That's not exactly true. Assuming you didn't mean TVs completely without any internet connection whatsoever then you'll find that pretty much since that ability was added there have been attempts by the very manufacturers to do just that.

Vizio isn't the only one but here's an example: https://www.tomsguide.com/amp/us/vizio-ftc-smart-tv-spying-p...

How-to disable additional snooping: https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/how-to-turn-off-smar...

Mind you this goes above what most consumers would consider acceptable and can be blatantly sold to advertisers.

This is just what manufacturers have done but then there's just the attempts we know of by the CIA dump: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20206536

> That's not exactly true. Assuming you didn't mean TVs completely without any internet connection whatsoever

It’s way too early for this to be a reasonable assumption. The fact that they made that comment implies they are aware how widespread the is.