[Jeffhs]

This console is also from the early years of stereo FM. Many areas, except large cities, did not have even mono FM stations in those days, and if your area (if you were some distance from the nearest city) had even one stereo station you were lucky. Stereo FM was also more difficult to receive in the early '60s, again if your area had at least one such station, due to the lower ERP power output of 1960s FMs; one of the requirements for good stereo FM reception in the those days was usually an outdoor antenna -- not unlike early b&w and color TV before cable, not to mention today's digital TV.

Magnavox must have offered the multiplex decoder as an add-on accessory for their early-'60s combo TV consoles; if there is a cover on the main chassis over the area where the decoder would be mounted, this is probably the case. Magnavox may have marketed this console in at least two versions: with and without stereo FM, with the latter being convertible to stereo if and/or when one or more stereo station(s) arrived in the user's area; the former was for areas, again usually large cities and their near suburbs, that already had or could receive stereo FM stations. I doubt the real usefulness of stereo FM reception (or even stereo sound for the phonograph) in these consoles because they are nowhere near wide enough to provide decent stereo separation.