In "Fahrenheit 451," why are the characters on the television screen called "The Family?"

When I read the book, I see the television screen walls as equivalent to modern day soap operas.  The people sat home and immersed themselves in the lives of the "people" on the walls.  Those pseudo-people become the be-all in the lives of the brain-dead people who sit and watch them all day.  Montag often commented that his wife sometimes treated the walls as real people and real life while she disregarded him.  The "walls" become more like family and real life than their real life does simply because their real life was so tasteless.  Lack of books, controversy, issues to discuss--all of this results in a horribly boring life.