Eurovision Song Contest 1968

Template:Short description The Eurovision Song Contest 1968 was the 13th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, held on 6 April 1968 at the Royal Albert Hall in London, United Kingdom, and presented by Katie Boyle. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), who staged the event after winning the Template:Escyr for the Template:Esccnty with the song "Puppet on a String" by Sandie Shaw. Despite being the UK's first win at the contest, it was actually the third time that the BBC had hosted the competition, having previously done so in Template:Escyr and Template:Escyr, both of which also took place in London and were presented by Katie Boyle. It was the first time the event was broadcast in colour.

Broadcasters from seventeen countries participated in the contest, the same countries that had participated the previous year.

The winner was Template:Esccnty with the song "La La La", written by Manuel de la Calva and Ramón Arcusa, and performed by Massiel. This was Spain's first victory - and their first ever top five placing - in the contest. The Template:Esccnty, Template:Esccnty, Template:Esccnty and Template:Esccnty rounded out the top five. Spain's win over the United Kingdom by a single point, marked the closest finish in the contest up to that point.

Location

File:Royal Albert Hall, London - Nov 2012.jpg

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

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) staged the 1968 contest in London, after winning the Template:Escyr for the Template:Esccnty with the song "Puppet on a String" by Sandie Shaw. The venue selected was the Royal Albert Hall. This concert 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. At the time of the contest in 1968, the venue had a capacity of 7,000 seats.

Participants

Template:Interlanguage link info Template:ESC 1968 participants Broadcasters from seventeen countries participated in the 1968 contest, the same countries that had participated in 1967.

The contest featured one representative who had previously performed as lead artists for the same country. Isabelle Aubret had won Eurovision for Template:Esccnty.

Originally Spanish broadcaster (TVE) entered Joan Manuel Serrat to sing "La La La", but after he demanded to sing the song in Catalan at the contest, 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 a 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. The Norwegian national selection, Template:Esccnty, ended with the song "" winning performed by both Kirsti Sparboe and Odd Børre. However the composer, Kari Diesen withdrew the song due to receiving multiple accusations of plagiarism of the song "Summer Holiday" by Cliff Richard. (NRK) internally selected the runner-up song in the selection, "Stress" to participate in the contest instead, and Odd Børre was chosen as the singer.

Eurovision Song Contest 1968 participants

Country	Broadcaster	Artist	Song	Language	Songwriter(s)	Conductor
Template:Esc	ORF	Karel Gott	""	German	Template:Hlist	Template:Ill
Template:Esc	RTB	Claude Lombard	""	French	Template:Hlist	Template:Ill
Template:Esc	YLE		""	Finnish	Template:Hlist	Ossi Runne
Template:Esc	ORTF	Isabelle Aubret	""	French	Template:Hlist	Alain Goraguer
Template:Esc	HRTemplate:Efn	Wencke Myhre	""	German	Template:Hlist	Horst Jankowski
Template:Esc	RTÉ	Pat McGeegan	"Chance of a Lifetime"	English	John Kennedy	Noel Kelehan
Template:Esc	RAI	Sergio Endrigo	""	Italian	Sergio Endrigo	Giancarlo Chiaramello
Template:Esc	CLT	Template:Ill and Sophie Garel	""	French	Template:Hlist	André Borly
Template:Esc	TMC	Template:Ill	""	French	Template:Hlist	Michel Colombier
Template:Esc	NTS	Ronnie Tober	""	Dutch	Template:Hlist	Dolf van der Linden
Template:Esc	NRK	Odd Børre	"Stress"	Norwegian	Template:Hlist	Øivind Bergh
Template:Esc	RTP	Carlos Mendes	""	Portuguese	Template:Hlist	Template:Ill
Template:Esc	TVE	Massiel	"La La La"	Spanish	Template:Hlist	Rafael Ibarbia
Template:Esc	SR	Claes-Göran Hederström	""	Swedish	Template:Ill	Mats Olsson
Template:Esc	SRG SSR	Gianni Mascolo	""	Italian	Template:Hlist	Mario Robbiani
Template:Esc	BBC		"Congratulations"	English	Template:Hlist	Norrie Paramor
Template:Esc	JRT	Lući Kapurso and Hamo Hajdarhodžić	"" ()	Serbo-Croatian	Template:Hlist	Miljenko Prohaska

Format

This was the first Eurovision Song Contest produced and broadcast in colour. The countries in which it was broadcast in colour were France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.Template:Efn In other countries, the competition was still only broadcast in black and white because their television networks were not yet equipped for colour. Despite this, national juries in countries such as Spain were able to watch it in colour directly from the Eurovision network signal, which was already reaching its broadcaster's studios.

Contest overview

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 vote. This was the closest finish in any contest up to this point and would remain so until twenty years later.

Results of the Eurovision Song Contest 1968

R/O	Country	Artist	Song	Votes	Place
1	Template:Esc		""	5	11
2	Template:Esc		""	1	16
3	Template:Esc		""	8	7
4	Template:Esc		""	2	13
5	Template:Esc	and Sophie Garel	""	5	11
6	Template:Esc		""	2	13
7	Template:Esc	Line and Willy	""	8	7
8	Template:Esc		""	15	5
9	Template:Esc		""	1	16
10	Template:Esc		""	20	3
11	Template:Esc		""	7	10
12	Template:Esc		"Congratulations"	28	2
13	Template:Esc		"Stress"	2	13
14	Template:Esc		"Chance of a Lifetime"	18	4
15	Template:Esc	Massiel	"La La La"	29	1
16	Template:Esc		""	11	6
17	Template:Esc		""	8	7

Spokespersons

Each participating broadcaster appointed a spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for its respective country via telephone. Known spokespersons at the 1968 contest are listed below.

• Template:FlaguTemplate:SndTemplate:Ill
• Template:FlaguTemplate:SndGay Byrne
• Template:FlaguTemplate:SndTemplate:Ill
• Template:FlaguTemplate:SndRamón Rivera
• Template:FlaguTemplate:SndMichael Aspel

Detailed voting results

Every participating broadcaster assembled a jury panel of ten people. Every jury member could give one vote to his or her favourite song, except that representing their own country. This means that any song could receive a maximum of 10 votes from a national jury, but none achieved this. The highest number of votes a song received from a jury was six, received by the songs of Spain, Ireland, Sweden, and France.

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

Detailed voting results

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rowspan="17" Template:Vert header	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

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. 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, with an estimated global audience of between 150 and 200 million.

Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.

Broadcasters and commentators in participating countries

Country	Broadcaster	Channel(s)	Commentator(s)	Ref(s)
Template:Flagu	ORF	FS1
Template:Flagu	RTB	RTB	Paule Herreman
		RTB 1
	BRT	BRT	Template:Ill
Template:Flagu	YLE		Template:Ill
Template:Flagu	ORTF		Pierre Tchernia
		France Inter
Template:Flagu	ARD
Template:Flagu	RTÉ	RTÉ	Brendan O'Reilly
		RTÉ Radio	Kevin Roche
Template:Flagu	RAI		Template:Ill
Template:Flagu	CLT
Template:Flagu	NTS		Template:Ill
Template:Flagu	NRK	, NRKTemplate:Efn	Roald Øyen
Template:Flagu	RTP	RTP
Template:Flagu	TVE	TVE 1, TVE CanariasTemplate:Efn	Template:Ill
	RNE	Template:Ill	José María Íñigo
Template:Flagu	SR		Template:Ill
Template:Flagu	SRG SSR	TV DRS	Template:Ill
		TSR	Template:Ill
		TSI
		Radio BeromünsterTemplate:Efn	Albert Werner
Template:Flagu	BBC	BBC1Template:Efn	No commentator
		BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2	Pete Murray
	BFBS	BFBS Radio	Thurston Holland
Template:Flagu	JRT

Broadcasters and commentators in non-participating countries

Country	Broadcaster	Channel(s)	Commentator(s)	Ref(s)
Template:Flagu	ČST	Template:Ill	Miroslav Horníček
Template:Flagu	MTV	MTV	Template:Ill
Template:Flagu	MBA	MTS, National Network
Template:Flagu	TP
Template:Flagu	WKAQTemplate:Efn
Template:Flagu	TVR	TVR