It looks more like the rotary control for aiming the TV antenna. A remote which was wired and sitting on the TV didn’t do much good.
As you changed channels, you needed to turn the antenna to point in the direction of that station. These were especially needed if you lived in a rural area and stations were in completely different directions.
That looks like an set-top control for an external antenna rotor.
I remember kludging up a system for channel changing in a city where all local channels were UHF and where VHF could not be received without a raised outside antenna. So with suitable small capacitors (a few picofarads) I linked the power line input to the VHF antenna terminals, and then sat an old fashioned plug in tube-type UHF converter by my dad’s bedside with its output similarly linked to the power line. Voila, there were channels 18, 27, 45, and 62. He still had to get up to turn the set on and off and vary the volume. But on our budget at the time it was luxury.
I had that exact model when I lived in Maynard, MA up until 1989. I could pull in signals from Providence and Manchester, both about 50 miles away.