VQTV - Our Television Habits

Who We Are - TV-Turn-On Week - More TV, Less Reading
Our Enemies - Position Papers - In the News - VQTV Store

Facts and Figures About Our Television Habits

Television Promotes Family Time

1. Percentage of shows on prime-time showing a nuclear family unit: 85%
2. Percentage of families who identify prime time television viewing as their primary family activity: 85%
3. Odds that the matching statistics are merely coincidence and not proof that real-life families model the ones seen on television: 1 in 1 billion
4. Number of hours per week the typical family spends watching television together: 14
5. Number of hours per week the typical family spends engaged in psychologically damaging interpersonal incidents: 4

Television Nurtures Children

1. Number of hours Schoolhouse Rock ran during the 1999-2000 broadcast season: 102
2. Number of school-aged children who are now completely literate in Constitutional history, the Lousiana Purchase, nouns, astronomy and prime numbers: 13,500
3. Number of school-aged children who know nothing about Constitutional history, the Lousiana Purchase, nouns, astronomy and prime numbers: approximately 1.3 million
4. Odds of getting into Harvard: 1 in 10
5. Odds of getting into Harvard provided you watched at least 102 hours of Schoolhouse Rock: 1 in 4
6. Percentage increase in odds: 15 percent
7. Percentage of mothers who say that were it not for the electronic babysitter, they would have beaten their children to a bloody pulp on a regular basis: 75%

Television Promotes Tolerance

1. Number of sitcoms showing funny, erudite, well-dressed gay supporting characters: 5
2. Percentage increase in funny, erudite, well-dressed gay supporting characters from 1990 - 2000: 500%
3. Number of women depicting detectives forced to go undercover as streetwalkers: 2
5. Number of women depicting detectives forced to run large investigative departments or make a wrenching choice between personal betrayal and professional duty: 15
6. Percentage of Americans who love The Cosby Show: 80%
7. Percentage of Americans who support affirmative action: 72%
8. Number of subscribers to Action! premium cable channel: 1.6 million
9. Number of Action! subscribers who cite "Hong Kong Cinema Fridays" as the primary reason for subscription: 1.2 million

Television Enhances the National Discourse

1. Broadcast hours devoted to untangling the post-election vote debacle: 1980
2. Percentage of Americans who credit The Daily Show with explaining why the phrase "hanging chad" somehow became part of the country's vocabulary: 65%
3. Number of Web pages devoted to Dan Rather's garbled election night commentary: 4
4. Number of commercial endorsements Bob Dole has made since losing the 1996 Presidential election: 6
5. Percentage of Americans who believe that a Pepsi-guzzling Viagra spokesperson would have made a better president than the one we elected: 58%
6. Percentage of Americans who, when asked, "Would you rather have had Bill Clinton, or a Pepsi-guzzling Viagra spokesperson as your president?" replied with, "I thought they were the same guy?": 41%