Over the last few years I've acquired quite a few consumer electronincs pcbs
including TVs, VCRs, stereos, etc, so when I discovered that I needed a

Consumer electronics are costed down to the lowest possible level. If
they can use something cheaper, they WILL use something cheaper. A TV
set or VCR has had people go over the design hundreds of times with
BOMs and catalogs, checking to see if they can shave a penny here or a
penny there.

Computer equipment is a good source for tantalums - motherboards, hard
drive PCBAs, etc. Of course, it will be surface-mount