``They're preying on one-year-old children,'' Jean Lotus, an anti-television activist, sniffed this week in a television discussion about the Teletubbies, now carried by the non-profit PBS network here.

Much as in their native Britain, the Teletubbies - heroes of the first-ever series aimed at youngsters who barely speak - have become a lightning rod for criticism of children's television.

``They're teaching a kid to stare at a plastic box for half an hour,'' Lotus complained. She and other critics suggest that any program targeting such tiny viewers aims to inculcate the television habit in those too young to choose otheractivities.

Not so, say the Teletubbies' defenders. ``It's innocent fun,'' retorted the Teletubbies' US marketer, Ken Viselman. ``It allows children to do fun things.''

And the Teletubbies - four humanoid aliens who waddle like diapered toddlers, sleep in an Astroturf bunker, and prattle like precocious one-year-olds - do seem to have fun, albeit at a glacial pace many parents find grating.

An adult narrator, redubbed with an American accent, opens and closes the program, while a periscope-shaped trumpet periodically pokes up from the ground to make pronouncements such as ``Time for Tubby bye-bye.''

For those who haven't yet watched the Teletubbies, episode summaries posted on their official website pretty accurately reflect the tone and content of the show, which isn't big on abstract concepts. For example: ``Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po watch a young girl looking after her pony, then a voice trumpet tells a popular nursery rhyme. Magical animals appear and the Teletubbies tiptoe through adance.'' But whatever adults say about the show, small children seem mesmerised by it.