I, myself, have not watched television for over 3 years.
It is not necessary. In fact, there's plenty of evidence to suggest that the shows on television, no matter how much you might think they stimulate your brain, "destimulate" it.
Of course, that's neither here, nor there... or is it? Perhaps we need to face hard cold facts sometimes, no matter how much we may revile those facts.
Still, it's a pointless cause. Television is here to stay due of two factors:
Money/power.
Laziness.
Touching briefly on both of these factors: money/power because advertisement is an extremely powerful money-making and brain-washing tool, and because almost all people perceive that they have a measure of omniscience and hence omnipotence when they have control of a television set, especially if they are gaining informatino from it, such as from the news. The big question is the relevency of this inofrmation. 99.95% of it is garbage because it doesn't effect our lives in any way whatsoever, aside from influencing our societal discourses. People's brains become chock-a-block full of information so quickly and they can't remember which piece goes where, or even where they learnt it from.
Then there is laziness. How bad can watching television be? You sit down for a few hours (maybe 8 if you're American-or, heaven forfend, Australian), you may drink a few beverages, you "relax". You are content. This is the poisonous mistake you are making. Contentment is not happiness, though the two aren't mutually exclusive (as when one is in love). When one is content, they are not doing much to affect their environment. They essentially switch off. This is perhaps the worst possible state to be in whilst watching TV, as it just lets that flow of junk information flow from the T.V. into your head like there's no tomorrow. And so, people perceive that they are "happy". And from this, a defence-mechanism evolves. To preserve this state, and their ability to experience this state, they convince themselves that this state is both healthy and good, and accordingly defend it like mad when it comes under question. Combining this factor of laziness with the factor of money/power, you get an unstoppable addictive combination; which i can't see being overthrown any time soon. But, who knows. It was managed that smoking became socially unacceptable, and so to may it one day be true for television. But by the same token, drinking oneself into oblivion is still deemed generally acceptable, so it follows that television may always be acceptable to the majority.