T.V. Good or Bad for our Children?

I turned on the television the other day and was amazed at what I saw. First of all, let me clarify that I don't have cable, so I dont pay to see profanity, violence, and sick humor. As I flipped through my 12 different stations, I was shocked to find three of the stations were about murder, one other station was humor about drugs and alcohol, and two other stations made light of teen pregnancy. This wouldn't be a problem if all viewers were adults, but unfortunately children ages 2-12 and teenagers are a large part of the viewing audience. In the following link: http://www.parentstv.org/ptc/facts/mediafacts.asp, there are some interesting facts about who watches what in the media. There are an estimated number of 109.6 million televisions in United States home, and of this large number, 54% of children have a television in there room. The average child spends 4 hours a day watching television which is jammed pack with murder scenes, drugs and alcohol abuse depiction, unsafe sex, prostitution, foul language and even cartoon violence. Witnessing repeated violent acts can lead to desensitization and a lack of empathy for human suffering. "A study of 1792 adolescents ages 12-17 showed that watching sex on TV influences teens to have sex. Youths who watched more sexual content where more likely to initiate intercourse and progress to more advanced noncoital sexual activities in the year following the beginning of the study. Youths in the 90th percentile of TV sex viewing had a predicted probability of intercourse initiation that was approximately double that of youths in the 10th percentile. Basically, kids with higher exposure to sex on TV were almost twice as likely than kids with lower exposure to initiate sexual intercourse." - Study Conducted by RAND and published in the September 2004 issue of Pediatrics. By the age of 18, the average youth watching television would have seen 16, 000 simulated murders, and 200,000 acts of violence. When is it going to stop?