The Brits already thought of that. ;-)
No, they’re amateurs. All they do is charge a yearly license fee for your TV(s).
This is more along the lines of the mileage fees for all miles driven as touted in MA and some other enlightened places.
Get the cable, dish guys to add a TV meter, or like Gore’s lowflow toilets, implement by EO or something and make a meter standard on all new TV’s.
Then you get a bill for hours and minutes watched, or least the time the TV is on.
Shouldn’t be that hard from an implementation angle.
PS: Another phenom Bette Davis Chick Flick, Jezebel, about a southern belle who leaves chaos in her wake. Vintage 1938!