My cats are briefly caught up in television every now and then, more often with commercials, probably because of the rapid motions. They have a poor attention span as far as television goes, however. Most of the time, when there is a cat on television, they don't seem to recognize it as a real cat, even if there is a meow involved, but every now and then, a cat meowing on television with get everyone's attention. For the most part though, television is as non-starter for them.
One exception, though. There is a series of videos known as "Cat Sitters." I have three of them. They play in a loop, meaning the restart once they have played all the way through, and they consist of scenes of various critters that might get a cat's attention, including mice, birds, squirrels, chipmunks, birds, etc.
When we lived in Fayetteville, North Carolina, I couldn't let my cats outside so I bought these, and would put one on before going to work in the morning. Despite the fact that they had, by then, played all the way through several times, I have come home to find four of my five cats sitting on the couch watching these videos with rapt attention, their heads following the movement on the screen. I refer to them as "Cat TV" but the actual name is "Cat Sitters."
