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 the country's first victory at the 1967 contest with the song "Puppet on a String" by Sandie Shaw. Despite having won for the first time the year before, it was actually the third time that the United Kingdom had hosted the competition, having previously done so in 1960 and 1963, both of which also took place in London. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the contest was held at Royal Albert Hall on 6 April 1968, and was hosted by Katie Boyle for the third time. It was notably also the first time that the contest was broadcast in colour.

Eurovision Song Contest 1968
Dates
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)
Websiteeurovision.tv/event/london-1968
Participants
Number of entries17
Debuting countriesNone
Returning countriesNone
Non-returning countriesNone
Participation map
  • A coloured map of the countries of Europe
         Participating countries     Countries that participated in the past but not in 1968
Vote
Voting systemTen-member juries distributed ten points among their favourite songs.
Nul pointsNone
Winning song Spain
"La, la, la"

Seventeen countries participated in the contest, the same countries that had participated the previous year.

The winner was Spain with the song "La, la, la" 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. With her winning reprise, she became the first winner to perform part of her song in English, in addition to the original version.

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. All of Eastern Europe as well as Tunisia broadcast the contest as well.

Prior to the contest, the bookmakers were sure of another British victory, as the English singer Cliff Richard, who was already dominating the music charts at that time, was hotly tipped as the favourite to win, but in the end he lost out to Spain's song by a margin of just one point.

Originally Massiel's song La La La was supposed to be sung by Spanish singer Joan Manuel Serrat who wanted to perform the song in Catalan. At the request of Spanish officials, however, Juan Manuel was replaced by Massiel who sang the same song in Castilian (Spanish).

Participating countries
Further information: List of countries in the Eurovision Song Contest

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

Conductors

Each performance had a maestro who conducted the orchestra.[2][3]

Returning artists

Bold indicates a previous winner.

Artist Country Previous year(s)
Isabelle Aubret  France 1962

Participants and results
R/O Country Artist Song Language[4][5] Points Place[6]
1  Portugal Carlos Mendes "Verão" Portuguese 5 11
2  Netherlands Ronnie Tober "Morgen" Dutch 1 16
3  Belgium Claude Lombard "Quand tu reviendras" French 8 7
4  Austria Karel Gott "Tausend Fenster" German 2 13
5  Luxembourg Chris Baldo and Sophie Garel "Nous vivrons d'amour" French 5 11
6  Switzerland Gianni Mascolo "Guardando il sole" Italian 2 13
7  Monaco Line and Willy "À chacun sa chanson" French 8 7
8  Sweden Claes-Göran Hederström "Det börjar verka kärlek, banne mig" Swedish 15 5
9  Finland Kristina Hautala "Kun kello käy" Finnish 1 16
10  France Isabelle Aubret "La Source" French 20 3
11  Italy Sergio Endrigo "Marianne" Italian 7 10
12  United Kingdom Cliff Richard "Congratulations" English 28 2
13  Norway Odd Børre "Stress" Norwegian 2 13
14  Ireland Pat McGeegan "Chance of a Lifetime" English 18 4
15  Spain Massiel "La, la, la" Spanish 29 1
16  Germany Wencke Myhre "Ein Hoch der Liebe" German 11 6
17  Yugoslavia Luci Capurso and Hamo Hajdarhodžić "Jedan dan" (Један дан) Serbo-Croatian 8 7

Detailed voting results

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.

Detailed voting results[7][8]
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

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.

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

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.[12]

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, and in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Soviet Union via Intervision.[3]

Broadcasters and commentators in participating countries
Country Broadcaster Channel(s) Commentator(s) Ref(s)
 Austria ORF FS1 Unknown [13]
 Belgium RTB RTB Paule Herreman [14][15][16]
BRT BRT Unknown [16]
 Finland YLE TV-ohjelma 1 Aarno Walli [11][17][18]
Ruotsinkielinen ulaohjelma Unknown
 France ORTF Deuxième Chaîne Pierre Tchernia [15][19][20][21]
France Inter Unknown
 Germany ARD Deutsches Fernsehen Unknown [15][19][22]
 Ireland RTÉ RTÉ Brendan O'Reilly [23][24][25]
RTÉ Radio Unknown
 Italy RAI Secondo Programma Renato Tagliani [26][27][28]
 Luxembourg CLT Télé-Luxembourg Unknown [15][29]
 Monaco Télé Monte-Carlo Unknown [30]
 Netherlands NTS Nederland 1 Elles Berger [16][31]
 Norway NRK NRK Fjernsynet, NRK[lower-alpha 1] Roald Øyen [32][33]
 Portugal RTP RTP Unknown [34][35]
 Spain TVE TVE 1 Federico Gallo [36][37][38]
Radio Peninsular José María Íñigo [37][39]
 Sweden SR Sveriges TV Christina Hansegård [10][17][32][40]
 Switzerland SRG SSR TV DRS Theodor Haller [19][41][42][43][44]
TSR Georges Hardy
TSI Unknown
DRS 1[lower-alpha 2] Albert Werner
 United Kingdom BBC BBC1[lower-alpha 3] No commentary [3][45][47][48][49]
BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2 Pete Murray
 Yugoslavia JRT Televizija Ljubljana Unknown [50][51][52]
Televizija Zagreb Unknown
Broadcasters and commentators in non-participating countries
Country Broadcaster Channel(s) Commentator(s) Ref(s)
 Hungary MTV MTV Unknown [53]
 Malta MTPBS MTS, National Network Unknown [54][55]
 Romania TVR TVR Unknown [56]

Incidents

Spanish artist replacement

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. Therefore, Massiel, who was on tour in Mexico, was brought in as a late replacement. In just two weeks, she had to rush back to Spain, learn the song, record it in several languages, travel to Paris to get a dress and go to London for rehearsals. She sang the song in the contest in Spanish with the new arrangement made to fit her. In her winning reprise, she performed part of her song in English, in addition to the original version, becoming the first winner to do so.[1][57]

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,[58] 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.[59] 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.).[60]

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.[61] 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.[62]

Notes
  1. Deferred broadcast on NRK at 22:30 CET (21:30 UTC)[32]
  2. Delayed broadcast on 8 April at 22:30 CET (21:30 UTC)[42]
  3. Re-broadcast in colour on BBC2 on 7 April at 16:30 BST (15:30 UTC)[45][46]

References
  1. "Eurovision Song Contest 1968". EBU. Retrieved 16 June 2012.
  2. "And the conductor is..." Retrieved 10 July 2018.
  3. 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.
  4. "Eurovision Song Contest 1968". The Diggiloo Thrush. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
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  9. "Songfestival eindigde in mineur bij BBC". Het Parool. 8 April 1968. p. 4. Retrieved 14 June 2021.
  10. Thorsson, Leif; Verhage, Martin (2006). Melodifestivalen genom tiderna : de svenska uttagningarna och internationella finalerna (in Swedish). Stockholm: Premium Publishing. pp. 74–75. ISBN 91-89136-29-2.
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