Eurovision Song Contest 1969

The Eurovision Song Contest 1969 was the 14th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest.

Eurovision Song Contest 1969
Dates
Final	29 March 1969
Host
Venue	Teatro Real Madrid, Spain
Presenter(s)	Laurita Valenzuela
Conductor	Augusto Algueró
Directed by	Ramón Díez
Executive supervisor	Clifford Brown
Host broadcaster	Televisión Española (TVE)
Interval act	"La España diferente" film
Website	eurovision.tv/event/madrid-1969
Participants
Number of entries	16
Debuting countries	None
Returning countries	None
Non-returning countries	Austria
Participation map      Participating countries     Countries that participated in the past but not in 1969
Vote
Voting system	Ten-member juries distributed ten points among their favourite songs.
Nul points	None
Winning song	France "Un jour, un enfant"  Netherlands "De troubadour"  Spain "Vivo cantando"  United Kingdom "Boom Bang-a-Bang"

Four countries (the United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands and France) won the contest, the first time ever a tie had occurred. However, there was no rule at the time to cover such an eventuality, so 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. And it was the first time that any country (Spain, in this case) had a winning ESC entry two years in a row. This is so far the only occasion Spain has hosted the contest, as well as their last win to date.

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 final featured an onstage metal sculpture created by surrealist Spanish artist, Amadeo Gabino.[2]

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: the songwriters, to some disgruntlement, were not awarded theirs until after the date of the contest.[1]

Participating countries

Further information: List of countries in the Eurovision Song Contest

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.

Conductors

Each performance had a conductor who led the orchestra.[5][6] These are listed below.

•  Yugoslavia – Miljenko Prohaska
•  Luxembourg – Augusto Algueró
•  Spain – Augusto Algueró
•  Monaco – Hervé Roy
•  Ireland – Noel Kelehan
•  Italy – Ezio Leoni
•  United Kingdom – Johnny Harris
•  Netherlands – Frans de Kok
•  Sweden – Lars Samuelson
•  Belgium – Francis Bay
•   Switzerland – Henry Mayer
•  Norway – Øivind Bergh
•  Germany – Hans Blum
•  France – Franck Pourcel
•  Portugal – Ferrer Trindade
•  Finland – Ossi Runne

Returning artists

Five artists returned in this year's contest. Louis Neefs for Belgium who last represented the nation in 1967; Germany's Siw Malmkvist who was also the participant for Sweden in 1960. Romuald for Luxembourg who represented Monaco last time in 1964; Norway's Kirsti Sparboe who represented the Scandinavian nation twice before in 1965 and 1967; and finally Simone de Oliveira who also represented Portugal in 1965.[1]

Results

Draw	Country	Artist	Song	Language[7]	Place	Points
01	Yugoslavia	Ivan & 4M	"Pozdrav svijetu"	Croatian	13	5
02	Luxembourg	Romuald	"Catherine"	French	11	7
03	Spain	Salomé	"Vivo cantando"	Spanish	1	18
04	Monaco	Jean Jacques	"Maman, Maman"	French	6	11
05	Ireland	Muriel Day & The Lindsays	"The Wages of Love"	English	7	10
06	Italy	Iva Zanicchi	"Due grosse lacrime bianche"	Italian	13	5
07	United Kingdom	Lulu	"Boom Bang-a-Bang"	English	1	18
08	Netherlands	Lenny Kuhr	"De troubadour"	Dutch	1	18
09	Sweden	Tommy Körberg	"Judy, min vän"	Swedish	9	8
10	Belgium	Louis Neefs	"Jennifer Jennings"	Dutch	7	10
11	Switzerland	Paola del Medico	"Bonjour, Bonjour"	German	5	13
12	Norway	Kirsti Sparboe	"Oj, oj, oj, så glad jeg skal bli"	Norwegian	16	1
13	Germany	Siw Malmkvist	"Primaballerina"	German	9	8
14	France	Frida Boccara	"Un jour, un enfant"	French	1	18
15	Portugal	Simone de Oliveira	"Desfolhada portuguesa"	Portuguese	15	4
16	Finland	Jarkko & Laura	"Kuin silloin ennen"	Finnish	12	6

Scoreboard

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

The final results of ESC 1969

		Results
		Total score	Yugoslavia	Luxembourg	Spain	Monaco	Ireland	Italy	United Kingdom	Netherlands	Sweden	Belgium	Switzerland	Norway	Germany	France	Portugal	Finland
Contestants	Yugoslavia	5			1							1					3
	Luxembourg	7	1			3				1		1			1
	Spain	18	1	2		3	1					3		1	3	2	2
	Monaco	11			2			4		2	2	1
	Ireland	10							1	1	1		3		1			3
	Italy	5	1			1	1										1	1
	United Kingdom	18	2	4				3		1	5				1		1	1
	Netherlands	18		2		1		3				1	4	1		6
	Sweden	8								1				3			1	3
	Belgium	10			2				3	1			2	2
	Switzerland	13	2				3		2			1		1	2			2
	Norway	1									1
	Germany	8	3		2							1		1		1
	France	18		1		2	4		4	2	1		1		1		2
	Portugal	4			2							1				1
	Finland	6		1	1		1			1				1	1

Broadcasters, commentators and spokespersons

Spokespersons

Listed below is the order in which votes were cast during the 1969 contest along with the spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country.[8]

1.  Yugoslavia – Helga Vlahović
2.  Luxembourg – TBC
3.  Spain – Ramón Rivera
4.  Monaco – TBC
5.  Ireland – John Skehan
6.  Italy – Mike Bongiorno
7.  United Kingdom – Colin Ward-Lewis[6]
8.  Netherlands – Leo Nelissen
9.  Sweden – Edvard Matz[9]
10.  Belgium – Eugène Senelle[10]
11.   Switzerland – Alexandre Burger
12.  Norway – Janka Polanyi
13.  Germany – Hans-Otto Grünefeldt
14.  France – Jean-Claude Massoulier[11]
15.  Portugal – Maria Manuela Furtado
16.  Finland – Poppe Berg

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	[8]
	BRT	Dutch: Herman Verelst	[8]
Finland	TV-ohjelma 1 and Yleisohjelma	Aarno Walli	[8]
France	Deuxième Chaîne ORTF	Pierre Tchernia	[8][12]
Germany	Deutsches Fernsehen	Hans-Joachim Rauschenbach	[8]
Ireland	RTÉ	Gay Byrne	[8]
	RTÉ Radio	Kevin Roche
Italy	Secondo Programma	Renato Tagliani
Luxembourg	Télé-Luxembourg	Jacques Navadic	[8]
Monaco	Télé Monte Carlo	Pierre Tchernia
Netherlands	Nederland 1	Pim Jacobs	[8][13]
Norway	NRK	Sverre Christophersen[lower-alpha 1]	[8]
	NRK P1	Erik Heyerdahl
Portugal	I Programa	Henrique Mendes	[8]
Spain	Primera Cadena	José Luis Uribarri	[8]
	Radio Nacional	Miguel de los Santos
Sweden	Sveriges TV and SR P3	Christina Hansegård	[8][14]
Switzerland	TV DRS	German: Theodor Haller	[8]
	TSR	French: Georges Hardy	[8]
	TSI	Italian: Giovanni Bertini
United Kingdom	BBC1	David Gell	[6]
	BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2	Pete Murray	[6]
Yugoslavia	Televizija Beograd	Serbo-Croatian: Miloje Orlović
	Televizija Zagreb	Serbo-Croatian: Mladen Delić
	Televizija Ljubljana	Slovene: Tomaž Terček
Non-participating countries
Brazil	TV Tupi	Unknown	[6]
Chile	Canal 9	Unknown	[6]
Czechoslovakia	ČST	Unknown	[6]
East Germany	Deutscher Fernsehfunk	Unknown	[6]
Hungary	RTV	Unknown	[6]
Mexico	TBC	Unknown	[6]
Poland	TVP	Unknown	[6]
Puerto Rico	TBC	Unknown	[6]
Romania	TVR	Unknown	[6]
Soviet Union	CT USSR	Unknown	[6]
Tunisia	RTT	Unknown	[6]

Notes

1. Sverre Christophersen was the commentator during the broadcast, however the connection between Madrid and Oslo was disabled slightly midway through the broadcast. Janka Polanyi entered as a temporary commentator before NRK used the commentary from the Swedish feed. Just before the voting began, NRK managed to regain the connection, thus Christophersen was back as commentator.

References

1. "Eurovision Song Contest 1969". EBU. Retrieved 16 June 2012.
2. "Cultural Institutions: Teatro Real". esMADRID.com. Archived from the original on 7 September 2009. Retrieved 3 September 2009.
3. "Eurovisionsfest ohne Österreich". Arbeiter-Zeitung. Vienna, Austria. 15 January 1969.
4. O'Connor, John Kennedy (2005). The Eurovision Song Contest: The Official History.
5. "And the conductor is..." Retrieved 10 July 2018.
6. 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.
7. "Eurovision Song Contest 1969". The Diggiloo Thrush. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
8. "Eurovision 1969 - Cast and Crew". IMDb. Retrieved 19 July 2020.
9. "Infosajten.com". Infosajten.com. Archived from the original on 18 July 2012. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
10. "Drieluik Madrid, met een viertal kanshebbers naar het uur H", Emiel Janssens, Gazet van Antwerpen, 29 maart 1969
11. Tchernia, Pierre et al. (29 March 1969). 14ème Concours Eurovision de la Chanson 1969 [14th Eurovision Song Contest 1969] (Television production). Spain: TVE, ORTF (commentary).
12. Christian Masson. "1969 – Madrid". Songcontest.free.fr. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
13. "Nederlandse televisiecommentatoren bij het Eurovisie Songfestival". Eurovision Artists (in Dutch).
14. Thorsson, Leif (2006). Melodifestivalen genom tiderna ["Melodifestivalen through time"]. Stockholm: Premium Publishing AB. p. 80. ISBN 91-89136-29-2.

External links

• Official website