Gas ‘N Watch Service Stations Adding TV Screens To Gasoline Pumps

The next time you fill it up with unleaded, there might be more to watch than the numbers rolling by.

Shell Oil Co. has installed video monitors on the self-service gasoline pumps at a handful of stations around the country.

Most advertise products available just a few steps away, in the Shell convenience store. But a few already have changed the hookup to commercial television, and now the O.J. trial can be viewed even under a gas station canopy.

Andrea Kleopa, owner of a Shell station just outside Miami, quickly shelved the laser disc of commercials Shell gave her in favor of a satellite dish because her customers “don’t want to be bombarded with advertisements.” The first week her station had the screens, customers could catch snippets of the Super Bowl.

“As a joke, some of them said they wanted to see a satellite dish here. So I got one, put on CNN, a travel channel and cartoons, and customers love it,” Kleopa said.

“It’s fun, and it gives customers something to do when they’re standing out there. Getting gas used to be big chore for them,” she said, adding that it was too soon to determine what financial impact the video has had on her business.

Shell started the test program earlier this year with the goal of luring drivers into its convenience-store addendums to many service stations. Customers who pay by credit card often don’t have to go in the stores, and many don’t.

Gas station TV doesn’t mean people will crowd around the pumps, watching a complete episode of “Homicide” or an entire basketball game. The 6-inch video screens switch on when the gas starts flowing, and cut off when it stops.