Re-reading this thread and picking up on a couple of other points.....
Monaco has its own TV service TMC (Télé Monte Carlo). Apart from being a prerequisite to enter the Eurovision Song Contest, does such an infinitesimal country really need its own TV service? Surely it must be broadcast from a very low power terrestrial transmitter to cover such a tiny area and not leak too much into France; just like a low power relay transmitter here in the UK. I bet most Monacoan residents are also able to get French TV from a French transmitter even if that needs a second aerial.
For whatever reason, certain smaller communities decide that they want a service which is more localized to their specific interests - Whether that's a particular town, county, or small country.
Liechtenstein tried to enter the Eurovision Song Contest in 1976 {.....} Unfortunately Liechtenstein could not take part as it didn't have its own TV broadcaster.
You seem to be placing a lot of emphasis on the presence or absence of a national broadcaster and on the Eurovision Song Contest being somehow significant to whether a small nation state should exist in its own right or not.
Obviously there has traditionally been something of a link between national boundaries and broadcasting, not least because throughout most of Europe governments - always eager to exercise control - were quick to regulate broadcasting within their borders as the technology was emerging, typically with an official state-sponsored broadcaster.
But don't you think it was rather natural that in many cases it was the smaller states, with more limited resources, which often did not consider it a priority to set up their own TV stations when residents could receive adequate coverage from an adjoining, larger nation? I don't see that as being any sort of indication of a lack of desire to maintain political independence, merely a convenience. Canadians have turned their antennas toward U.S. TV transmitters for decades, either because in some areas in the early days of television it was the only practical way to obtain service at all, or in later years simply to get more choice.
Closer to home, as you noted already, the Channel Island jurisdictions of Jersey & Guernsey are linked into both the BBC & ITV networks, and a similar situation exists with the Isle of Man. It doesn't mean the islands don't want to remain politically independent though.
The Irish Republic was quite late in getting its own TV service, with Telefis Eireann not going on air until the very end of 1961. But many people living in the border areas had already turned their aerials toward Northern Ireland transmitters in order to receive British TV, and many others in Dublin and along other parts of the east coast had aerials turned toward English transmitters already. Again, there were no political implications there (after all, the 26 counties had only been independent from the U.K. for around 40 years at that time), merely a desire of people to receive TV of some sort at a time when there were no TV broadcasts from within the R.o.I. whatsoever.
I could just as easily mention situations in my own field of telecommunications in which a small country is reliant upon a larger neighbour, or is even effectively integrated with the system of a larger nation. In fact the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are examples of this again, since they are all part of the U.K. telephone numbering plan, despite not being part of the U.K. itself. North America is another example where a single, integrated numbering system serves the U.S.A., Canada, and many Caribbean countries.
And to mention some of your small European countries, at one time Andorra was reached internationally using the French country code 33 before it was assigned its own separate code, Monaco was similarly accessed via France with 33, and Liechtenstein was reached via Switzerland with the latter's 41 country code. But that was all for technical convenience, nothing to do with any sort of political statement or with any notion that, for example, just because Liechtenstein was assigned a code within Switzerland's numbering plan that it should be regarded as politically part of Switzerland. (That's not to say that politics haven't gotten involved sometime: There was a ridiculous telephone situation which dragged on for years regarding Gibraltar and Spain, but that's another story.)


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