Not all TV was shot on film, especially live TV which in the early days was often not even stored at all and a lot of what was shot on film was on 16mm which can be digitized at lower definition with out loss.
But most important is that the lack of concern for preservation is not new. Most of the legacy media companies already lost considerable parts of their history well before digitization was even on the cards and were typically lazy about digitizing anything that wasn’t immediately monetizeable once it was.
Not all TV was shot on film, especially live TV which in the early days was often not even stored at all and a lot of what was shot on film was on 16mm which can be digitized at lower definition with out loss. But most important is that the lack of concern for preservation is not new. Most of the legacy media companies already lost considerable parts of their history well before digitization was even on the cards and were typically lazy about digitizing anything that wasn’t immediately monetizeable once it was.