I recently bought a cheap Akai tv on sale for $300 and it runs a really bad version of android, just a skin of 4.4 to make it usable with a remote. Its actually not as bad as you might think but I was wondering if there is anyway to root it or something and install proper android tv on it.
The only way:
Tip: always buy TVs based on picture quality alone and not for smart features. You can attach whatever device you want to it and then upgrade it later so that you don't have to upgrade your entire TV or deal with a subpar smart TV experience.
So if it's not an official Android TV device, then there's not going to be an official Android TV build for it, so you're going to have to rely on unofficial builds from tinkerers, which means your product better have a big enough userbase for someone to care enough to do that. Your best bet to get the Android TV experience is to connect an Android TV device like the North American Mi Box to your TV.
You might check on XDA and see if anyone has put together a custom rom for it that would work. Even going that route, though, you'd be missing some of the things that come with Android TV (like Chromecast Built-In and Widevine DRM support).
Other than that, probably not.
No