MediaHandbook2013_v1

FROM
1960 TO 1969
he Eurovision Song Contest
Tgrew more glamourous and
exciting in the 1960s as more
countries became involved and
European superstars, including Cliff
Richard, Françoise Hardy and Nana
Mouskouri, took to the stage.
Early editions of the contest had been held on
various weekdays, but from 1963, one
Saturday every year became the day when
families sit down to cheer for their own
country, watch and finally see which song is
voted to win the Grand Prix.
The presenter who holds the record for
presenting the most finals is Katie Boyle for
the United Kingdom who undertook the task in
1960, 1963, 1968 and 1974.
Postcards were scripted, and filmed, for the
1963 contest, featuring two puppet pigs, called
Pinky and Perky. Ultimately though the idea
was dropped during rehearsals. This year the
postcard films will feature the artists filmed in
their own country. (This was first done for the
1970 contest, although then, the artists
representing Luxembourg and Monaco were
actually filmed in Paris).
The list of participating countries grew to 18,
with Norway, Spain, Finland, Yugoslavia,
Portugal and Ireland swelling the ranks.
This also resulted in more popular hits, like
Congratulations and the barefoot sung Puppet
On A String, both representing the United
Kingdom. The latter winning song by Sandie
Shaw won with one of the largest margins ever
witnessed in the history of the Eurovision Song
Contest. The song gathered more than twice
38
as many votes as the runner-up, Ireland. But
not only the juries were charmed by Sandie
Shaw's song, it became a huge success all over
Europe and is nowadays remembered as one
of the big successes that arose from the
Eurovision Song Contest.
The Eurovision Song Contest also saw
technical improvements this decade. With the
1968 contest being the first to be produced
and broadcast in colour by the BBC, despite
the fact that very few TV viewers across
Europe owned colour TV sets.
Even in the United Kingdom just over half a
million viewers saw the colour transmission
when it was repeated on the only colour
channel the following afternoon. However,
colour was here to stay and all song contests
since then have been broadcast in colour.
The growing competition between participants
led to the record-breaking four winners in 1969
when France, the Netherlands, Spain and the
United Kingdom all got 18 points. Since there
was no solution for this situation, all four
countries were declared winners.
Luckily, there were enough medals available
for the winning singers - the medals were
intended for the winning singer and three
winning songwriters.
However, having four winners caused lots of
criticism from the media and several TV
stations reconsidered participating in the
following Eurovision Song Contest.
Eurovision Song Contest Malmö 2013 / Media Handbook