1969_Eurovision_Song_Contest

Eurovision Song Contest 1969

Eurovision Song Contest 1969

International song competition

The Eurovision Song Contest 1969 was the 14th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Madrid, Spain, following the country's victory at the 1968 contest with the song "La La La" by Massiel. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Televisión Española (TVE), the contest was held at the Teatro Real on 29 March 1969 and was hosted by Spanish television presenter and actress Laurita Valenzuela.

Quick Facts Dates, Final ...

Sixteen countries took part in the contest with Austria deciding not to participate this year.

At the close of voting, four countries were declared joint-winners: the United Kingdom with "Boom Bang-a-Bang" by Lulu, Spain with "Vivo cantando" by Salomé, the Netherlands with "De troubadour" by Lenny Kuhr, and France with "Un jour, un enfant" by Frida Boccara. It was the first time in the history of the contest that a tie for first place had occurred, and as there was no tiebreaker rule in place at the time, all four countries were declared joint winners.[1] France's win was their fourth, thus making it the first country to win the contest four times. The Netherlands' win was their third. Spain and the United Kingdom each won for the second time, with Spain becoming the first country to win the Eurovision Song Contest twice in a row.

Location

Teatro Real, Madrid – host venue of the 1969 contest.

The venue selected to host the 1969 contest was the Teatro Real, an opera house located in Madrid. The theatre reopened in 1966 as a concert theatre and the main concert venue of the Spanish National Orchestra and the RTVE Symphony Orchestra. The stage featured a metal sculpture created by surrealist Spanish artist Amadeo Gabino [es].[2]

Participating countries

Further information: List of countries in the Eurovision Song Contest
Quick Facts – Participation summaries by country ...

Austria was absent from the contest,[1] officially because they could not find a suitable representative,[3] but it was rumoured that they refused to participate in a contest staged in Franco-ruled Spain.[4] Wales wanted to debut with Welsh language broadcaster BBC Cymru, and also made a national selection called Cân i Gymru, but in the end it was decided they would not participate in the competition – their participation was rejected because Wales is not a sovereign state. Only the BBC has the exclusive right to represent the United Kingdom.

More information Country, Broadcaster ...

Returning artists

More information Artist, Country ...

Format

The surrealist Spanish artist Salvador Dalí was responsible for designing the publicity material for the 1969 contest.

It was the first time that the contest resulted in a tie for first place, with four countries each gaining 18 votes. Since there was at the time no rule to cover such an eventuality, all four countries were declared joint winners. This caused an unfortunate problem concerning the medals due to be distributed to the winners as there were not enough to go round, so that only the singers received their medals on the night:[1] the songwriters, to some disgruntlement, were not awarded theirs until some days later[citation needed]. It was the second contest to be filmed and transmitted in colour, even though TVE did not have colour equipment at the time. It had to rent colour TV cameras from the ARD German network. In Spain itself the broadcast was seen in black and white because the local transmitters did not support colour transmissions. The equipment for archiving the broadcast did not arrive in time, so TVE only had a black and white copy of the contest, until a colour copy was discovered in the archives of the NRK.[10]

Contest overview

More information R/O, Country ...

Spokespersons

Each country nominated a spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country via telephone. Known spokespersons at the 1969 contest are listed below.

  •  Belgium – Eugène Senelle[12]
  •  Finland – Poppe Berg [fi][13]
  •  Norway – Janka Polanyi [no][14]
  •  Sweden – Edvard Matz [sv][15]
  •  United Kingdom – Colin Ward-Lewis[6]

Detailed voting results

Although neither jury made any errors in their announcements, scrutineer Clifford Brown asked both the Spanish and the Monegasque juries to repeat their scores. No adjustments were made to the scoring as a result of the repetition.

Lenny Kuhr's dress
More information Total score, Yugoslavia ...

Broadcasts

Each participating broadcaster was required to relay the contest via its networks. Non-participating EBU member broadcasters were also able to relay the contest as "passive participants". Broadcasters were able to send commentators to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language and to relay information about the artists and songs to their television viewers.[18]

Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below. In addition to the participating countries, the contest was also reportedly broadcast in Tunisia, in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Soviet Union via Intervision, and in Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Puerto Rico.[6]

More information Country, Broadcaster ...
More information Country, Broadcaster ...

Notes

  1. On behalf of the German public broadcasting consortium ARD[9]
  2. Deferred broadcast on NRK at 22:30 CET (21:30 UTC)[31]
  3. The connection between the commentary booth in Madrid and the NRK studios in Oslo was disabled partway through the broadcast, resulting in the Norwegian commentary provided by Sverre Christophersen [no] not being relayed to Norwegian viewers and listeners. Commentary was temporarily provided by Janka Polanyi [no] before the Swedish feed was rerouted to also cover the Norwegian broadcasts, with the original connection to Christophersen ultimately fixed before the start of the voting sequence.[32]
  4. Delayed broadcast on 29 March 1969 at 20:15 CLT (00:15 UTC)[41]

References

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    "Eurovision Song Contest 1969". EBU. Retrieved 16 June 2012.
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  4. [4]
    O'Connor, John Kennedy (2005). The Eurovision Song Contest: The Official History.
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    Roxburgh, Gordon (2012). Songs for Europe: The United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest. Volume One: The 1950s and 1960s. Prestatyn: Telos Publishing. pp. 482–493. ISBN 978-1-84583-065-6.
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