My understanding is that the "don't sit too close to the TV" thing came from the first generation of colour TVs emitting too much radiation, which has been fixed for a long time now.
Speaking of television, have you heard of "Flight of the Conchords? I think you would like it.
I live in Belgium, which is a very small country, so it's kind of funny to see that the chart makes a difference between the dutch and the french part. Finally some proof that the french part is less productive :)
My understanding of what household TV viewing means is that the TV is on and at least 1 person is watching, so it's not skewed by the number of people watching at any given time. If the TV is watched heavily on the weekends, that could easily account for half of the hours for the week, so the numbers seem reasonable.