Nah, it’s still not free. They’ll charge you a monthly fee for that TV (only $10 a month for a $400* TV, so convenient!). A higher tier of subscription lets you turn off the banner ads. Through a menu in the TV settings that they mislabelled, and it tends to get hidden behind the banner ads. And with every weekly update, it turns back on.
Doesn’t matter. If they lose all advertisers, they shutter the channel. And if all channels have been shut down, the industry has died. Which they would rather let happen than give up any profit by giving people free stuff.
And at some point, the execs cash their last bonus check, give the company to some poor intern, and fail upwards to a new industry.