A very succesful person ("succesful" in the sense of wealthy)
recommended everyone to get rid of their television sets. He said he
didn't have TV at home and this helped him become what he is now. Is
there any scientific evidence that confirms a link betwen watching
T.V. and success in life? I'm not talking about watching less T.V., I
mean not watching T.V. at all. Are there any studies?

Although culturally nowadays it is common for people to watch tv, I
have found that it is not so helpful to me in terms of being
successful.

For me, to be successful in the things I do requires that I first be
focused on what I am doing. Watching TV, esp. tv in 2005, completely
destroys my focus.

In the 1950s and 1960s, television programs were more sedate and
calmer with each 'editing shot' lasting minutes. Today, with our MTV
inspired editing techniques, each editing shot lasts barely a minute:
we are assaulted with continuous stimulus variation.

 Add on top of that the special effects, the running headline banner
under the CNN newscaster - we have to listen to the news reports and
keep an eye peeled to catch the headlines streaming by. It's no wonder
that these days our attention and focus gets splintered when we watch
TV.  (By the by, it would help reduce the stress level in reading the
streaming banner headlines if they
were presented in a subtitle form [i.e. the words that appear on the
screen make a logical thought group, rather than each word appearing
as soon as it is typed in. For example "You have won the lottery" vs.
"You - have- won" "the -lottery".]Subtitles don't crawl across the
screen, so you have a better chance to  process the complete idea.)

  So, at least for me, watching TV does not help me be successful
because it destroys my focus and my attention.
  
    When I don't watch tv for extended periods of time, I am able to
appreciate my surroundings and colleagues more because I am calmer. I
also seem to have more wisdom in choosing which projects to take on
when I'm not watching tv all the time. To me, that's real success.
  
   About the only tv program I can watch and still maintain my focus
is the Dick Van Dyke Show.

A Dynamite can be used to blast a rock quarry at the same time it can
be used to blow off a group of people, everything in this world has
good and bad like the two faces of the coin. we should extract the
good things from it and leave the rest. watching TV for either good or
bad depends on one's intellectual ability to decide on a specific
topic.
I finally say that watching no TV is not at all a good thing.

If it's THAT important, I will hear about it elsewhere anyhow.

Haven't watched TV for months.

It can be an elitist snobbery thing or perhaps he is saying "Think
about what you are doing.  Focus on your goals, whatever they are.  TV
can be a major distraction from focusing on those.

I have been watching large amounts of television for fifty years, and
look how I turned out.

Every comment is correct. 

Any successful person is a busy person. That means time management.
President Kennedy's FCC Chairman Newton Minnow, in a speech to a
convention of television executives in 1962 said "television today is
a vast wasteland...". He was exhorting them to create better quality
programming.

The human brain is very image oriented. Thats why movies and TV are so
addictive. Thats why commercials on TV sell products and political
parties sell candidates. To read about war is serious but to see film
footage can be devastating.

Lots of studies that correlate success in school and excessive
television watching instead of studying.

Thank you guys for your comments. It makes a lot of sense. Now I gotta
go because my favourite sitcom is about to start... just kidding ;-)