That idea seems to have made some sense for the time. With the costs of a new transistor radio in the 1950s aside (adjusted for inflation for proper context), it seems realistic that the target demographic for such a business would have been teenagers who's parents thought negatively enough of rock-and-roll to forbid them from listening.

In some such cases, the teen may have deemed trying to listen to such music or stations on their own radio (if they happened to own their own) to be not worth the risks, which sadly could have been potentially physical with the "grown-up" mindsets of the time being what they were.

Given this, it makes sense that teens wishing to listen to rock-and-roll and/or whatever else they wanted would simply leave their homes (and their transistor radios behind if they happened to have one), go over to "RentaRadio" or any business offering such a service, rent their radio and indulge in their listening choices with presumably little to no threat of parental intervention, at least in larger cities where it would be a lot harder for their parents or someone who knows them to bump into them. Being in a group of friends would have helped split the cost. Presumably the radios are all-transistorized, I would hope.
 

Last edited by tdotwriter (August 12, 2024 2:41 pm)

Anybody remember Granada Rent-a-TV? Hard to imagine, but they were once a big deal.  

That Granada is the same company that produces Corrie Street. They started the television set rental business in England in 1959 and expanded to North America in 1961. In later years, they experimented with satellite rental equipment. That may have been strictly overseas. I don't remember that type of business here.