When I was very ill, DS got used to the TV on all day every day. He can put on DVDs himself. In fact, if he's up before us at a weekend, it's TV and/or youtube all the way.

But only on a Saturday morning now..

What did I do? First, I got better and didn't attempt to change things while I would need to go back to the TV. Turned things off at the wall behind cabinets where DS couldn't reach them. Took him out to the park a LOT so there wasn't TV/computer in easy reach. DS didn't need encouragement to re-enact the TV, so we did a lot of TV-based play. He would play Finding Nemo at bathtime, Wall-E is a regular visitor to our house ("but just pretend Mummy, he doesn't really want food"), telling DS he was "causing confusion and delay" would result in hysterical tears (only did that once!), we have various Night Garden/Thomas/Bob/Dr Who/Roary books. Using matchbox/hotwheels cars, we could re-make just about any TV episode you care to mention. He spends time planning new "bad piggy castles" for angry birds to destroy - and we can do that with lego or wooden blocks. DS comes up with new things for Harry Potter to do (I get to be Bellatrix - from the Lego computer games!).

Sometimes we actually manage to play games that are completely spontaneous. But it's a way of helping the imagination at first, I suppose. Just like when I was younger we played She-ra, A-Team and Narnia. We all knew what we'd wish for if we caught a psammyad and what colour lightsabre we'd have (blue).

I don't suggest cold turkey, but maybe a special time when TV is allowed (ie when you need to make dinner, or at 4-4.30 as his "TV time": if he chooses to keep playing something else instead, that's fine, he can have the time later (don't take it away if he misses it else he will be less keen to keep playing another day).