AT HOME my television programmes are provided by Cable TV Montgomery, a fairly typical, cable service. It provides 71 channels. One of them is Home Box, Office (HBO), which specialises in trashy movies. I can almost bet, on seeing a violent death or vicious beating in the few seconds it takes to channel surf past HBO: Click, click, click, "You mother f**er, bang, aaagh!" click, click.
There's violence in different forms on other channels: obscene language on the Comedy Channel, soft porn movies on the pay per view Spice channel, and verbal violence on a total of 23 talk shows - up from half a dozen six years ago - where adults and sometimes children scream at each other.
One of the most obnoxious is she Jerry Springer programme which features adulterers, transvestites, murderers, thieves, sodomites and assorted low life. The audience boo and yell at the guests. Fights have broken out in the studio. The show gets 3,000 calls each week from people who are dying to get on to it.
We used to think Phil Donahue was daring, but he has just announced his retirement as a talkshow host; he can't hack it anymore as big audiences click to sleaze and stay there, thrilled by the horror of human degradation.
But what most worries critics of modern American television is a culture of physical violence, which produces a constant repetition of images which they believe encourage aggressive behaviour.
This week they got some convincing backing for their argument that the Hollywood last film industry needs reform. A National Television Violence Study concluded that 85 per cent of programmes on premium channels like HBO, 59 per cent on basic cable and 44 per cent on network stations contain some violence.
Of 2,700 shows it monitored on 23 channels over 20 weeks, 57 per cent contained some violence.
The most telling observation was that violence shown on television by and large does note result in consequences such as injury, death or punishment. In 73 per cent of cases, the crime went unpunished. Of the violent acts portrayed, 47 per cent resulted in no perceptible injury, making human victims as durable as Tom and Jerry. The pain and sufferings which result from violence was portrayed in only 16 per cent of programmes.
Defenders of the industry argue so what else is new? John Wayne used to shoot cowboys who shed never a drop of blood.
The victims of sword play did not live out horribly maimed lives in Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.
But many of the violent scenes shown on network and cable television are marked by sickening, realism, which parents say has a pernicious effect on children.
Congress has responded to their protests, and this week President Clinton signed into a law a telecommunications bill which will allow parents to censor television through a device known as a V (for violence) chip. It will be mandatory in new television sets two years from now.
The V chip will allow parents, to programme their television sets to automatically block out episodes which contain violence, sex or obscene language. Who will do the ratings remains to be seen, but on HBO warnings are already broadcast before movies are, shown of adult content, nudity, violence, and/or obscene language. The V chip will read these ratings and blank out the screen. Grown ups can decode the set when the kids are in bed.
That's the theory. Whether the V chip controls will be child proof in this age of high tech kids is another thing.
Mr Clinton has stepped up pressure on television networks to clean up their act in response to rising public unease. Both he and leading Republican rival, Senator Bob Dole, have denounced sex and violence on television.
The four networks, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox are now discussing their own ratings system. As the climate changes in favour of the anti violence lobby, they are doing some house cleaning themselves. The level of violence which characterised programmes like Miami Vice has actually declined.
And the trash talk shows are also responding, especially after a wave of criticism over a programme which provoked a man, in a rage of shame and fury, to shoot dead a male friend who had confessed on screen to having a secret crush on him.
Verbal punch ups among Republican candidates have become a feature of the 1996 presidential election campaign, one of the most negative in history. God knows what effect this has on children and adults of a nervous disposition. Maybe Americans also need a P chip, to protect them from politicians.