[bryanrasmussen]

It's not particularly difficult to imagine a family situation where that would happen - although perhaps not nowadays when there is a much broader entertainment landscape:

1. traditional patriarchal setup, male parent works, mother at home, watches some cable during the day.

2. Kids come home from school / kindergarten at 4, watch some cable.

3. Eat dinner at 7, watch movie.

4. kids go to bed at 9, folks watch cable for couple hours.

5. Kids at age where they have their own tastes, 3 kids, buy 2 movies for adults 3 movies for kids or variations thereof.

I mean obviously the time to do this stuff is a waste of time, but often families waste the time because parents are burned out from various things and the easiest way to get through the time is to give everyone media to consume and forget about them.