I wouldn't say you're too cynical with that view. I mean, the 2 German public broadcast channels (ARD, ZDF) are under constant fire for basically catering to an audience that is slowly dying out - both metaphorically and physically. Sure, some of these shows still have some popularity with younger generations, but that is few and far between. It's pretty much the same idea that plagues big corporations - change is scary as it poses a risk, so they avoid it - even if they literally have nothing to lose.
And I agree that the fractured streaming environment made it ever harder to license content. However, I don't think they should focus on licensing content to begin with. Instead, offer more grants for independent studios to create publicly available movies and shows. I mean, as we speak, Glitch is funding multiple shows to be viewed for free on YouTube. Why can't public broadcast channels do that more too?
This is why I appreciate immutable distros so much. Sure, you can't really do super sick stuff by tinkering with system files or modify some system components to make it your dream system, but the average user really doesn't need that. In most use cases, the flatpak version of a software will just run fine, sometimes even better than the standalone version due to certain outdated dependencies being hard to acquire/install that the Flatpak just integrates. Sure, Flatpak also has issues, but for the most part it works for the end user.