Just been trying to set up my parents’ new Toshiba telly. They have to use freesat via a dish as aerial telly is useless. This means a silly little box. The TV remote only switches the box on, allows a internal DVD to be played and the volume adjusted. (well other TV things only like screen colour balance but those don’t count.
The channel changing has to go through the freesat remote. Is this the norm? Am I hoping for too much, wishing for just the telly remote to do it all?

Sounds normal to me, If you’re really bothered you may be able to get a smart/learning remote than can take care of both devices.

You can usually link the freesat remote to control your tv.

The only thing you want that to do is turn on/off the tv, same as you can do with sky remote.

If you have the same brand TV and box you can just use the one remote. I imagine 3rd party remotes will control both if you set them up.