Are there plans develop apps for specific smart TV brans, such as Samsung or Sony?
These smart TVs usually come loaded with most of my favorite apps, except for Channels.
If the Channels app becomes available on smart TVs, it will save me from having to buy a streaming device for each new tv.
Sony TVs use android tv as their smart system. You can get Channels for it today.
We don’t have any current plans of brining Channels to other smart TV platforms.
Conversely: If you buy streaming devices you don't have to worry about whether the TV you want to buy supports the app(s) you want to use 
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TCL now makes Android TV's .... Can also play DRM using HDHomeRun App.
https://forum.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=119&t=73812&p=360680#p360680
That's all well and good, but remember this: It is not uncommon for manufacturers of Android-based devices to "season to their taste," you might say, either by omission or by purposeful "enhancement" (coughSamsungcough). So you go out and buy that TV that runs on Android, run into issues, and the devs may tell you they unfortunately cannot afford to go out buying every brand of TV on the market for development and test purposes.
And, in fact, noted in the thread on SD's forum:
This is the reason I dropped Android for Fire TV: There's simply little-to-no consistency from Android device to Android device. So buying one with a particular purpose in mind is often a total craps-shoot.
To borrow a quote: "Android is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."
Yeah I just posted that as an FYI ... I would never buy a TV just to use for an APP ... I prefer disposable devices ... my first device was the Google round one cannot even remember the name.
Although, Amazon still hasn't released the needed update to allow for hardware decoding of interlaced H.264/AVC.
Amazon is not immune to these issues. (And don't forget, Amazon's FireOS is a fork of Android. In fact, I'd argue that Amazon is the biggest culprit of taking Android and making it incompatible with the rest of the ecosystem.)
I used to think that also, but the PQ and sound Quality are so much better coming from the built in TV Apps. I pretty much only use my Apple TV for Channels and Apple Music. If they would develop an LG app I’d stop using the Channels Apple TV app.
And a VIZIO TV app....there by far the best looking budget tvs out there.
But, so many brands, with their own OS, would be a nightmare for channels to develop and support...yea, don't see that happening.
Channels DVR works great on my Sony TV (Android), but it is essentially un-usable on my 3 other TVs with Roku streaming devices attached. Two of them are Samsung Smart TVs. For whatever reason, the Channels developers gave up on Roku quite some time ago.
Roku is a horrible platform to develop for; I don't believe the developers are masochists, and they have chosen to save themselves the pain.