Wood finish or painted? Moveable shelves or fixed? Is the proposed space big enough to hold the preferred TV?

Is it not just removing the doors and shelves? And patching screw holes/hinge mortices?

The difficulty is in how the thing was constructed, there is no way of knowing that without seeing the builtin.

Newer TVs are relatively wide compared to height, while older cabinets often are more vertically oriented. If its wide enough to hold the TV you should be able to use it, but the max screen size might be smaller than you prefer.

You also need to get the AC power and cable connection to the TV, and you may want to wire it into a separate sound system. Is there a reasonable way to get the wiring installed without changing the cabinet too much?

In general, today's AV systems create a maze of wires to work with, and its nice if you can hide them. If you can run the wiring into the base cabinet and then drill a hole to run wire up from there to the center cabinet and the TV that may be a good choice.

Bruce

Thanks for the replies! it's stained, not painted. What hinders me from just popping the TV in is that there's a middle section to allow the two 'columns' of shelves to be adjustable. I could probably saw it out but was wondering if anyone had done an effort like this before.

I think i can wire it exactly as you describe Bruce.

Would it look bad to put the TV on an adjustable arm attached to the rear of the unit and have the TV in front of the shelves? You're getting a flat one, right? :)