Talk:Eurovision Song Contest 1957

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It is not clear from the scoresheet table whether the rows or columns apply to the voter or votee. Mintguy

It says in the table at the beginning that Norway made its debut? Where is it in the scorecard or the list of songs?

Please remove the notion that the first Eurovisions were radio shows also shown on television - they were always designed for television in the first place.

There WAS a time limit already in 1957 as no song was supposed to overrun the limit of 3'30 - a rule neglected by Italy as well as the winning song from the Netherlands. The rule was sharpened the next year, and changed into 3'00 sharp sometime during the 60's.

The reason there was no rule for who would arrange the following ESC is simply that the first contest was considered a one-off not intended to be repeated. Only after German television staged a second ESC did the EBU decide to turn the contest into a yearly event.

Consistency of sections / headings

In the articles of 1956 and (since yesterday) 1957, there is a subsection called "Participants and results" which includes both text about the participants plus the table of results. In all other articles for 1958-2003, there is a separate subsection for the results table, this time called "Results". All other articles for 1958-2003 have also a table "Returning artists", which is missing in the 1957 article (the information is given in text format here).

I remarked also that, for the 1956 article, the first column of the results table is called "Order" whereas it is called "Draw" in all other articles for 1957-2022.

It would be nice to have more consistency regarding the naming and order of information and sections in the Eurovision articles. --2001:A61:3565:7C01:ADB5:F644:3D72:AC41 (talk) 09:08, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. This is part of an ongoing initiative to improve many of these articles, which is an incremental process and so some changes may not be totally reflective on all articles right away. Since you've raised the issue now, I've gone ahead and aligned the section headers on the other articles with those used on the 1956/1957 articles. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 13:17, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Template:Ping I'm not sure I like the new headings though, as I assosiate the word "voting" mostly with public voting, not jury voting. Also, it sounds more like the section would be an explanation of the voting (as in, the stuff in the Format section) rather than just the results. "Scoreboard" makes it much clearer to me that it shows the detailed results. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 01:56, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Template:Reply to Yeah I can understand your point here. For me "scoreboard" I find a little bit restrictive a title for this section now, especially for articles on more recent contests that include the full breakdown of the split results, the spokespersons, the maximum points etc. whereas "voting" is a bit of a more all-inclusive term to encompass all aspects of the voting process. In addition I think we don't explain the voting process in enough detail a lot of the time (e.g. for the Template:Escyr the only mention of the actual voting system is a brief mention in the infobox), mostly because as Eurovision fans we are very aware of how it all works, and potentially having a section called "Scoreboard" doesn't facilitate including that content. Having a section for all aspects of the voting process, including explaining the system used and the results, could therefore be a good addition, however I am also open to suggestions on how best to achieve this, and what title to call it. And potentially we may need as a project a bigger discussion about how best to structure these articles in general, like maybe it doesn't make sense to separate the participants tables and voting tables in this way anymore given there are three shows. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 09:45, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

@Sims2aholic8: Just seen that you cleaned up a lot of data, thanks for that !

One thing I also remarked: The column "Language" is called "Language(s)" in the articles for 2019-2022. I don't know which of these two versions would be better. Throughout Eurovision history, there have always been songs sung in more than one language. --2001:A61:3411:4C01:8D59:41FC:DBD6:EB82 (talk) 17:33, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that one out! "Language" seems to be the more logical choice I think; yes there will usually be more than one language present in some songs, but the large majority are typically in one language, and I think it simplifies things to write the column header without the plural appendage, as it's kinda self-explanatory that a song with two languages in that column will have been performed in both languages. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 08:23, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Hm interesting. Yeah, I think a WikiProject discussion would be good. Right now the articles that do contain an explanation of the voting system have it in the Format section, such as Template:Section link. I'm not sure which section would make more sense for this information. I do agree though that all articles about ESC editions should explain how it works. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 22:17, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Yeah potentially this would be the right place for that, but it's good to ask the question. I'll start the conversation on the talk page shortly. Ideally I would like to get every year article into the best shape it can be, and I've already put 1956 and 1957 up for GA review (we'll see how far I get with the rest, there are almost 70 articles to improve!) but agreeing on the structure of all of these articles, and subsequently the structure of related articles, e.g. JESC, would most definitely be helpful. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 08:23, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, getting these articles up to a good standard is something I've been thinking about doing for a while but I was always daunted by the amount of work it would be. Super happy though that you've made a great start! ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 10:36, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Yeah it was something that I had found daunting for a long time too, but I figured may as well start and see where I can get to. Of course as well if there were other users who saw what I was doing and wanted to help then bonus, it can't hurt to collaborate and/or get some second opinions during the process. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 15:26, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Belgian Dutch-language radio broadcast

The radio station for the Dutch-language radio broadcast by NIR is currently called "Radio België" in the article. I'm not sure if this is historically accurate. According to the Wikipedia article of Radio België, there was a station with this name but it only existed during WW2. As for Radio 1's historical name, according to this web site, it seems to have been called either simply NIR or Brussel Vlaams at the time (the article unfortunately doesn't tell us which name applied in which years). De radio- en televisieweek, which is the reference for the radio broadcast, lists the radio program under the title "Brussel Vlaamse uitzendingen". Newspaper De Standaard (3 March 1957, p. 6) speaks of "De Vlaamse Uitzendingen van het N.I.R." when informing about the radio broadcast. EurovisionLibrarian (talk) 11:25, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for raising this point! I've now changed the station name to "Brussel Vlaams", as given the information available it appears this is the most accurate and consistent way of describing the station in this time period. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 13:24, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Name of Italian Television

In the ESC articles of the 1950s and 1960s (and also in the 1957 article here), Italian Television is called "Programma Nazionale" in the broadcast sections. However, there seem to be doubts as for its historical denomination up to 1961. In RAI's official TV listings magazine Radiocorriere (all issues online here), the television is simply called Televisione (or "TV" in 1960/1961) up to 1961, "Programma Nazionale" being the common name for Rai's first radio station (today Rai Radio 1) as opposed to "Secondo Programma" (Rai Radio 2).

On 5 November 1961, Radiocorriere (no. 45, p. 21) starts naming the first TV channel "Nazionale" in its TV listings. On the same day, Rai's second TV program "Secondo" is launched. (see it:Rai_1#Anni_sessanta claiming similarly that the first channel got its name "Programma nazionale" at this date. The reference quoted for that claim doesn't mention the name, however.)

I propose to name Rai's television channel in the broadcast sections from 1956 to 1961 simply "Televisione" (or RAI Televisione?). "Programma nazionale" doesn't seem historically accurate, in my opinion, unless someone has sources that say different? EurovisionLibrarian (talk) 16:45, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

I've gone through Italian newspapers (Il Piccolo, L'Unita, and La Stampa) and they labeled it as "Televisione". "RAI Televisione" seems appropriate during its inception until 1961. Bray0829 (talk) 01:54, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the additional sources, I labelled it as "RAI Televisione" in all articles from 1956 to 1961 now. EurovisionLibrarian (talk) 09:55, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Estimates on viewership

For the sake of transparency and because this would be too long in an edit summary:

In an earlier edit, I included the sentence "Contemporary reports estimated that about eight million viewers had watched the show." (reference: Le Figaro, 5 March 1957, p. 15)

I have to remove this sentence in light of other references. Frankfurter Neue Presse (1 March 1957, p. 7) says that "more than 8 million television viewers will be able" to watch the upcoming contest. Between "8 million" having watched the contest and "8 million" having theoretically the possibility to watch it, there is a big difference!

I decided to look up how many television licenses/sets there were in Europe/the broadcasting countries in 1957. The book "Europäisches Fernsehen bis 1970. Eine Idee wird zum Laufen gebracht" by Wolfgang Degenhardt et al. has estimates and calculations. Adding the numbers for each country and year one can find in a table on p. 86, it turns out that there were about 8.5 million television licenses in Europe in 1957! (6.9 million of them in the UK, by the way)

It is probable that the number of "8 million" came from a press release by the organisers (EBU?) and to me, it is probable that it was about those 8 million TV licences or 8 million television sets. The press seems to have mixed up television sets and viewers. Now 8 million television sets doesn't mean there were all turned on for the ESC 1957. In contrast, a family of five people could watch the contest on their private television set, and that would make five viewers. Or people without a television set went to their neighbours to watch television. Many television sets could be found in public bars at that time, and then you would have maybe 10 or 20 viewers with one set.

For 1958, 25 million viewers have been estimated by the Dutch commentator.

In absence of serious estimates about viewership, I will remove the sentence. EurovisionLibrarian (talk) 13:38, 16 May 2025 (UTC)