Play Meter

onLinu ed from page 27
have it up here, I hope it's a simple once-a-year type
deal. But, again, I hope it doesn't get in.
newl Greenwald
comet coin chute
METER: What is your pricing on
phonographs?
JOHNSON: We have just instituted our first
pricing change in ten years. We have gone to one
play for a quarter, three for two quarters, and nine
for a dollar. And for some of the machines where we
couldn't get that, we were able to get five plays for
two quarters, and some of them went to six plays
for three quarters. The increase is very nominal,
but our override is good if we program properly.
We now get very little one quarter play. As for our
next pricing step, it would probably be to cut down
the number of plays for a dollar.
PLA Y
with SWitCh. ~
Electrically
impulses
an appliance or
vending machine
when money is
deposited .• Available
in all popular denom-
inations 2SC, 35C, SOC , sce
7SC, S1 .00 . • TRI-COIN and
" stack" coin chutes avail-
able .• Fits standard coin
chute opening .• Highly
polished heavily plated
casting and slide blade for
longlasllng good looks .• Full
protection, including magnets,
against most slugs .• Convertibility
to other denominations available.
. Can be wired to Greenwald's
Solenoid operated time accumulator
mechanism , Model SOOOP, to provide a timed service
of an appliance or machine.
GREENWALD INDUSTRIES
0."_,01 Walt. , ...... C_N" • . ,..
ICIDDE
~
Dept . P
1340 METRO POLI TA N AV E .. B ROOKLYN. N.Y. 11237 ' TEL. 212 45&-6900
TELEX 1·2281
CABLE AOOR ESS GREENCOINS NY
The Winners of the
AMOA and lAAPA
Shows are Here.
Nobody Knows
a Winner Like
C. A. Robinson & Co.
Home of the Winners
PLAY METER: Did you have any problems with
your price hike?
JOHNSON: Our type of programming really eased
the burden of switching our pricing. When we went
over to the increase, we made sure that there were
enough things on the jukebox that the people hadn't
seen. On some of them that meant as much as a
fifteen -record change. We are now 85 percent
complete on this new pricing structure, and we just
started it in April. And we've only lost one location
as a result. We lost that location because, having
changed the pricing in our two other locations in
that town, we felt we had to make a stand or go
backwards. Now, mind you, we did a lot of very,
very good preliminary work. It was the same thing
when we went with the increased prices on our
shuffleboards. We make sure the road is well-paved
beforehand. And we do this by not only presenting
our case to the location owner but also to the
customer himself. We brought out some special
flyers to put in the jukeboxes and to put in the
booths, but instead of the usual artist biography
on the back of the flyers, we put a picture of a big
alarm clock and wrote down the number 2:15, which
was the average length of a record. Then after
several weeks of putting out flyers like this, we
printed a flyer which explained what the alarm
clock meant. It was a cartoon of a man hanging over
a cliff with the caption "We've held on as long as we
could." We pointed out the fact that the records
were getting longer, and this was costing us money.
We pointed out how much longer the records were
getting and how, even with the price increase, they
were still getting just as much music for their
money. We also made sure that our people were
well-informed about the price increase; so we sent
them bulletins that instructed them not to back
away from discussing it with the location owners.
PLAY ' METER: Do you use your computer for
e.A. Robinlon & Co.
2301 W
t Pi 0 Blvd .•
Lo Ang 1
a. 90006
T J: 21 / 3 0·1160
74
percentaging your games also?
JOHNSON: Very much so. The average per-play
for our pingames, for instance, is between 9 and 12
cents. This is based on one play for a quarter, three
plays for two quarters. The way we figure that is by
taking the number of dollars a particular machine
earns and then dividing that by the total number of
times that game was played- free plays and paid
PLAY METER , December, 1978