Ages ago, I bought a Samsung "smart" TV, I never really used the smarts, I struggled to even get the beast to stream from my network drive.
More recently I bought a Sharp Android TV. I was hoping that I could run a VPN and BBC iPlayer on the TV. Sadly, even side-loaded I couldn't get iPlayer to work reliably.
Luckily it has a built-in ChromeCast so I can cast from my tablet, still no BBC unless I use the VPN function on my router (so everything goes via the VPN). I'm currently watching Sky Sports Cricket (Pakistan - NZ Test), via one of the (not free) IPTV sites out of China.