@Merename
It's hard to describe it, really. They are older now, and it just wasn't part of their/our lives when they were small. There was nothing planned or ideological about it - it just never occurred to me to watch TV either with or without them.
We did, however, have a video player (sic), and a few favourite videos which I found in charity shops (Teletubbies, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella). I sometimes used to put them on if it was such a foul day that we couldn't go out for a walk and I needed to fill an hour (the days used to feel very, very long sometimes when they were little).
I think one thing that made it relatively easy was that my children were small before screens became ubiquitous. They just weren't a thing, either large or small. I know it's not that long ago, but there were no iPads, smartphones etc. So we went for very long and slow walks, took them swimming, went to the park, went to the library, and I read to them and played endlessly with them. I also had a lot of friends with babies and toddlers, so we used to hang around in one another's kitchens while the children played (once they were pre-school sort of age). Again, there were no screens, so it was just playing and talking. I also used to get them to "help" me with housework, shopping etc. Not least as it filled the time!
I would love to say I would do the same if I had small children now, and I probably would - but I think it would be much harder. Partly because screens are so commonplace, but also because there's probably more on TV now, and they can also watch via the internet/Youtube etc.
I would also say that my lack of a TV (I don't have a device or a smartphone either) hasn't prevented my teenagers from discovering TV/screens. The younger one (nearly 16) watches crap on TV endlessly. The older one had a tedious year-long gaming phase, but that has fortunately died the death, and he spends his spare time doing pretty much the same things as I do (though not the boring domestic stuff, unfortunately 
).