• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, June 8, 2007

Glued to the tube? You may be dishonest and play unfairly in the world.

Those judgments come from a study by the always-objective TV gadfly L. Brent Bozell and his equally unbiased center of media intelligence, the MediaResearchCenter. That's right. Too much "Grey's Anatomy" won't just entertain you -- it might send unnerving messages of deceitfulness.

The Center compared light viewers (those who watch one hour or less per evening) and heavy viewers (watching four or more hours). One finding: light TV viewers attend church more often than heavy TV viewers do.

A further conclusion was that heavy TV viewers do not adhere to "classical virtues" and are less likely to value religious principles. Thus, they're seemingly willing to perform actions that might hurt or deceive their families, businesses and casual bystanders.

Those 20 million to 30 million viewers who watch one-and-a-half hours of "American Idol" a night should be singing the blues, feeling guilty. In any event, they shouldn't be trusted.

The fact that TV pressure groups are calling TV viewers essentially deceptive seems to shift emphasis off such groups' recent attacks. Previously, they focused on stopping major TV advertisers from sponsoring certain TV shows.

Additionally, after years of targeting sexual content on TV, pressure groups are now focusing on the bigger issue of TV violence. This can be a tricky item to monitor, since the real world of TV news is full of violence What does one do about that TV content?

In the meantime, Americans who watch TV should apparently be suspected of not-so-fair play. More importantly, advertisers who target those TV viewers are taking on less then stellar customers for the future. Who would want that?

I don't believe the study went into program-by-program details -- but what if I'm watching religious TV, educational programming, or PBS all day long?

Some oversimplifying TV studies explain a lot about their true virtues.