Airport in New York in circa 1975. With a couple hours to kill waiting for a connecting flight, I noticed that they had a whole section of seats that had small (maybe 7") coin-operated B&W TV sets attached to them. I believe a quarter got you 15 minutes of viewing, but you could pay for multiple increments in advance (i.e., feeding four quarters in one after the other would get you an hour of TV). Probably had at best a rudimentary (if any) antenna feeding them, as while they got all the major NYC channels, most all suffered from a great deal of ghosting and such.

So, have any of you encountered "pay as you view" TVs in your travels?
Click to expand...

On a June 1983 high school Spanish Club trip to Spain, our group had a REALLY long layover at JFK (about 8 hours) while waiting for a couple of other groups around the country to join us. I do vaguely recall coin operated tv's there at JFK.
Click to expand...

I remember watching a rerun of 'Happy Days' on one of those TVs at JFK, when I was 10(1984,on the way to a family trip to Ireland).
 
The old Greyhound Bus Terminal in Boston's Back Bay has coin-operated TV sets in the late 1970's and the 1980's, and they were in black-and-white.

They were capable of getting eleven channels (2, 4, 5, 7, 25, 38, 44 and 56 in Boston, 10 and 12 in Providence, and 27 in Worcester). Once WQTV-68 (now WBPX) went on the air, the sets could receive the "unscrambled" programs on that channel (from 1979 to 1983, WQTV broadcast over-the-air subscription TV during the evening hours).
 
Noticed just after checking into my room that someone before me had cut the cord from the TV and stuck the wires into the socket. So as not to get charged extra for the "modification" I had the manager check it out.
He just took the TV and never came back with a new one.
 
Guess I missed this thread the first time around....

I now remember (after seeing the thread) about there being coin TV's in the terminal at the airport in Amarillo. They were fuzzy B/W pictures but I never got to try one out to see which stations that tuned into.
 
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