Why were monophonic TVs sold for so long?

[ESigma25]

I've always been curious why monophonic TVs were sold seemingly until the end of CRT production itself, long after the cost of adding a second speaker and the necessary hardware would have been enough to have a real impact on the price. Were TV manufacturers just that cheap that they were willing to make relatively big sets with only one speaker (and often no composite jacks) up to the 2000s? It just doesn't make much sense to me given by the mid 90s only the cheapest and crappiest VCRs didn't output in stereo.