| Eurovision Song Contest | |
| Year: | 1969 |
| Final: | 29 March 1969 |
| Presenters: | Laurita Valenzuela |
| Musdirector: | Augusto Algueró |
| Director: | Ramón Díez |
| Exsupervisor: | Clifford Brown |
| Vote: | Ten-member juries distributed ten points among their favourite songs. |
| Host: | Spanish; Castilian: [[Televisión Española]]|i=unset (TVE) |
| Venue: | Spanish; Castilian: [[Teatro Real]]|i=unset Madrid, Spain |
| Entries: | 16 |
| Debut: | None |
| Return: | None |
| Map Nosemis: | Y |
The Eurovision Song Contest 1969 was the 14th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Madrid, Spain, following the country's victory at the with the song "La La La" by Massiel. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Spanish; Castilian: [[Televisión Española]]|i=unset (TVE), the contest was held at the Spanish; Castilian: [[Teatro Real]]|i=unset on 29 March 1969 and was hosted by Spanish television presenter and actress Laurita Valenzuela.
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 with "Boom Bang-a-Bang" by Lulu, with "" by Salomé, the with "De troubadour" by Lenny Kuhr, and 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.
The venue selected to host the 1969 contest was the Spanish; Castilian: [[Teatro Real]]|i=unset, an opera house located in Madrid. The theatre reopened in 1966 as a concert theatre and the main concert venue of the Spanish National Orchestra and the RTVE Symphony Orchestra. The stage featured a metal sculpture created by surrealist Spanish artist .[2]
Austria was absent from the contest, 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.
| + Participants of the Eurovision Song Contest 1969[5] [6] [7] | |||||||
| Country | Broadcaster | Artist | Song | Language | Songwriter(s) | Conductor | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BRT | Louis Neefs | "Jennifer Jennings" | Dutch | Francis Bay | |||
| YLE | Jarkko and Laura | "Finnish: Kuin silloin ennen|i=unset" | Finnish | Ossi Runne | |||
| ORTF | Frida Boccara | "French: [[Un jour, un enfant]]|i=unset" | French | Franck Pourcel | |||
| HR | Siw Malmkvist | "Italian: [[Primaballerina]]|i=unset" | German | Hans Blum | Hans Blum | ||
| RTÉ | Muriel Day | "The Wages of Love" | English | Michael Reade | Noel Kelehan | ||
| RAI | Iva Zanicchi | "Italian: Due grosse lacrime bianche|i=unset" | Italian | Ezio Leoni | |||
| CLT | Romuald | "Catherine" | French | Augusto Algueró | |||
| TMC | Jean Jacques | "French: Maman, Maman|i=unset" | French | Jo Perrier | Hervé Roy | ||
| NTS | Lenny Kuhr | "Dutch; Flemish: [[De troubadour]]|i=no" | Dutch | Frans de Kok | |||
| NRK | Kirsti Sparboe | "Norwegian: Oj, oj, oj, så glad jeg skal bli|i=unset" | Norwegian | Arne Bendiksen | Øivind Bergh | ||
| RTP | Simone de Oliveira | "Portuguese: [[Desfolhada portuguesa]]|i=unset" | Portuguese | Ferrer Trindade | |||
| TVE | Salomé | "Spanish; Castilian: [[Vivo cantando]]|i=unset" | Spanish | Augusto Algueró | |||
| SR | Tommy Körberg | "Swedish: Judy, min vän|i=unset" | Swedish | Lars Samuelson | |||
| SRG SSR | Paola | "French: Bonjour, Bonjour|i=unset" | German | Henry Mayer | |||
| BBC | Lulu | "Boom Bang-a-Bang" | English | Johnny Harris | |||
| JRT | Ivan | "Pozdrav svijetu|i=unset" (Поздрав свијету) | Serbo-Croatian | Milan Lentić | Miljenko Prohaska |
| Artist | Country | Previous year(s) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Siw Malmkvist | (for) | ||
| Romuald | (for) | ||
| Simone de Oliveira | |||
| Kirsti Sparboe | , | ||
| Louis Neefs |
The surrealist Spanish artist Salvador Dalí was responsible for designing the publicity material for the 1969 contest.
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: the songwriters, to some disgruntlement, were not awarded theirs until some days later. It 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.[8] 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.[9]
| + Results of the Eurovision Song Contest 1969[10] | ||||||
| Country | Artist | Song | Points | Place | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ivan | "Pozdrav svijetu|i=unset" | 5 | 13 | ||
| 2 | Romuald | "Catherine" | 7 | 11 | ||
| 3 | Salomé | "Spanish; Castilian: [[Vivo cantando]]|i=unset" | 18 | 1 | ||
| 4 | Jean Jacques | "French: Maman, Maman|i=unset" | 11 | 6 | ||
| 5 | "The Wages of Love" | 10 | 7 | |||
| 6 | "Italian: Due grosse lacrime bianche|i=unset" | 5 | 13 | |||
| 7 | Lulu | "Boom Bang-a-Bang" | 18 | 1 | ||
| 8 | "Dutch; Flemish: [[De troubadour]]|i=unset" | 18 | 1 | |||
| 9 | "Swedish: Judy, min vän|i=unset" | 8 | 9 | |||
| 10 | "Jennifer Jennings" | 10 | 7 | |||
| 11 | Paola | "French: Bonjour, Bonjour|i=unset" | 13 | 5 | ||
| 12 | "Norwegian: Oj, oj, oj, så glad jeg skal bli|i=unset" | 1 | 16 | |||
| 13 | "Italian: [[Primaballerina]]|i=unset" | 8 | 9 | |||
| 14 | "French: [[Un jour, un enfant]]|i=unset" | 18 | 1 | |||
| 15 | "Portuguese: [[Desfolhada portuguesa]]|i=unset" | 4 | 15 | |||
| 16 | Jarkko and Laura | "Finnish: Kuin silloin ennen|i=unset" | 6 | 12 |
Each country nominated a spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country via telephone. Known spokespersons at the 1969 contest are listed below.
| + Detailed voting results[15] [16] | ||||||||||||||||||
| scope="col" | ||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yugoslavia | 5 | 1 | 1 | 3 | ||||||||||||||
| Luxembourg | 7 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Spain | 18 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | ||||||||
| Monaco | 11 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Ireland | 10 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | |||||||||||
| Italy | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||||
| United Kingdom | 18 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||||
| Netherlands | 18 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 6 | ||||||||||
| Sweden | 8 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | |||||||||||||
| Belgium | 10 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | ||||||||||||
| Switzerland | 13 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | ||||||||||
| Norway | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||
| Germany | 8 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||||
| France | 18 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||||||||
| Portugal | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||||||
| Finland | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||||||
Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below. In addition to the participating countries, the contest was also reportedly broadcast in 26 countries including Tunisia, in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Soviet Union via Intervision, and in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Panama, and Puerto Rico.[18]
| + Broadcasters and commentators in participating countries | ||||
| Country | Broadcaster | Channel(s) | Commentator(s) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BRT | BRT | [19] [20] | ||
| RTB | RTB | |||
| YLE | Finnish: [[Yle TV1|TV-ohjelma 1]]|i=unset, Finnish: {{ill|Yleisohjelma|fi|Yleisohjelma (Suomen Yleisradio) | [21] [22] | ||
| Finnish: Ruotsinkielinen ohjelma|i=unset | ||||
| ORTF | French: [[France 2|Deuxième Chaîne]]|i=unset, France Inter | Pierre Tchernia | [23] | |
| ARD | German: [[Das Erste|Deutsches Fernsehen]]|i=unset | |||
| RTÉ | RTÉ | [24] | ||
| RTÉ Radio | [25] | |||
| RAI | Italian: [[Rai 2|Secondo Programma]]|i=unset | [26] | ||
| CLT | French: [[RTL9|Télé-Luxembourg]]|i=unset | [27] | ||
| NTS | Dutch; Flemish: [[NPO 1|Nederland 1]]|i=unset | Pim Jacobs | [28] [29] | |
| NRK | Norwegian: [[NRK1|NRK Fjernsynet]]|i=unset, NRK | [30] | ||
| RTP | Portuguese: [[RTP1|I Programa]]|i=unset, Portuguese: [[RTP2|II Programa]]|i=unset | Henrique Mendes | [31] [32] | |
| TVE | TVE 1, TVE 2, TVE Canarias | José Luis Uribarri | [33] [34] [35] | |
| RNE | Spanish; Castilian: [[Radio Nacional (Spanish radio station)|Radio Nacional]]|i=unset | [36] | ||
| [37] | ||||
| Radio Popular | ||||
| SER | ||||
| [38] | ||||
| [39] | ||||
| [40] | ||||
| Radio Orense | [41] | |||
| Radio Rioja | [42] | |||
| Radio San Sebastián | [43] | |||
| [44] | ||||
| Radio Zaragoza | [45] | |||
| SR | Swedish: [[SVT1|Sveriges TV]]|i=unset, SR P3 | |||
| SRG SSR | TV DRS | [46] | ||
| TSR | [47] | |||
| TSI | [48] | |||
| BBC | BBC1 | David Gell | [49] | |
| BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2 | Pete Murray | [50] [51] | ||
| JRT | [[RTS1 (Serbian TV channel)|Televizija Beograd]]|i=unset | [52] | ||
| Slovenian: [[Radiotelevizija Slovenija|Televizija Ljubljana]]|i=unset | [53] | |||
| + Broadcasters and commentators in non-participating countries | |||||
| Country | Broadcaster | Channel(s) | Commentator(s) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORF | FS1 | [54] | |||
| Rede Tupi | TV Tupi Rio de Janeiro | Rubens Amaral | [55] [56] | ||
| TV Tupi São Paulo | |||||
| TV Itacolomi | |||||
| TV Paraná | [57] | ||||
| Canal 9 | [58] | ||||
| Inravisión | Canal Nacional | [59] [60] | |||
| Telecentro Canal 6 | Roberto Giralt | [61] | |||
| Telenac Canal 2 | |||||
| ČST | ČST | [62] | |||
| MTV | MTV | [63] | |||
| MBA | MTS | Victor Aquilina | [64] [65] | ||
| TVR | Romanian; Moldavian; Moldovan: [[TVR 1|Programul 1]]|i=unset | [66] | |||