I know water vapor in showers can quickly damage a normal TV but this is only for a small restroom with a sink and toilet only.
Long story short my father has problems with pooping since he’s getting pretty old and it sometimes takes up to 30 minutes to successfully pass it. Thought it would cheer him up to hook up and mount a TV on the wall of his bathroom so he can watch something on a big screen as he tries to poop, phones don’t help because he doesn’t want to get germs on his phone.
I don’t see a problem doing that, assuming the room doesn’t ever get steamy. You can get one for pretty cheap to test out, at least before all the tariffs.
A sink and a toilet aren’t going to generate enough water vapor to cause a problem for the TV.
Don’t put the TV under the sink, so that water has the potential to drip onto it. I wouldn’t put it right over the sink either, so that cables aren’t near water (and if you do, make sure to have a cable management system to keep them from getting wet; imagine water getting on a power cord, dripping down, and into the outlet where it plugs in). Other than that, there shouldn’t be any more danger than any other room in a house. And most outlets in bathrooms have ground fault circuit interrupters anyway.
What about germs on a TV remote?
A phone’s electronics are probably more sensitive than a TV’s (certainly crammed into a smaller space) and people take them into bathrooms all the time.
Right now a certain big box electronics retailer has a 24" TV on sale for $69.99.
If you’re really worried, they also make waterproof/water-resistant TVs for outdoor use, but those are much more expensive and intended for digital signage and decks and such.
A regular TV should be fine and you’d be able to replace it several times over for the cost of an outdoor TV.
You can also get a GFCI outlet adapter if you’re worried about the electrical stuff. But it’s overkill.
Guess it’s time to add a webcam for gesture recognition?
Squeeze once for play, twice for pause, and twitch your right ear for fast-forward?
Grunting, pooping, waving your hands around to control the TV, sounds like a great, relaxing time.
Wait… you mean not everyone flails their arms around while pooping? How do you celebrate when it comes out?
I fist-pump with dignity, and perhaps a muted cheer.
You’ll want a to-code safe outlet to plug it into, which in the US means GFCI and every house serviced in the last several decades.
Usually you will recognize something is GFCI because it has little buttons on it between the receptacles, and maybe little LED status lights.
As @thelurkinghorror stated, those are required by building codes for decades in places where there is water, like kitchens and bathrooms, so unless it’s an old house you should already have them.
1975 if I’m not mistaken.
And if it’s much newer, GFCI protection could also be at the breaker level.
A side-note to what sounds like a good idea for your dad. In Australia we would call a room with a toilet and a sink a ‘toilet’, not a bathroom. In architectural plans it may be labelled instead a W/C (Water closet), but the bathroom is where the bath and/or shower is. I know the norm in North America is to have the toilet in the same room as the bathtub, but in Australia the trend has been to keep them separate since new builds in the 1950s or earlier. My evidence is Youtube vids of things American people see as being film-worthy in Australia, and the separate toilet is surprisingly high on that list.
Is there any sign (apart from your Dads -ahem- entertainment and leisure room) that this separation is becoming more typical in North America?
In my experience, a room with just a toilet and sink is either a half-bath or a “powder room.”
Yeah, and you’d see them in real estate postings like 2.5 bathrooms, meaning two baths/showers and 3 toilets.
Not sure what you’d call it if you had 5 toilets and no baths…
In homes? Not especially. Although putting a cubby around the toilet is a thing.
The bathroom off my bedroom is actually two rooms, I’ve with a linen closet and sinks, and the other with a toilet and bathtub.
With decent GFCI’s people won’t get shocks if water gets into the TV. The TV will most likely be toast though. Be very careful about splashing or wet hands. Water and electronics do not mix.
If the room is already wired with a GFCI my understanding is that putting in a second one will cause the circuit to perpetually fail as the two GFCI breaker/outlets will treat each other’s sensor activity as a failure of the circuit. For example my main floor bathroom has an outlet with no GFCI because it is wired in the same circuit as the bathroom downstairs in the basement which does have one. And fails occasionally randomly like the kitchen one used to (cheap? Bad Batch?) so I will someday replace it.
Code is that any outlet in proximity of water - ie. kitchen or bathroom/toilet, outdoor - must be on a GFCI protected circuit.
Note a lot of houses in North AMerica have the powder room/half-bath/toilet downstairs near the entrance (or back door) for the use of the guests and children running in from outside (from the goode olde dayes when kids played outside). The baths and showeres would be upstairs with their own facilities. I see a lot of high end houses being built with a separated toilet, but that is not a usual thing. It takes up too much extra space. You can fit a full bath-toilet-sink in about 5x8 feet if you’re a cheap builder.
Worst case you buy a cheap universal remote and prorgam it for the TV if the main remote dies or gets immersed (yuck). If necessary glue a ring on the remote to hang on a tether so it can’t end up in funny places. Something sitting on the toilet tank top or the edge of the sink is asking for an interesting anecdote. Unless your dad runs the hot water to help with releasing the situation for the duration (usually for #1 not #2) the humidity should be no worse than the rest of the house, particularly if. like most houses, a ventilation fan is included (and use is recommended 
).
Most cellphones (or at least, iPhones) are immersion resistant to several meters, so it’s not an apt humidity comparison. Still, not recommended to drop it in that room either.
At a house we used to own I had a 13 inch outdoor TV built right into the wall in the bathroom in front of the toilet. I managed to feed a split from the cable system up from the basement and into the wall behind the TV set. At the time the cable system didn’t require a box. The set was “element resistant” and we never had a problem with it even though there was a tub/shower in there.
I swear that was the main selling point of that house. People freaked when they saw they could watch the boob tube whilst taking a dump.
Now I get all my Directv channels (including local) on my phone so I don’t need a set in The bathroom of the house we currently live at. That may be an easier option for the OP.
I remember hearing of hotels that had a television behind the (half-silvered) bathroom mirror, so you could watch the news while getting ready.