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Eurovision Song Contest 1969
International song competition From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Eurovision Song Contest 1969 was the 14th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, held on 29 March 1969 at the Teatro Real in Madrid, Spain, and presented by Laurita Valenzuela. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Televisión Española (TVE), who staged the event after winning the 1968 contest for Spain with the song "La La La" by Massiel. Broadcasters from a total of sixteen countries took part in the contest, with Austria being the only absence from the seventeen that participated the previous year.
At the close of voting, four countries were declared joint-winners: the United Kingdom with "Boom Bang-a-Bang" by Lulu, Spain with "Vivo cantando" by Salomé, the Netherlands with "De troubadour" by Lenny Kuhr, and France with "Un jour, un enfant" by Frida Boccara. It was the first time in the history of the contest that a tie for first place had occurred, and since the rules in place at the time allowed more than one winner, all four countries were declared joint winners. France's win was its fourth, thus making it the first country to win the contest four times. The Netherlands' win was its third. Spain and the United Kingdom each won for the second time, with Spain becoming the first country to win the contest twice in a row.
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Location
Televisión Española (TVE) staged the 1969 contest in Madrid, after winning the 1968 contest for Spain with the song "La La La" by Massiel. This is the only time that the contest has been held in Spain. The venue selected was the Teatro Real, an opera house opened in 1850. After having to close in 1924 due to damage to the building, the venue reopened in 1966 as a concert hall and the main concert venue of the Spanish National Orchestra and the RTVE Symphony Orchestra.[1] At that time, it also housed the Madrid Royal Conservatory and the Royal Higher College of Performing Arts.[2]
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Participants
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Broadcasters from sixteen countries participated in the 1969 contest. Of the seventeen countries that participated in 1968 only Austria was absent,[3] officially because Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF) could not find a suitable representative,[4] but it was rumoured that the broadcaster refused to participate in a contest staged in Franco-ruled Spain.[5]
Several of the performing artists had previously represented the same country in past editions: Simone de Oliveira had represented Portugal in 1965; Kirsti Sparboe had represented Norway in 1965 and in 1967; and Louis Neefs had represented Belgium in 1967. In addition, Siw Malmkvist representing Germany had represented Sweden in 1960; and Romuald representing Luxembourg had represented Monaco in 1964.
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Format
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The event was presented by Laurita Valenzuela, who was dressed for the occasion by Carmen Mir.[9] The surrealist artist Salvador Dalí designed the publicity material for the contest. The stage featured a metal sculpture created by surrealist artist Amadeo Gabino.[b] The musical director of the event was Augusto Algueró, who made the arrangements and conducted the orchestra during the opening and ending acts. The show opened with a rendition of the Eurovision tune by the Teatro Real organ, followed by the orchestra performing the previous year's winning song, "La, la, la". The interval act consisted of a surrealist documentary titled La España diferente, directed by Javier Aguirre, with music by Luis de Pablo. The show ended with the orchestra performing a medley of previous Eurovision winning songs during the credits.[10]
This was the second contest to be filmed and transmitted in colour, even though TVE did not have the required colour equipment for such a big event. It had to rent colour television cameras from the ARD German network, which was provided by Fernseh and brought to Madrid from Cologne.[11] In Spain itself the broadcast was seen in black and white because the local transmitters did not support colour transmissions. The colour recording equipment did not arrive in time, so TVE only had a black and white copy of the contest, until a colour copy was discovered in the archives of NRK.[12]
It was the first time that the contest resulted in a tie for first place, with four entries each gaining 18 votes. Since the rules in place at the time allowed more than one winner,[c] all four countries were declared joint winners ex aequo.[d] This caused a problem concerning the medals that were to be distributed to the winners, as there were not enough to go round, so only the singers received their medals on stage;[3] the songwriters were not awarded theirs until later.[e] The medals were presented by previous year's winner Massiel; and the four winning songs were reprised.
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Contest overview
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Spokespersons
Each participating broadcaster appointed a spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective jury via telephone. Known spokespersons at the 1969 contest are listed below.
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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.
Although neither spokesperson made any errors in their announcements, EBU scrutineer Clifford Brown asked both the Spanish and the Monegasque spokespersons to repeat their votes. No adjustments were made to the scoring as a result of the repetition.
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Broadcasts
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Each participating broadcaster was required to relay the contest live via its networks after receiving it through the Eurovision network. 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.[25] In addition to the participating countries, the contest was also reportedly broadcast in 26 countries including Tunisia; in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union received via Intervision; and in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Panama, and Puerto Rico.[7][26][27] 30 radio and television commentators are reported to be present at the contest,[28] with an estimated global audience of 250 to 400 million viewers.[29]
Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.
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Notes
- After the contest, TVE moved the sculpture to the garden at its premises in Prado del Rey, where it has remained ever since.
- In the dress rehearsal the night before, in which voting was also rehearsed with simulated votes, there had already been a tie for first place between Monaco and Luxembourg, both with 18 votes. EBU scrutineer Clifford Brown declared them joint winners after consulting the rules and verifying that there could be more than one winner. Laurita Valenzuela concluded the rehearsal by bidding farewell until next year in Monaco and Luxembourg "at the same time".[13]
- Following protests from participating broadcasters after the four-way tie, a tiebreaker rule to determine a single winner was adopted for the first time in the 1970 contest.[14]
- The general secretary of TVE declared after the event that there was a set of four medals for the winning singer and songwriter(s) –since the maximum of them for any song was four–, and another identical set prepared in case of a tie between two songs, so there were eight medals; and that a four-way tie was unexpected, so those who were left without medal would receive it "immediately".[15]
- The connection between the commentary booth in Madrid and the NRK studios in Oslo was disabled partway through the broadcast, resulting in the Norwegian commentary provided by Sverre Christophersen not being relayed to Norwegian viewers and listeners. Commentary was temporarily provided by Janka Polanyi before the Swedish feed was rerouted to also cover the Norwegian broadcasts, with the original connection to Christophersen ultimately fixed before the start of the voting sequence.[44]
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References
External links
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