Sixteen countries took part in the contest with Austria deciding not to participate this 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 as there was no tiebreaker rule in place at the time, all four countries were declared joint winners.[1] 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.
Location
Teatro Real, Madrid – host venue of the 1969 contest.
The venue selected to host the 1969 contest was the Teatro Real, an opera house located in Madrid 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.[2]
Austria was absent from the contest,[1] officially because they could not find a suitable representative,[3] but it was rumoured that they refused to participate in a contest staged in Franco-ruled Spain.[4]Wales wanted to debut with Welsh language broadcaster BBC Cymru, and also made a national selection called Cân i Gymru, but in the end it was decided they would not participate in the competition – their participation was rejected because Wales is not a sovereign state. Only the BBC has the exclusive right to represent the United Kingdom.
The surrealist artist Salvador Dalí designed the publicity material for the contest. The stage featured a metal sculpture created by surrealist artist Amadeo Gabino [es].[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.[8]
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.[9] 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.[10]
It was the first time that the contest resulted in a tie for first place, with four countries each gaining 18 votes. Since there was at the time no rule to cover such an eventuality, all four countries were declared joint winners. This caused an unfortunate problem concerning the medals due to be distributed to the winners as there were not enough to go round, so that only the singers received their medals on the night:[1] the songwriters, to some disgruntlement, were not awarded theirs until some days later[citation needed]. The medals were presented by previous year's winner, Massiel.
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.
Every participating broadcaster assembled a jury panel of ten people. Every jury member could give one point to his or her favourite song, except that representing their own country.
Although neither spokesperson made any errors in their announcements, scrutineer Clifford Brown asked both the Spanish and the Monegasque spokespersons to repeat their scores. No adjustments were made to the scoring as a result of the repetition.
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.[18] 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.[6][19][20] Reports estimate that 250 to 400 million viewers would see the contest.[21]
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
^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 [no] not being relayed to Norwegian viewers and listeners. Commentary was temporarily provided by Janka Polanyi [no] 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.[35]
^Deferred broadcast on TVE Canarias the following day at 22:35 (WET)[38]
^ abcRoxburgh, Gordon (2012). Songs for Europe: The United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest. Volume One: The 1950s and 1960s. Prestatyn: Telos Publishing. pp. 482–493. ISBN978-1-84583-065-6.
^Janssens, Emiel (29 March 1969). "Drieluik Madrid, met een viertal kanshebbers naar het uur" [Triptych Madrid, with four contenders for the hour]. Gazet van Antwerpen (in Dutch). Antwerp, Belgium.
^Thorsson, Leif; Verhage, Martin (2006). Melodifestivalen genom tiderna : de svenska uttagningarna och internationella finalerna (in Swedish). Stockholm: Premium Publishing. pp. 80–81. ISBN91-89136-29-2.
^ ab"Radio ∗ Fjernsyn" [Radio ∗ Television]. Østlands-Posten (in Norwegian). Larvik, Norway. 29 March 1969. p. 12. Retrieved 3 January 2023 – via National Library of Norway.
^"Radio y Televisión" [Radio and Television]. Libertad (in Spanish). Valladolid, Spain. 29 March 1969. p. 4. Retrieved 23 June 2024 – via Biblioteca Virtual de Prensa Histórica.
^"Radio y Televisión" [Radio and Television]. Línea [es] (in Spanish). Region of Murcia, Spain. 29 March 1969. p. 19. Retrieved 19 August 2024 – via Archivo Municipal de Murcia.
^"Radio y Television" [Radio and Television]. La Rioja [es] (in Spanish). Logroño, Spain. 29 March 1969. p. 12. Retrieved 23 June 2024 – via Biblioteca Virtual de Prensa Histórica.
^"as Radio 1 – BBC Radio 2". Radio Times. London, United Kingdom. 29 March 1969. Retrieved 10 January 2023 – via BBC Genome Project.
^Roxburgh, Gordon (2014). Songs for Europe: The United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest. Volume Two: The 1970s. Prestatyn: Telos Publishing. pp. 370–372. ISBN978-1-84583-093-9.
^"TV – szombat III.29" [TV – saturday III.29]. Rádió- és Televízió-újság (in Hungarian). Vol. 14, no. 13. Budapest, Hungary. 24 March 1969. p. 13. Archived from the original on 3 January 2023. Retrieved 3 January 2023 – via MTVA Archívum.
^Barry, Fred (29 March 1969). "Europe Ready for Song Finals Tonight – Maltese viewers' eyes on British, Italian entries". Times of Malta. Birkirkara, Malta. p. 19.
^"Televisiune – sîmbătă 29 martie" [Television – Saturday 29 March]. Radio TV (in Romanian). p. 15.
