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
Grand final6 April 1968
Host
VenueRoyal Albert Hall
London, United Kingdom
Presenter(s)Katie Boyle
Musical directorNorrie Paramor
Directed byStewart Morris
Executive supervisorClifford Brown
Executive producerTom Sloan
Host broadcasterBritish Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
Interval actImpressions from London
Websiteeurovision.tv/event/london-1968
Participants
Number of entries17
Debuting countriesNone
Returning countriesNone
Non-returning countriesNone
Vote
Voting systemTen-member juries distributed ten points among their favourite songs.
Nul pointsNone
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

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

Conductors

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

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][10] 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 Luci Capurso & Hamo Hajdarhodžić "Jedan dan" (Један дан) Serbo-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 523
Netherlands 11
Belgium 8111311
Austria 22
Luxembourg 511111
Switzerland 22
Monaco 821311
Sweden 15111264
Finland 11
France 203623312
Italy 71222
United Kingdom 28122145324112
Norway 211
Ireland 181114146
Spain 294214343116
Germany 1111252
Yugoslavia 8111131

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.[11]

  1.  Portugal – Maria Manuela Furtado
  2.  Netherlands – Warry van Kampen[12]
  3.  Belgium – André Hagon
  4.  AustriaWalter Richard Langer
  5.  Luxembourg – TBC
  6.   SwitzerlandAlexandre Burger
  7.  Monaco – TBC
  8.  SwedenEdvard Matz[13]
  9.  FinlandPoppe Berg[14]
  10.  FranceJean-Claude Massoulier[15]
  11.  ItalyMike Bongiorno
  12.  United KingdomMichael Aspel[8]
  13.  NorwaySverre Christophersen[16]
  14.  IrelandGay Byrne
  15.  Spain – Ramón Rivera
  16.  GermanyHans-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 [11]
 Finland TV-ohjelma 1 Aarno Walli [11]
 France Deuxième Chaîne ORTF Pierre Tchernia [11][17]
 Germany Deutsches Fernsehen Hans-Joachim Rauschenbach [11]
 Ireland RTÉ Brendan O'Reilly [11]
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 [11]
 Norway NRK Roald Øyen [11]
 Portugal RTP Fialho Gouveia [11]
 Spain Primera Cadena Federico Gallo [11]
Radio Nacional José María Íñigo [18]
 Sweden Sveriges TV Christina Hansegård [11][19]
  Switzerland TV DRS German: Theodor Haller [11]
TSR French: Georges Hardy [11]
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 Song Contest 1968". 4Lyrics.eu. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  11. "Eurovision 1968 - Cast and Crew". IMDb. Retrieved 19 July 2020.
  12. "Songfestival eindigde in mineur bij BBC", het Parool, 8 April 1968
  13. Infosajten.com Archived 18 July 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  14. Selostajat ja taustalaulajat läpi vuosien? (in Finnish) Viisukuppila, 18 April 2005
  15. 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).
  16. Dyrseth, Seppo (OGAE Norway)
  17. CONCOURS EUROVISION DE LA CHANSON 1968 (in French) SongContest
  18. Spanish Eurovision commentator José María Iñigo passed away Eurovision.tv
  19. Thorsson, Leif (2006). Melodifestivalen genom tiderna ["Melodifestivalen through time"]. Stockholm: Premium Publishing AB. p. 74. ISBN 91-89136-29-2.

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