The Sanremo Music Festival 1969 (), officially the 19th Italian Song Festival (), was the 19th annual Sanremo Music Festival, held at the Sanremo Casino in Sanremo, Italy, between 30 January and 1 February 1969. It was organised by Società ATA, concessionary of the Sanremo Casino and was broadcast by Radiotelevisione italiana (RAI). The shows were presented by Nuccio Costa and Gabriella Farinon.
Each song was performed twice by both Italian and foreign artists. The winning song was "" written by Luigi Albertelli and Enrico Riccardi, performed by both Bobby Solo and Iva Zanicchi. Zanicchi was then selected from the two artists to represent Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest 1969, and went on to compete with the song "".
In January 2019, to celebrate the edition's 50th anniversary, RAI made all three shows available to view on the Rai Teche website and their streaming service RaiPlay.
Format The festival was organised by Società ATA, the concessionary of the Sanremo Casino. In March 1968, the Sanremo municipal council approved the transfer of sixty percent of ATA's shares to their former president , reinstating him as president of the company. The council later granted ATA a five-year extension of the casino's management, also allowing them to continue organising the festival as they had done since the 1958 edition. ATA initially announced that Gianni Ravera would continue to serve as the festival's artistic director, but he declined the offer due to disagreements with Radaelli over ideas regarding the event's organisation. Radaelli then appointed as the artistic director.
In July, ATA held a press conference announcing a list of regulations for the festival's 1969 edition. They confirmed the event would be held across three nights between 30 January and 1 February 1969 and consist of twenty-four songs, with no major changes made to the voting system.
In September, the Italian Ministry of the Interior denied ratifying the Sanremo municipal council's decision to grant ATA a five-year extension on the concession of the Sanremo Casino. The ministry permitted the municipality to give the company a temporary extension on its concession past the 9 October expiry date, in order to prevent interference with the festival's organisation. An auction for the casino's management was scheduled for February 1969 after the festival's conclusion, but was later suspended.
Voting system The vote in each show was conducted by twenty-one juries formed by newspapers across Italy, each with twenty-five members stationed in their respective newspaper offices. Juries were required to be diverse, split equally between men and women and with a majority of members under the age of 25. During the first two nights, jury members gave one vote to seven different songs, while in the final they gave one vote to three songs.
Competing entries ATA received 247 song submissions for the competition. A seven member selection committee tasked with narrowing down the list of submissions to twenty-four was chosen by publishing and record companies from a list of twenty-one candidates proposed by ATA's president, . The committee included the journalists Adriano Bolzoni, Filippo D'Errico, Daniele Ionio, Mario Olivieri, Gigi Speroni, Marcello Zeri and the composer Carlo Rustichelli. The twenty-four selected songs were announced on 30 December.
The artists union Unione cantanti italiana (UCI) requested the number of foreign artists participating in the competition not exceed ten, which ATA agreed upon during a meeting with the union on 10 January.
Michele was initially announced among the list of competing artists, set to perform the song "", but voluntarily withdrew and was replaced by . Anna Identici was also announced as a competing artist, with the song "", but was unable to attend the event after attempting suicide and being admitted to a hospital's intensive care unit. Rosanna Fratello was later announced as her replacement.
+Competing entries Song Artist 1 Artist 2 Songwriter(s) Conductor(s) "" The Casuals Guido Lamorgese "" Wilma Goich The Sweet Inspirations "" Little Tony "" Riccardo Del Turco Antoine "" Caterina Caselli Johnny Dorelli "" "" Rosanna Fratello Brenton Wood "" New Trolls Massimo Salerno "" Gigliola Cinquetti France Gall "" Robertino Rocky Roberts "" Sergio Endrigo Mary Hopkin Sergio Endrigo "" Nada The Rokes "" Mino Reitano Claudio Villa "" "" Carmen Villani "" Orietta Berti Massimo Ranieri "" Gabriella Ferri Stevie Wonder "" Mal and the Primitives "" Don Backy Milva Detto Mariano "" Lucio Battisti Wilson Pickett Gian Piero Reverberi "" Fausto Leali Tony Del Monaco "" Memo Remigi "" Bobby Solo Iva Zanicchi "" Rita Pavone Dik Dik
Shows
The festival consisted of three live shows held between 30 January and 1 February 1969. The first two nights consisted of twelve songs performed twice, in which seven qualified from each show, creating a final of fourteen songs performed twice. A 32-piece orchestra were able to accompany each performance. All shows were presented by Nuccio Costa and Gabriella Farinon. The television director was .
For the first two nights, songs were presented in groups of three in an order decided by random draw. The draw also decided the order artists would perform in, with the exception of foreign artists, who always performed their song after an Italian artist had already done so. For the final, the show was split into two halves, with each half containing every song performed once in an order determined by random draw. Foreign artists performed exclusively in the second half of the show, with the decision of which half Italian artists would perform in made by the respective record label of each artist.
For the first time, a theme song was used for the event: "" written by Tony Renis, Albero Testa, Orfelius and Medi Mandour, which was initially to be performed in two versions by Renis and Lara Saint Paul at the start and end of each show. However, after complaints from competing artists and a formal protest from UCI, the planned performances were scrapped, and both versions of the song instead served as background music to a short video played at the start of each show.
First night The first night took place on 30 January 1969 at 21:15 CET. Twelve songs were performed and seven were selected for the final.
+First night – 30 January 1969 Song Artist 1 Artist 2 Points Place 1 "" Lucio Battisti Wilson Pickett 323 4 2 "" Riccardo Del Turco Antoine 307 6 3 "" The Showmen Mal and the Primitives 302 7 4 "" Mino Reitano Claudio Villa colspan=2 5 "" Dik Dik Rita Pavone 401 2 6 "" Checco Elio Gandolfi colspan=2 7 "" Don Backy Milva 413 1 8 "" Nada The Rokes 323 4 9 "" Junior Magli The Casuals colspan=2 10 "" New Trolls Leonardo colspan=2 11 "" Robertino Rocky Roberts colspan=2 12 "" Gigliola Cinquetti France Gall 391 3
Second night The second night took place on 31 January 1969 at 21:15 CET. Twelve songs were performed and seven were selected for the final.
+Second night – 31 January 1969 Song Artist 1 Artist 2 Points Place 1 "" Wilma Goich The Sweet Inspirations colspan=2 2 "" Memo Remigi Isabella Iannetti colspan=2 3 "" Gabriella Ferri Stevie Wonder colspan=2 4 "" Fausto Leali Tony Del Monaco 411 4 5 "" Sonia Armando Savini colspan=2 6 "" Bobby Solo Iva Zanicchi 448 1 7 "" Carmen Villani Alessandra Casaccia 311 6 8 "" Rosanna Fratello Brenton Wood colspan=2 9 "" Sergio Endrigo Mary Hopkin 442 2 10 "" Caterina Caselli Johnny Dorelli 422 3 11 "" Orietta Berti Massimo Ranieri 256 7 12 "" Little Tony Mario Zelinotti 327 5
Final night
The final night took place on 1 February 1969 at 21:00 CET. The fourteen songs admitted to the final were performed again and a winner was chosen.
The winning song was "" written by Luigi Albertelli and Enrico Riccardi, performed by Bobby Solo and Iva Zanicchi, serving as both artists' second victory at the contest. In second place was the song "" written and performed by Sergio Endrigo, and additionally performed by Welsh singer Mary Hopkin, with "" written by Don Backy and Detto Mariano, performed by both Backy and Milva placing third. All six performances of the top three songs were repeated at the end of the show.
+Final night – 1 February 1969 Song Artist 1 Artist 2 Points Place 1 "" Little Tony Mario Zelinotti 54 12 2 "" Bobby Solo Iva Zanicchi 237 1 3 "" Don Backy Milva 178 3 4 "" Orietta Berti Massimo Ranieri 63 10 5 "" Nada The Rokes 141 5 6 "" Gigliola Cinquetti France Gall 116 6 7 "" Caterina Caselli Johnny Dorelli 86 8 8 "" Rita Pavone Dik Dik 53 13 9 "" Fausto Leali Tony Del Monaco 154 4 10 "" Lucio Battisti Wilson Pickett 69 9 11 "" Riccardo Del Turco Antoine 29 14 12 "" Sergio Endrigo Mary Hopkin 228 2 13 "" Carmen Villani Alessandra Casaccia 59 11 14 "" The Showmen Mal and the Primitives 93 7
Broadcasts Local broadcast The final was broadcast on Programma Nazionale (television) and Secondo Programma (radio) beginning at 21:00 CET. The first two nights were broadcast on Secondo Programma (television) and Secondo Programma (radio) at 21:15 CET. In Italy, the final was broadcast on television to an estimated 22.4 million viewers, with the first and second nights broadcast to an estimated 19.5 and 19.4 million viewers respectively.
International broadcast The first half of the final was broadcast via the Eurovision and Intervision networks in other countries. Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.
+International broadcasters of the Sanremo Music Festival 1969 Country Broadcaster Channel(s) Commentator(s) MR Kossuth Rádió NHK NHK Yutaka Ishida RTP RTP TVR TVE TVE 1, TVE Canarias RNE JRT
Incidents and controversies Protests Numerous protests of the festival were threatened in its lead-up for reasons such as the low song quality, mismanagement of the Sanremo Casino, stagnation of the city's tour operators and the high price of admission. As a precautionary measure, the afternoon rehearsals of all three shows were recorded and were to replace the live broadcasts in case the event experienced any disruptions. At the time, the city underwent an increased police and military presence.
An alternate festival organised by Dario Fo and Franca Rame with support from the Italian Communist Party, serving as a protest of the original event, took place on 30 January at Sanremo's Villa Ormond. Additionally, three university students went on a hunger strike during the week, using the festival's publicity to bring attention to underdeveloped neighbourhoods ignored by the city's government.
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