Eurovision Song Contest 1961

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Eurovision Song Contest 1961
ESC 1961 logo.png
Dates
Final18 March 1961
Host
VenuePalais des Festivals et des Congrès
Cannes, France
Presenter(s)Jacqueline Joubert
Musical directorFranck Pourcel
Directed byMaurice Barry
Executive producerMarcel Cravenne
Host broadcasterRadiodiffusion-Télévision Française (RTF)
Interval act and
Websiteeurovision.tv/event/cannes-1961 Edit this at Wikidata
Participants
Number of entries16
Debuting countries
Returning countriesNone
Non-returning countriesNone
Participation map
  • Belgium in the Eurovision Song Contest 1961France in the Eurovision Song Contest 1961France in the Eurovision Song Contest 1961Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest 1961Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest 1961Switzerland in the Eurovision Song Contest 1961Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 1961Denmark in the Eurovision Song Contest 1961Austria in the Eurovision Song Contest 1961Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest 1961United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 1961Monaco in the Eurovision Song Contest 1961Luxembourg in the Eurovision Song Contest 1961Norway in the Eurovision Song Contest 1961Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest 1961Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest 1961Yugoslavia in the Eurovision Song Contest 1961A coloured map of the countries of Europe
    About this image
         Participating countries
Vote
Voting systemTen-member juries distributed 10 points among their favourite songs.
Nul points in finalNone
Winning song Luxembourg
"Nous les amoureux"
1960 ← Eurovision Song Contest → 1962

The Eurovision Song Contest 1961 was the 6th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. Once again, the contest was held in the French seaside city of Cannes, having already hosted the 1959 edition. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (RTF), the contest was held again at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès on 18 March 1961 and was the first to take place on a Saturday evening, a tradition that has continued into the present day. The show was hosted by Jacqueline Joubert, who also hosted in 1959.

Sixteen countries participated in the contest - three more than in the previous edition; Finland, Spain and Yugoslavia all made their début this year.

The winner was Luxembourg with the song "Nous les amoureux", performed by Jean-Claude Pascal, written by Maurice Vidalin, and composed by Jacques Datin. This was Luxembourg's first victory in the contest, with the United Kingdom finishing in second place for the third consecutive year.

Location[]

Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, Cannes - host venue of the 1961 contest.

The event took place in Cannes, France, with the venue being the original building of Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, after France got the right to host this edition of the Eurovision Song Contest for winning its previous 1960 with the song "Tom Pillibi" performed by Jacqueline Boyer.

Cannes, a city located on the French Riviera, is a busy tourist destination and known worldwide for hosting the annual Cannes Film Festival, with the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès also hosting the Film Festival. The original building was built in 1949 and was located on the boulevard of Promenade de la Croisette, on the present site of the JW Marriott Cannes. It also hosted the 1959 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest.

Format[]

The stage used for the 1961 contest was notably larger than in previous years and was magnificently decorated with flowers. It is noticeable that during the voting, Luxembourg gave the UK eight points, and Norway also gave Denmark eight points. It was the largest number of points given to a country by a single jury since 1958, when Denmark provided France with nine points. Such a high number of points obtained by a country would not be achieved until 1970, when Ireland would receive nine points from Belgium.[1]

Participating countries[]

Further information: List of countries in the Eurovision Song Contest

Interest in the competition began to grow across Europe as three new countries participated for the first time: Finland, Spain, and Yugoslavia.[1]

Conductors[]

Each performance had a conductor who directed the orchestra.[2][3] Léo Chauliac, the conductor of the winning entry, was the first conductor whose sole Eurovision participation was for a winning entry.[a]

Returning artists[]

Artist Country Previous year(s)
Bob Benny  Belgium 1959
Nora Brockstedt  Norway 1960

Results[]

Draw Country Artist Song Language[4][5] Place[6] Points
01  Spain Conchita Bautista "Estando contigo" Spanish 9 8
02  Monaco Colette Deréal "Allons, allons les enfants" French 10 6
03  Austria Jimmy Makulis "Sehnsucht" German 15 1
04  Finland Laila Kinnunen "Valoa ikkunassa" Finnish 10 6
05  Yugoslavia Ljiljana Petrović "Neke davne zvezde" (Неке давне звезде) Serbo-Croatian 8 9
06  Netherlands Greetje Kauffeld "Wat een dag" Dutch 10 6
07  Sweden Lill-Babs "April, april" Swedish 14 2
08  Germany Lale Andersen "Einmal sehen wir uns wieder" German, French 13 3
09  France Jean-Paul Mauric "Printemps, avril carillonne" French 4 13
10   Switzerland Franca di Rienzo "Nous aurons demain" French 3 16
11  Belgium Bob Benny "September, gouden roos" Dutch 15 1
12  Norway Nora Brockstedt "Sommer i Palma" Norwegian 7 10
13  Denmark Dario Campeotto "Angelique" Danish 5 12
14  Luxembourg Jean-Claude Pascal "Nous les amoureux" French 1 31
15  United Kingdom The Allisons "Are You Sure?" English 2 24
16  Italy Betty Curtis "Al di là" Italian 5 12

Scoreboard[]

Each country had 10 jury members who each awarded 1 point to their favourite song.

Voting results[7][8]
Total score
Italy
United Kingdom
Luxembourg
Denmark
Norway
Belgium
Switzerland
France
Germany
Sweden
Netherlands
Yugoslavia
Finland
Austria
Monaco
Spain
Contestants
 Spain 8 1 2 2 1 1 1
Monaco 6 1 1 3 1
Austria 1 1
Finland 6 2 2 1 1
Yugoslavia 9 1 1 1 2 1 3
Netherlands 6 2 1 1 2
Sweden 2 2
Germany 3 1 1 1
France 13 2 1 4 1 1 2 2
Switzerland 16 2 2 4 2 1 2 2 1
Belgium 1 1
Norway 10 1 5 1 2 1
Denmark 12 8 2 1 1
Luxembourg 31 3 1 1 1 5 1 1 5 3 4 4 2
United Kingdom 24 1 8 1 1 7 3 3
Italy 12 4 4 1 1 1 1

Spokespersons[]

Listed below is the order in which votes were cast during the 1961 contest along with the spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country.[9]

  1.  Italy – Enzo Tortora
  2.  United Kingdom – Michael Aspel[3]
  3.  Luxembourg – TBC
  4.  Denmark –  [da]
  5.  Norway – Mette Janson[10]
  6.  Belgium – Ward Bogaert
  7.   Switzerland –  [fr]
  8.  France – Armand Lanoux
  9.  Germany – Heinz Schenk
  10.  Sweden –  [sv][11]
  11.  Netherlands –  [nl][12]
  12.  Yugoslavia – Saša Novak
  13.  Finland –  [fi]
  14.  Austria – Emil Kollpacher
  15.  Monaco – TBC
  16.  Spain –  [es]

Broadcasts[]

Each national broadcaster also sent a commentator to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language.

Broadcasters and commentators in participating countries
Country Broadcaster(s) Commentator(s) Ref(s)
 Austria ORF Wolf Mittler
 Belgium RTB French: Robert Beauvais [13]
BRT Dutch:  [nl]
 Denmark Danmarks Radio TV Sejr Volmer-Sørensen
 Finland Suomen Televisio, Yleisradio  [fi]
 France RTF Robert Beauvais [13]
 Germany Deutsches Fernsehen Wolf Mittler
 Italy Programma Nazionale Corrado Mantoni
 Luxembourg Télé-Luxembourg Robert Beauvais [13]
 Monaco Télé Monte Carlo [13]
 Netherlands NTS, Hilversum 1 Piet te Nuyl [12][14]
 Norway NRK, NRK P1 Leif Rustad
 Spain TVE  [es]
 Sweden Sveriges TV, SR P1  [sv] [15]
  Switzerland TV DRS German:  [de]
TSR French: Robert Beauvais [13]
 United Kingdom BBC TV Tom Sloan [3]
BBC Light Programme Pete Murray
 Yugoslavia Televizija Beograd Serbo-Croatian:  [sr]
Televizija Zagreb Serbo-Croatian:  [hr]
Televizija Ljubljana Slovene:  [sl]

Incidents[]

BBC broadcast cut[]

As the contest overran its allocated time, and the show was being broadcast live, the winning song's reprise was not shown in the United Kingdom.[1]

References[]

  1. ^ a b c "Eurovision Song Contest 1961". EBU. Retrieved 13 February 2009.
  2. ^ "And the conductor is..." Retrieved 10 July 2018.
  3. ^ a b c Roxburgh, Gordon (2012). Songs for Europe: The United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest. Volume One: The 1950s and 1960s. Prestatyn: Telos Publishing. pp. 254–264. ISBN 978-1-84583-065-6.
  4. ^ "Eurovision Song Contest 1961". The Diggiloo Thrush. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
  5. ^ "Eurovision Song Contest 1961". 4Lyrics.eu. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  6. ^ "Final of Cannes 1961". European Broadcasting Union. Archived from the original on 28 March 2021. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
  7. ^ "Results of the Final of Cannes 1961". European Broadcasting Union. Archived from the original on 28 March 2021. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
  8. ^ "Eurovision Song Contest 1961 – Scoreboard". European Broadcasting Union. Archived from the original on 10 June 2015. Retrieved 14 June 2021.
  9. ^ "Eurovision 1961 - Cast and Crew". IMDb. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
  10. ^ Dyrseth, Seppo (OGAE Norway)
  11. ^ "Infosajten.com". Archived from the original on 18 July 2012. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
  12. ^ a b "Greetje vanavond nummer zes". Nieuwe Leidsche Courant. 18 March 1961. p. 7. Retrieved 11 June 2021.
  13. ^ a b c d e Christian Masson. "1961 - Cannes". Songcontest.free.fr. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
  14. ^ "Nederlandse televisiecommentatoren bij het Eurovisie Songfestival". Eurovision Artists (in Dutch).
  15. ^ Thorsson, Leif (2006). Melodifestivalen genom tiderna [Melodifestivalen through time]. Stockholm: Premium Publishing AB. p. 34. ISBN 91-89136-29-2.

Notes[]

  1. ^ He would be succeeded in that regard by 1966's Hans Hammerschmid, 1967's Kenny Woodman, 1969's Frans de Kok and Johnny Harris, 1972's Klaus Munro, 1974's Sven-Olof Walldoff, 1990's Gianni Madonini, and 1997's Don Airey.

External links[]

Coordinates: 43°33′12″N 7°01′20″E / 43.55333°N 7.02222°E / 43.55333; 7.02222

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