TV/VCR combo shuts off with no tape inside?

In the bedroom I have an old Philips tv/vcr combo. Works fine except this one issue. If you play a tape. rewind and eject it. once the tape is out and you want to just watch TV, you can’t. It shuts off the TV with no tape in the VCR after some seconds. As long as there’s a stopped tape inside you can watch, but it shouldn’t do this shut off thing just because of no tape. It’s got to be something with the VCR part of it, or I’m not sure if somehow something got changed on the set. Anything I can do to fix this? I don’t quite understand. I like old electronics, and like this for the bedroom.