The Gadgets Page

A couple of weeks ago, Mike and I went on a trip to Yellowstone. We stayed in West Yellowstone, and some of the hotels there were quite old. I snapped a photo of an old motel sign, advertising that every room had a color television by RCA.

This is not a unique sign. If you do a simple search on Flickr, you’ll find hundreds of hotel signs with the same RCA advertisement.

• Flickr Search: Color TV by RCA

These signs must have subsidized hotels somehow. Did RCA provide free or discounted television sets to motels that proudly displayed these signs? Maybe the hotel owners actually had to PAY to advertise for RCA just to compete. In the Fifties and Sixties, families saw the U.S.A. in their Chevrolets and they all had to sleep somewhere. Holiday Inn had first dibs, but I’m sure a hotel with the sign, “Color TV by RCA” was a good second choice.

Now, hotels and motels are quick to announce that they have free wi-fi or free high speed Internet. They are doing the same thing as they did fifty years ago to compete, just using a different gadget. When you plan your summer trip this year, remember the Color TV by RCA sign and laugh at the hotels that won’t give you Internet access without charging you ten bucks a day.