We asked Paul Farrell of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA) for an answer to this one:
“Listening to television programming can be a challenge for everyone and especially people with hearing loss. Sound quality and the type of the programming can also make a difference (e.g. news vs. a documentary). Make sure that you turn on the closed captioning option. I would also suggest that you take a look at this hearing self-test https://www.asha.org/public/hearing/Self-Test-for-Hearing-Loss/ If you answer yes to two or more of the questions, you should see an audiologist.”
You may also want to see if your TV has advanced sound settings, and to see if there’s a setting called “Downmixing mode” and set that to “Stereo.” It’s entirely possible that your TV is struggling with the audio because it doesn’t have the best sound system. If that’s the case, then you might benefit from a soundbar that is designed to downmix many channels at once, or a 5.1 system that you can turn up the center channel on. I personally like the 5.1 system because it also allows me to turn off voices in surround sound broadcasts, so I can watch football without hearing the announcers.