I realize you asked Reg, but I fully agree.  We actually used to talk about this when I was growing up.  At age 11, my parents decided to disconnect our cable TV, ostensibly due to my younger brother (who is now a stop-motion animation filmmaker with Laika and others!) being unable to take himself away from it.   I suspect an alternate reason was that we were REALLY low on money, and fiddle lessons for me and my sister plus art lessons for my brother were almost unattainable.   The effect of this was that I'd walk over to my grandparents' house to see sports on many Sundays.  That had a knock-on effect of me having a good relationship with them and doing chores around their house when needed (both were "evening" alcoholics - every single day - so it was hard for them to keep up.  They were very kind to me in mornings before the personality changes would come).  Through teen years, the lack of TV meant that I did a lot of reading and learned to enjoy it.  It probably helped with school.  There was one summer that they did get cable again, just for that summer.  That was my first taste of MTV, and I had trouble tearing myself from that.  This was the summer David & David's "Welcome To the Boomtown" was in heavy rotation so it obviously left an imprint. I kind of forgot about David after that until coming back around through searches for anything and everything Kevin Gilbert did.  Kev was "my guy" who really encompassed almost everything I hold dear in music.  Back to the topic:  predictions about TV dumbing down the populace have been happening since the 50s.  Maybe it happened really slowly?  Or maybe it got MUCH worse since loss of the Fairness Doctrine?  Certainly, things like MTV's Real World were a guilty pleasure harbinger of a deep loss of quality in the culture.  I might argue that the people who put that kind of entertainment together are worse "terrorists" western culture than are any Islamists. Now grown,I didn't unhook TV in our house.  However, we really only ever watch live sports and some news.  My younger son loves History Channel shows and Science Channel shows (plus Dr. Who) so I allow him that.  The older son loves procedurals like CSI or L&O.  I let him see a little of that, but he's really too busy with school, work, and baseball playing to watch much TV.   We've never seen even 1 complete episode of:  American Idol, America's Got Talent, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Duck Dynasty, Tiger King . . . you get the picture. (sorry for the ramble - it's a Sunday and I felt like venting)

By they way, the new Paul Weller - On Sunset is really good, and it has a lot of the acoustic feel of "That's Entertainment."  Worth a listen.