Many of the younger folk are looking for excuses to fondle their phone and hard buttons seem old fashioned. Older folk tend to like some hard buttons because it is easier to give commands and observe the onscreen responses. If the goal is simply to watch TV, the cable company voice remote is a sufficient option for many.

I like icon based TV channel selection. Touching 'NBC' does everything necessary to watch NBC. There is no need for any visual feedback. It's trivial for the user to change surround modes if they want or the usual surround mode could be incorporated in the 'NBC' icon. Volume control hard buttons can usually be implemented in the control system.