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 for the 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 and , 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 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 first ever top five placing, in the contest; their win over runners-up by a single point marked the closest finish in the contest up to that point. , and rounded out the top five.

Location

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) staged the 1968 contest in London, after winning the for the 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

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 .

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, , 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 ORF Karel Gott "" German RTB Claude Lombard "" French YLE "" Finnish Ossi Runne ORTF Isabelle Aubret "" French Alain Goraguer HR Wencke Myhre "" German Horst Jankowski RTÉ Pat McGeegan "Chance of a Lifetime" English John Kennedy Noel Kelehan RAI Sergio Endrigo "" Italian Sergio Endrigo Giancarlo Chiaramello CLT and Sophie Garel "" French André Borly TMC "" French Michel Colombier NTS Ronnie Tober "" Dutch Dolf van der Linden NRK Odd Børre "Stress" Norwegian Øivind Bergh RTP Carlos Mendes "" Portuguese TVE Massiel "La La La" Spanish Rafael Ibarbia SR Claes-Göran Hederström "" Swedish Mats Olsson SRG SSR Gianni Mascolo "" Italian Mario Robbiani BBC "Congratulations" English Norrie Paramor JRT Lući Kapurso and Hamo Hajdarhodžić "" () Serbo-Croatian 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. 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 Country Artist Song Votes Place 1 "" 5 11 2 "" 1 16 3 "" 8 7 4 "" 2 13 5 and Sophie Garel "" 5 11 6 "" 2 13 7 Line and Willy "" 8 7 8 "" 15 5 9 "" 1 16 10 "" 20 3 11 "" 7 10 12 "Congratulations" 28 2 13 "Stress" 2 13 14 "Chance of a Lifetime" 18 4 15 Massiel "La La La" 29 1 16 "" 11 6 17 "" 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.

Gay Byrne

Ramón Rivera Michael 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 scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" rowspan="17" 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) ORF FS1 RTB RTB Paule Herreman RTB 1 BRT BRT YLE ORTF Pierre Tchernia France Inter ARD RTÉ RTÉ Brendan O'Reilly RTÉ Radio Kevin Roche RAI CLT NTS NRK , NRK Roald Øyen RTP RTP TVE TVE 1, TVE Canarias RNE José María Íñigo SR SRG SSR TV DRS TSR TSI Radio Beromünster Albert Werner BBC BBC1 BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2 Pete Murray BFBS BFBS Radio Thurston Holland JRT

+ Broadcasters and commentators in non-participating countries Country Broadcaster Channel(s) Commentator(s) ČST Miroslav Horníček MTV MTV MBA MTS, National Network TP WKAQ TVR TVR

Notes

References

External links