Eurovision Song Contest 1968

The Eurovision Song Contest 1968 was the 13th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in London, United Kingdom, following Sandie Shaw's win at the 1967 contest in Vienna, Austria, with the song "Puppet on a String". It was the third time the event took place in the UK; after the 1960 and 1963 editions, both of which also took place in London. The contest was held at the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday 6 April 1968, and was hosted by Katie Boyle (for the third time). Seventeen countries participated in the contest.

Eurovision Song Contest 1968
Dates
Final	6 April 1968
Host
Venue	Royal Albert Hall London, United Kingdom
Presenter(s)	Katie Boyle
Conductor	Norrie Paramor
Directed by	Stewart Morris
Executive supervisor	Clifford Brown
Executive producer	Tom Sloan
Host broadcaster	British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
Interval act	Impressions from London
Website	eurovision.tv/event/london-1968
Participants
Number of entries	17
Debuting countries	None
Returning countries	None
Non-returning countries	None
Participation map      Participating countries     Countries that participated in the past but not in 1968
Vote
Voting system	Ten-member juries distributed ten points among their favourite songs.
Nul points	None
Winning song	Spain "La, la, la"

The winner was Spain with the song "La, la, la", performed by Massiel, and written/composed by Manuel de la Calva and Ramón Arcusa. This was Spain's first victory - and their first ever top five placing - in the contest. This was also first victory for the country from the Iberian Peninsula.

Prior to the contest, the United Kingdom's entry, Cliff Richard with the song "Congratulations", was hotly tipped as the favourite to win, but lost out to Spain's Massiel by a margin of just one point. Originally Spain entered Joan Manuel Serrat to sing "La La La", but his demand to sing in Catalan was an affront to the Francoist State dictatorship. Serrat was replaced by Massiel, who sang the same song in Spanish.[1]

Location

Royal Albert Hall, London - host venue of the 1968 contest.

The contest was held at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The Royal Albert Hall is known for hosting the world's leading artists from several performance genres, sports, award ceremonies, the annual summer Proms concerts and other events since its opening in 1871, and has become one of the United Kingdom's most treasured and distinctive buildings.

Format

1968 was the first time that the Eurovision Song Contest was broadcast in colour. The countries that broadcast it in colour were France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden and the United Kingdom, although in the UK it was broadcast as an encore presentation in colour on BBC Two the next day. Also all of Eastern Europe and Tunisia broadcast the contest. Katie Boyle hosted the contest for a third time.[1]

Vote rigging allegations

In May 2008, a documentary by Spanish film-maker Montse Fernández Villa, 1968. Yo viví el mayo español, centred on the effects of May 1968 in Francoist Spain,[2] and alleged that the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest was rigged by the Spanish caudillo Francisco Franco, who would have sent state television officials across Europe offering cash and promising to buy television series and contract unknown artists.[3] The allegation was based on a testimony by journalist José María Íñigo, a TVE employee at the time, who claimed the rigging was common knowledge and suggested that Spanish record label representatives offered to release albums by Bulgarian and Czech artists (neither Bulgaria nor Czechoslovakia were members of the European Broadcasting Union at the time, though in the 1968 Contest, Austria was represented by Karel Gott, who was from Czechoslovakia.).[4]

The documentary claimed that the contest should in fact have been won by the United Kingdom's entry – "Congratulations" performed by Cliff Richard – which finished second by one vote.[5] Massiel, the performer of the winning entry, was outraged by the allegations, and claimed that if there had been fixes, "other singers, who were more keen on Francoist Spain, would have benefited". José María Iñigo, author of the statement in the documentary, personally apologized to Massiel and said that he had repeated a widespread rumour. Both Massiel and Iñigo accused television channel La Sexta, broadcaster of the documentary, of manufacturing the scandal.[6]

Participating countries

Further information: List of countries in the Eurovision Song Contest

All countries that participated in 1967 also participated in 1968.[1]

Conductors

Each performance had a maestro who conducted the orchestra.[7][8]

•  Portugal – Joaquim Luís Gomes
•  Netherlands – Dolf van der Linden
•  Belgium – Henri Segers
•  Austria – Robert Opratko
•  Luxembourg – André Borly
•   Switzerland – Mario Robbiani
•  Monaco – Michel Colombier
•  Sweden – Mats Olsson
•  Finland – Ossi Runne
•  France – Alain Goraguer
•  Italy – Giancarlo Chiaramello
•  United Kingdom – Norrie Paramor
•  Norway – Øivind Bergh
•  Ireland – Noel Kelehan
•  Spain – Rafael Ibarbia
•  Germany – Horst Jankowski
•  Yugoslavia – Miljenko Prohaska

Returning artists

Only one artist returned in this year's contest. The winner of the 1962 contest, Isabelle Aubret, returned once more for France.[1]

Results

Draw	Country	Artist	Song	Language[9]	Place	Points
01	Portugal	Carlos Mendes	"Verão"	Portuguese	11	5
02	Netherlands	Ronnie Tober	"Morgen"	Dutch	16	1
03	Belgium	Claude Lombard	"Quand tu reviendras"	French	7	8
04	Austria	Karel Gott	"Tausend Fenster"	German	13	2
05	Luxembourg	Chris Baldo & Sophie Garel	"Nous vivrons d'amour"	French	11	5
06	Switzerland	Gianni Mascolo	"Guardando il sole"	Italian	13	2
07	Monaco	Line & Willy	"À chacun sa chanson"	French	7	8
08	Sweden	Claes-Göran Hederström	"Det börjar verka kärlek, banne mej"	Swedish	5	15
09	Finland	Kristina Hautala	"Kun kello käy"	Finnish	16	1
10	France	Isabelle Aubret	"La source"	French	3	20
11	Italy	Sergio Endrigo	"Marianne"	Italian	10	7
12	United Kingdom	Cliff Richard	"Congratulations"	English	2	28
13	Norway	Odd Børre	"Stress"	Norwegian	13	2
14	Ireland	Pat McGuigan	"Chance of a Lifetime"	English	4	18
15	Spain	Massiel	"La, la, la"	Spanish	1	29
16	Germany	Wenche Myhre	"Ein Hoch der Liebe"	German	6	11
17	Yugoslavia	Dubrovački trubaduri	"Jedan dan"	Croatian	7	8

Scoreboard

Due to a misunderstanding by the hostess, Katie Boyle, Switzerland were erroneously awarded 3 points by Yugoslavia, instead of 2. The scrutineer asked for the Yugoslav votes from TV Skopje to be announced a second time.

		Results
		Total score	Portugal	Netherlands	Belgium	Austria	Luxembourg	Switzerland	Monaco	Sweden	Finland	France	Italy	United Kingdom	Norway	Ireland	Spain	Germany	Yugoslavia
Contestants	Portugal	5													2		3
	Netherlands	1											1
	Belgium	8	1								1	1	3	1			1
	Austria	2																2
	Luxembourg	5		1		1			1			1		1
	Switzerland	2																	2
	Monaco	8		2			1				3			1		1
	Sweden	15	1	1							1			2	6	4
	Finland	1													1
	France	20		3	6	2	3	3		1			2
	Italy	7	1					2									2		2
	United Kingdom	28	1	2	2		1	4	5	3	2	4	1			1		2
	Norway	2					1										1
	Ireland	18	1	1	1	4	1			4									6
	Spain	29	4			2	1		4		3	4	3		1	1		6
	Germany	11					1	1		2				5			2
	Yugoslavia	8	1		1	1	1									3	1

Broadcasters, commentators and spokespersons

Spokespersons

Listed below is the order in which votes were cast during the 1968 contest along with the spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country.[10]

1.  Portugal – Maria Manuela Furtado
2.  Netherlands – Warry van Kampen[11]
3.  Belgium – André Hagon
4.  Austria – Walter Richard Langer
5.  Luxembourg – TBC
6.   Switzerland – Alexandre Burger
7.  Monaco – TBC
8.  Sweden – Edvard Matz[12]
9.  Finland – Poppe Berg[13]
10.  France – Jean-Claude Massoulier[14]
11.  Italy – Mike Bongiorno
12.  United Kingdom – Michael Aspel[8]
13.  Norway – Sverre Christophersen[15]
14.  Ireland – Gay Byrne
15.  Spain – Ramón Rivera
16.  Germany – Hans-Otto Grünefeldt
17.  Yugoslavia – Snežana Lipkovska-Hadžinaumova

Broadcasters and commentators

Each national broadcaster also sent a commentator to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language.

Country	Broadcaster(s)	Commentator(s)	Ref(s)
Participating countries
Austria	FS1	Willy Kralik
Belgium	RTB	French: Paule Herreman
	BRT	Dutch: Herman Verelst	[10]
Finland	TV-ohjelma 1	Aarno Walli	[10]
France	Deuxième Chaîne ORTF	Pierre Tchernia	[10][16]
Germany	Deutsches Fernsehen	Hans-Joachim Rauschenbach	[10]
Ireland	RTÉ	Brendan O'Reilly	[10]
	RTÉ Radio	Kevin Roche
Italy	Secondo Programma	Renato Tagliani
Luxembourg	Télé-Luxembourg	Jacques Navadic
Monaco	Télé Monte Carlo	Pierre Tchernia
Netherlands	Nederland 1	Elles Berger	[10]
Norway	NRK	Roald Øyen	[10]
Portugal	RTP	Fialho Gouveia	[10]
Spain	Primera Cadena	Federico Gallo	[10]
	Radio Nacional	José María Íñigo	[17]
Sweden	Sveriges TV	Christina Hansegård	[10][18]
Switzerland	TV DRS	German: Theodor Haller	[10]
	TSR	French: Georges Hardy	[10]
	TSI	Italian: Giovanni Bertini
United Kingdom	BBC1	No commentator	[8]
	BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2	Pete Murray	[8]
Yugoslavia	Televizija Beograd	Serbo-Croatian: Miloje Orlović
	Televizija Zagreb	Serbo-Croatian: Mladen Delić
	Televizija Ljubljana	Slovene: Tomaž Terček
Non-participating countries
Bulgaria	BT	Unknown	[8]
Czechoslovakia	ČST	Unknown	[8]
East Germany	Deutscher Fernsehfunk	Unknown	[8]
Hungary	RTV	Unknown	[8]
Poland	TVP	Unknown	[8]
Romania	TVR	Unknown	[8]
Soviet Union	CT USSR	Unknown	[8]
Tunisia	RTT	Unknown	[8]

References

1. "Eurovision Song Contest 1968". EBU. Retrieved 16 June 2012.
2. "Massiel sí, Madelman no: así fue el Mayo del 68 en España". Público (in Spanish). 3 May 2008. Retrieved 3 December 2009.
3. "TVE 'compró' los votos para que Massiel ganará Eurovisión". 20 minutos (in Spanish). 5 May 2008. Retrieved 3 December 2009.
4. "Vea el vídeo donde José Maríá Iñigo 'descubre' a Massiel". 20 minutos (in Spanish). 5 May 2008. Retrieved 3 December 2009.
5. Govan, Fiona (4 May 2008). "How Franco cheated Cliff out of Eurovision title". The Telegraph. Retrieved 26 April 2012.
6. "Massiel e Iñigo acusan a La Sexta de "urdir todo para favorecer a Chiquilicuatre"". El Mundo (in Spanish). 6 May 2008. Retrieved 3 December 2009.
7. "And the conductor is..." Retrieved 10 July 2018.
8. Roxburgh, Gordon (2012). Songs for Europe: The United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest. Volume One: The 1950s and 1960s. Prestatyn: Telos Publishing. pp. 454–470. ISBN 978-1-84583-065-6.
9. "Eurovision Song Contest 1968". The Diggiloo Thrush. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
10. "Eurovision 1968 - Cast and Crew". IMDb. Retrieved 19 July 2020.
11. "Songfestival eindigde in mineur bij BBC", het Parool, 8 April 1968
12. Infosajten.com Archived 18 July 2012 at the Wayback Machine
13. Selostajat ja taustalaulajat läpi vuosien? (in Finnish) Viisukuppila, 18 April 2005
14. Tchernia, Pierre et al. (6 April 1968). 13ème Concours Eurovision de la Chanson 1969 [13th Eurovision Song Contest 1968] (Television production). United Kingdom: BBC, ORTF (commentary).
15. Dyrseth, Seppo (OGAE Norway)
16. CONCOURS EUROVISION DE LA CHANSON 1968 (in French) SongContest
17. Spanish Eurovision commentator José María Iñigo passed away Eurovision.tv
18. Thorsson, Leif (2006). Melodifestivalen genom tiderna ["Melodifestivalen through time"]. Stockholm: Premium Publishing AB. p. 74. ISBN 91-89136-29-2.

External links

• Official website