A television, or even a radio in your car, was a status symbol 70 years ago, as evidenced by this item from the November 1955 issue of Popular Electronics:

The Snyder Manufacturing Co. has announced that not all homes with television antennas on the roof have a TV set in the living room. Likewise, not all automobiles with radio antennas have auto radios.

A year-long survey has been completed by Snyder’s distributors and field men. It was discovered that out of every 100 homes with TV antennas visible on top of the roof, 7.3 have no working TV set. Of 100 automobiles inspected by Snyder, approximately 12.1 do not have radio receivers.

Non -working TV antennas were attributed to home owners who put up cheap an- tennas to give the impression that they owned TV sets. Some families (about two out of every 100) owned TV sets that went bad and had not been repaired. One family out of every 500 explained that they were anticipating color TV and had not installed a black-and-white receiver to go with their antenna.

As for the 12.1 cars with “phony” car radio antennas, the Snyder survey indicated that virtually all such motorists were putting up a false front. To meet this demand ( ?), the Snyder Co. will soon market a “Tenna-Phony.”

Apparently, the good folks at Snyder were true to their word, and the Tenna-Phony did hit the market. You can see a New Old Stock example at this auction link.