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Eurovision Song Contest 1968
Dates
Final	6 April 1968
Host
Venue	Royal Albert Hall London, United Kingdom
Presenter(s)	Katie Boyle
Musical director	Norrie Paramor
Director	Stewart Morris
EBU scrutineer	Clifford Brown
Executive producer	Tom Sloan
Host broadcaster	British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
Website	eurovision.tv/event/london-1968
Participants
Number of entries	17
Debuting countries	None
Returning countries	None
Non-returning countries	None
Participation map      Competing countries     Countries that participated in the past but not in 1968
Vote
Voting system	Ten-member juries distributed ten points among their favourite songs.
Winning song	Spain "La La La"
1967 ← Eurovision Song Contest → 1969

The Eurovision Song Contest 1968 was the 13th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in London, United Kingdom, following the country's first victory at the 1967 contest with the song "Puppet on a String" by Sandie Shaw. Despite having won for the first time the year before, it was actually the third time that the United Kingdom had hosted the competition, having previously done so in 1960 and 1963, both of which also took place in London. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the contest was held at Royal Albert Hall on 6 April 1968, and was hosted by Katie Boyle for the third time. It was notably also the first time that the contest was broadcast in colour.

Seventeen countries participated in the contest, the same countries that had participated the previous year.

The winner was Spain with the song "La La La" by Massiel, and written/composed by Manuel de la Calva and Ramón Arcusa. This was Spain's first victory - and their first ever top five placing - in the contest.

Location

The contest was held at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The Royal Albert 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 hall had a capacity of 7,000 seats.

Participating countries

All countries that had participated in 1967 also participated in 1968.

Originally Spanish broadcaster Televisión Española (TVE) entered Joan Manuel Serrat to sing "La La La", but his demand to sing in Catalan was an affront to the Francoist State dictatorship. Therefore, 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 Castilian Spanish with the 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, Melodi Grand Prix, ended with Kirsti Sparboe and Odd Børre winning with the song "Jeg har aldri vært så glad i noen som deg". However the composer, Kari Diesen withdrew the song due to receiving multiple accusations of plagiarism of the song "Summer Holiday" by Cliff Richard. The runner-up song in the selection, "Stress" would perform in the contest instead, where Odd Børre was chosen to be the singer.

Eurovision Song Contest 1968 participants

Country	Broadcaster	Artist	Song	Language	Songwriter(s)	Conductor
Austria	ORF	Karel Gott	"Tausend Fenster"	German	Walter Brandin Udo Jürgens	Robert Opratko
Belgium	RTB	Claude Lombard	"Quand tu reviendras"	French	Roland Dero Jo Van Wetter	Henri Segers
Finland	YLE	Kristina Hautala	"Kun kello käy"	Finnish	Esko Linnavalli Juha Vainio	Ossi Runne
France	ORTF	Isabelle Aubret	"La Source"	French	Guy Bonnet Henri Dijan Daniël Faure	Alain Goraguer
Germany	HR	Wencke Myhre	"Ein Hoch der Liebe"	German	Horst Jankowski Carl J. Schäuble	Horst Jankowski
Ireland	RTÉ	Pat McGeegan	"Chance of a Lifetime"	English	John Kennedy	Noel Kelehan
Italy	RAI	Sergio Endrigo	"Marianne"	Italian	Sergio Endrigo	Giancarlo Chiaramello
Luxembourg	CLT	Chris Baldo and Sophie Garel	"Nous vivrons d'amour"	French	Jacques Demarny Carlos Leresche	André Borly
Monaco	TMC	Line and Willy	"À chacun sa chanson"	French	Jean-Claude Olivier Roland Valade	Michel Colombier
Netherlands	NTS	Ronnie Tober	"Morgen"	Dutch	Joop Stokkermans Theo Strengers	Dolf van der Linden
Norway	NRK	Odd Børre	"Stress"	Norwegian	Tor Hultin Ola B. Johannessen	Øivind Bergh
Portugal	RTP	Carlos Mendes	"Verão"	Portuguese	José Alberto Diogo Pedro Osório	Joaquim Luís Gomes
Spain	TVE	Massiel	"La La La"	Spanish	Ramón Arcusa Manuel de la Calva	Rafael Ibarbia
Sweden	SR	Claes-Göran Hederström	"Det börjar verka kärlek, banne mej"	Swedish	Peter Himmelstrand	Mats Olsson
Switzerland	SRG SSR	Gianni Mascolo	"Guardando il sole"	Italian	Sanzio Chiesa Aldo D'Addario	Mario Robbiani
United Kingdom	BBC	Cliff Richard	"Congratulations"	English	Phil Coulter Bill Martin	Norrie Paramor
Yugoslavia	JRT	Lući Kapurso and Hamo Hajdarhodžić	"Jedan dan" (Један дан)	Serbo-Croatian	Đelo Jusić Stipica Kalogjera Stijepo Stražičić	Miljenko Prohaska

Returning artists

Bold indicates a previous winner.

Artist	Country	Previous year(s)
Isabelle Aubret	France	1962

Format

1968 was the first time that the Eurovision Song Contest was broadcast in colour. The countries that broadcast it in colour were France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden and the United Kingdom, although in the UK it was broadcast as an encore presentation in colour on BBC Two the next day. Many Eastern European countries as well as Tunisia broadcast the contest.

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 point.

Contest overview

Results of the Eurovision Song Contest 1968

R/O	Country	Artist	Song	Points	Place
1	Portugal	Carlos Mendes	"Verão"	5	11
2	Netherlands	Ronnie Tober	"Morgen"	1	16
3	Belgium	Claude Lombard	"Quand tu reviendras"	8	7
4	Austria	Karel Gott	"Tausend Fenster"	2	13
5	Luxembourg	Chris Baldo and Sophie Garel	"Nous vivrons d'amour"	5	11
6	Switzerland	Gianni Mascolo	"Guardando il sole"	2	13
7	Monaco	Line and Willy	"À chacun sa chanson"	8	7
8	Sweden	Claes-Göran Hederström	"Det börjar verka kärlek, banne mej"	15	5
9	Finland	Kristina Hautala	"Kun kello käy"	1	16
10	France	Isabelle Aubret	"La Source"	20	3
11	Italy	Sergio Endrigo	"Marianne"	7	10
12	United Kingdom	Cliff Richard	"Congratulations"	28	2
13	Norway	Odd Børre	"Stress"	2	13
14	Ireland	Pat McGeegan	"Chance of a Lifetime"	18	4
15	Spain	Massiel	"La La La"	29	1
16	Germany	Wencke Myhre	"Ein Hoch der Liebe"	11	6
17	Yugoslavia	Lući Kapurso and Hamo Hajdarhodžić	"Jedan dan"	8	7

Spokespersons

Each country nominated a spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country via telephone. Known spokespersons at the 1968 contest are listed below.

•  Finland – Poppe Berg [fi]
•  Sweden – Edvard Matz [sv]
•  United Kingdom – Michael Aspel

Detailed voting results

Due to a misunderstanding by the hostess, Katie Boyle, Switzerland were erroneously awarded 3 points by Yugoslavia, instead of 2. The scrutineer asked for the Yugoslav votes from TV Skopje to be announced a second time.

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 to 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)	Ref(s)
Austria	ORF	FS1
Belgium	RTB	RTB	Paule Herreman
		RTB 1
	BRT	BRT
Finland	YLE	TV-ohjelma 1	Aarno Walli [fi]
		Ruotsinkielinen ulaohjelma
France	ORTF	Deuxième Chaîne	Pierre Tchernia
		France Inter
Germany	ARD	Deutsches Fernsehen
Ireland	RTÉ	RTÉ	Brendan O'Reilly
		RTÉ Radio
Italy	RAI	Secondo Programma	Renato Tagliani [it]
Luxembourg	CLT	Télé-Luxembourg
Netherlands	NTS	Nederland 1	Elles Berger [nl]
Norway	NRK	NRK Fjernsynet, NRK	Roald Øyen
Portugal	RTP	RTP
Spain	TVE	TVE 1, TVE Canarias	Federico Gallo [es]
	RNE	Radio Peninsular de Barcelona [es]	José María Íñigo
Sweden	SR	Sveriges TV	Christina Hansegård [sv]
Switzerland	SRG SSR	TV DRS	Theodor Haller [de]
		TSR	Georges Hardy [fr]
		TSI
		Radio Beromünster	Albert Werner
United Kingdom	BBC	BBC1	No commentator
		BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2	Pete Murray
	BFBS	BFBS Radio	Thurston Holland
Yugoslavia	JRT	Televizija Beograd
		Televizija Ljubljana
		Televizija Zagreb

Broadcasters and commentators in non-participating countries

Country	Broadcaster	Channel(s)	Commentator(s)	Ref(s)
Czechoslovakia	ČST	ČST	Miroslav Horníček
East Germany	DFF	DFF
Hungary	MTV	MTV
Malta	MBA	MTS, National Network
Poland	TP	Telewizja Polska
Puerto Rico	WKAQ
Romania	TVR	TVR

Notes

1. On behalf of the German public broadcasting consortium ARD
2. Deferred broadcast on NRK at 22:30 (CET)
3. Deferred broadcast on TVE Canarias the following day at 22:35 (WET)
4. Delayed broadcast on 8 April at 22:30 (CET)
5. Re-broadcast in colour on BBC2 on the following day at 16:30 (BST)
6. Delayed broadcast on 20 April 1968 at 20:30 (CET)
7. Delayed broadcast on 30 April 1968 at 20:30 (AST)

References

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External links

• Official website

• Music

51°30′03.40″N 00°10′38.77″W / 51.5009444°N 0.1774361°W / 51.5009444; -0.1774361

• Eurovision Song Contest 1968
• Eurovision Song Contest by year
• Music festivals in the United Kingdom
• 1968 in music
• 1968 in London
• April 1968 events in the United Kingdom
• Events at the Royal Albert Hall
• Francoist Spain