For those families that are in the habit of having the television on for background noise or watching TV while they eat you need to sit down with your kids and say, "We love you and we really want to talk to you at dinner. So we're going to suggest that we turn the TV off so that we can talk to each other." This would be a great time to ask your kids what dinner music they might like and they can pick music for the evening that you'll have on in the background. You can talk about the music itself. It's great for conversation. Sometimes people like to draw at the table or we've seen families put down a big block of butcher paper in the middle of the table and play Tic-Tac-Toe together while they eat.
The goal of turning off the TV isn't punishment. It's so that you're looking at each other and talking to each other. Look for fun games and things that encourage conversation. You can get little conversation packs of cards with little conversation starters on them, anything like that that's fun for kids. They'll get into that and then it isn't just, "Okay, we're going too turn off the TV, and then stare at each other for 30 minutes."
