Would you pay $60 per month for one extra TV channel? The monthly charge for ON TV in LA in 1977 was $19 - which would be around $60 a month in today's dollars. What did you get for your 60 bucks? - One extra movie channel -and in LA ON also carried Laker and Dodger home games. So in 2007 terms, ON was charging $2 per day per channel - in comparison DirecTv currently charges roughly $0.01 per day per channel.
The ON-TV receiver was a big black box with a dial that had two settings "Off" and...wait for it..."ON". The ON box hooked up to the UHF jack in the back of the television (Phillips head screw driver required) and there was a specialized antenna that needed to be installed on the roof as well. When you wanted to watch ON - you turned the TV to U and flipped the knob on the box to ON - good times.
My family actually subscribed to ON back in the dark days before cable. I will have to give my dad a hard time next time I see him over the economics - the baby boomers really had no concept of the value of televised entertainment.
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