CHICAGO, April 19 (UPI) -- Now that most of America knows that Bill Rancic is Donald Trump's new apprentice, it should be a little easier to pull the plug on television for the 10th Annual National TV-Turnoff Week.
About 7.6 million children and adults are expected to leave their television sets off this week. Some will open a book, grab a favorite magazine or resume sports, hobbies or leisure activities, while others will go cold turkey and spend quality time with their spouses or families.
A television set is on for 7 hours, 40 minutes a day in the average U.S. household, according to Karen Ruedisueli, director of marketing for Entertainment Publications.
While fewer than 8 million viewers are turning off -- a drop in the bucket for television networks -- the idea of watching less of the tube and turning on to a participatory lifestyle is growing.
Still, fans of NBC's long-running "Friends" and "Frasier" may not want to miss the last few new episodes of their series favorites. Baseball and basketball fans and news junkies could suffer withdrawal, too, although they could listen to sports and news on the radio or Internet while multi-tasking.
"TV-Turnoff Week 2004 is not just about turning off television," said Frank Vespe, TV-Turnoff Network executive director. "It's a chance to discover and celebrate all there is to do beyond the television, and that's what our organizers help participants to do.
"We only have one television that we really use. The rest are in the basement," Vespe told United Press International when asked about his viewing habits.
Vespe said he has run a marathon, completed a triathlon and taken up hockey since he cut back his personal television time.
Some 1 million people participated in the first TV-Turnoff week in 1994, compared to the 7.6 million expected this week.
"We'd like to have 76 million," Vespe said. "I think it is clear enough now that our national TV habit is more negative than positive."
The annual TV-Turnoff event has not received much fallout from television executives because people who don't watch television don't pay attention to the industry anyway.
"They kind of don't know what to make of us," Vespe said of the industry. "We're trying to give people a fighting chance to get outside."
Organizers of TV-Turnout Week activities are encouraging children to write short essays on "What I did during TV-Turnoff Week." Creative kids can enter poster contests.
Nearly three-quarters of U.S. children already have some limits on their television viewing.
Statistics show by skipping one week of television last year a typical child age 2-17 did not see 213 acts of violence including 17 murders, missed 384 commercials, and had 19 hours, 40 minutes of additional time to play, read, exercise or spend with family and friends.
Ninety percent of Saturday morning television commercials are for junk food, candy and sugary cereals, according to the Washington-based nonprofit.
After a decade, more business people and politicians are getting behind the event.
North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley, a proponent of volunteerism and national service, officially proclaimed April 19-25 statewide TV-Turnoff Week.
Kaiser Permanente medical centers in California, Hawaii, Oregon, Maryland and elsewhere are turning off televisions and sponsoring free community activities like open swimming nights.
"Excessive TV-viewing is one of the prime culprits in the epidemic of overweight and obesity in children," said Dr. William Caplan, director of clinical development for Kaiser Permanente's Care Management Institute. "But on the positive side, simply reducing kids' television time can reduce their exposure to junk advertising and boost their activity levels."
A Raleigh, N.C., toy store is hosing a "Fun Without TV" art show for children 3-12, and more than 200 elementary school children on an Indian reservation in New Mexico plan a TV-Turnoff celebration Saturday. Fact sheets stress that sedentary viewing has health consequences including higher rates of obesity and diabetes.
In July 2000, four major health organizations -- the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry -- said more than 1,000 studies over the years had correlated media violence with aggressive behavior in some students.
"We often use the phrase that 'children are impressionable,'" said LimiTV, a nonprofit public interest group founded in North Carolina 1995. "We mean that children do not see the world through the same filter of experience that adults do. Children see things more literally. They do not yet possess the sophisticated sensibilities to distinguish fiction from reality. It matters a great deal, therefore, how much TV children watch and what they view."
LimiTV recommends parents not put a TV set in a child's room and not use television as a baby sitter.
The group says parents should monitor and limit the amount of television their children watch, provide age-appropriate activities like sports, music, books and school clubs, turn off the set after a program has ended and during dinner, and ban violent video games from the house.
A study by researchers at Seattle's Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in the April issue of the journal Pediatrics said toddlers exposed to a lot of television risked developing attention disorders by the time they began first grade. The study of 1,345 children ages 1 and 3 was based solely on interviews with parents, and it indicated the risk of children developing attention problems increased about 10 percent for every hour of daily television viewing.
The thought of "Sesame Street" and "Teletubbies" rewiring the brains of impressionable tots is frightening enough without contemplating the damage "Survivor," "The Sopranos" or "Fear Factor" might be doing to mesmerized young minds.
"The average American child will spend nearly three hours today watching television, and over the course of the year will spend more time in front of the TV than in the classroom," said Dr. Carden Johnston, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. "While television can inform, entertain and teach, this week is a great opportunity to put it aside and be sure children know that there's very little than can't be replaced by a good book, a walk to the park or a fun game with friends or family."
More than 80 percent of adults support the concept of turning off the television for a week, according to a survey of 400 people conducted by Entertainment Publications of Troy, Mich. Nearly three-quarters of respondents (63 percent) said they were "somewhat likely" to reduce television viewing this week, but only 25 percent said they were "very likely" to pull the plug and actually watch less television.
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