Eurovision Song Contest 1963

Eurovision Song Contest 1963
Dates
Final	23 March 1963
Host
Venue	BBC Television Centre London, United Kingdom
Presenter(s)	Katie Boyle
Musical director	Eric Robinson
Directed by	Yvonne Littlewood
Executive producer	Harry Carlisle
Host broadcaster	British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
Interval act	Ola & Barbro
Website	eurovision.tv/event/london-1963
Participants
Number of entries	16
Debuting countries	None
Returning countries	None
Non-returning countries	None
Participation map      Participating countries
Vote
Voting system	Twenty-member juries awarded points to their five favourite songs.
Nul points	Finland Netherlands Norway Sweden
Winning song	Denmark "Dansevise"
1962 ← Eurovision Song Contest → 1964

The Eurovision Song Contest 1963 was the eighth edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest and took place in London, United Kingdom. This was the second time the United Kingdom had hosted the competition, having previously done so in 1960. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), who agreed to stage the event after France, who had won the 1962 edition, declined to host it due to financial shortcomings. The contest was held at the BBC Television Centre on Saturday 23 March 1963 and was hosted by Katie Boyle for a second time.

Sixteen countries participated in the contest. The same countries that participated the previous year.

The contest was won by Denmark with the song "Dansevise", performed by Grethe & Jørgen Ingmann. Denmark's win was their first, which was also the first victory for a Nordic country. Four countries got nul points, with Finland, Norway and Sweden failing to score any points for the first time and the Netherlands for the second time, becoming the first country to go two years in a row without scoring a single point.^[1]

Location[]

BBC Television Centre, London - host venue of the 1963 contest.

The BBC was willing to host the contest instead of the previous year's winner France, as was the case in 1960. They would do so again in 1972 and 1974 because the winning broadcasters from the year before could not afford to produce the contest. The host venue was the BBC Television Centre, White City, London, which opened in 1960. It is one of the most readily recognisable facilities of its type having appeared as the backdrop for many BBC programmes. It remained to be one of the largest such facilities in the world until it redeveloped in March 2013.^[2]

Format[]

Two studios (TC3 and TC4) were used: one for the mistress of ceremonies Katie Boyle, the audience, and the scoreboard; the other for the performers and the orchestra accompanying them. Unusually, a boom microphone (normally used for drama and comedy shows) was employed - the viewer couldn't see this, so it appeared as if the artists were miming to their vocals. This was not the case, but this innovation was to create a new look for the contest.^[1]

Voting controversy[]

One controversy this year was during the voting. When it was Norway's turn to announce their votes, the spokesman in Oslo, Roald Øyen, did not use the correct procedure in that the song number, followed by the name of the country, should have been announced before awarding the points. Katie Boyle asked Norway to repeat their results, but the Norwegian spokesman asked Katie to return to them after all the other results were in. When Katie went back to Norway again the votes had mysteriously altered, thus changing the outcome of the contest and giving the victory to Norway's neighbours Denmark at Switzerland's expense. In fact, the Norwegian spokesman had not given the correct votes on the first occasion, because votes from the 20 jury members were still being tallied.^[1]

Monaco was also asked to repeat their voting a second time as initially Monaco gave one point to both the United Kingdom and Luxembourg. However, when Katie Boyle went back to Monaco to receive the votes again Monaco's one vote to Luxembourg was efficiently discarded (although this did not have any effect on the positions of the countries).^[1]

It has also been speculated as to whether the juries were indeed on the end of a telephone line or in the actual studio given how clearly their voices could be heard as opposed to sounding as though they were being redirected through a telephone line.^{[original research?]}

Participating countries[]

All countries which participated in the 1962 edition also participated in the 1963 edition.

Conductors[]

The participating conductors were:^[3][4]

Returning artists[]

Artist	Country	Previous year(s)
Ronnie Carroll	United Kingdom	1962

Results[]

Draw	Country	Artist	Song	Language[5][6]	Place[7]	Points
01	United Kingdom	Ronnie Carroll	"Say Wonderful Things"	English	4	28
02	Netherlands	Annie Palmen	"Een speeldoos"	Dutch	13	0
03	Germany	Heidi Brühl	"Marcel"	German	9	5
04	Austria	Carmela Corren	"Vielleicht geschieht ein Wunder"	German, English	7	16
05	Norway	Anita Thallaug	"Solhverv"	Norwegian	13	0
06	Italy	Emilio Pericoli	"Uno per tutte"	Italian	3	37
07	Finland	Laila Halme	"Muistojeni laulu"	Finnish	13	0
08	Denmark	Grethe and Jørgen Ingmann	"Dansevise"	Danish	1	42
09	Yugoslavia	Vice Vukov	"Brodovi" (Бродови)	Serbo-Croatian	11	3
10	Switzerland	Esther Ofarim	"T'en va pas"	French	2	40
11	France	Alain Barrière	"Elle était si jolie"	French	5	25
12	Spain	José Guardiola	"Algo prodigioso"	Spanish	12	2
13	Sweden	Monica Zetterlund	"En gång i Stockholm"	Swedish	13	0
14	Belgium	Jacques Raymond	"Waarom?"	Dutch	10	4
15	Monaco	Françoise Hardy	"L'amour s'en va"	French	5	25
16	Luxembourg	Nana Mouskouri	"À force de prier"	French	8	13

Scoreboard[]

Each country had 20 jury members who awarded their five favourite songs 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 points in order. All those points would then be added up and the five song with the most points got 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 votes in order. Errors in the Norwegian (see above) and the Monegasque votes meant their scores had to be announced twice, with an adjustment to the scores being made in each case before the final score was verified.

5 points[]

Below is a summary of all 5 points received:

N.	Contestant	Nation(s) giving 5 points
5	Denmark	Belgium,  Finland,  Luxembourg,  Netherlands,  Sweden
3	Italy	Denmark,  Monaco,   Switzerland
	Switzerland	Austria,  Italy,  United Kingdom
2	United Kingdom	Norway,  Spain
	Monaco	France,  Germany
1	France	Yugoslavia

Spokespersons[]

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Listed below is the order in which votes were cast during the 1963 contest along with the spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country.

Broadcasts[]

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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	Hanns Joachim Friedrichs	[4]
Belgium	RTB	French: Pierre Delhasse	[4]
	BRT	Dutch:  [nl] and Denise Maes	[4]
Denmark	Danmarks Radio TV	[da]	[4]
Finland	Suomen Televisio	[fi]	[4]
	Yleisradio	[fi]
France	Première Chaîne RTF	Pierre Tchernia	[4][14]
Germany	Deutsches Fernsehen	Hanns Joachim Friedrichs	[4]
Italy	Programma Nazionale	[it]	[4]
Luxembourg	Télé-Luxembourg	Pierre Tchernia	[4]
Monaco	Télé Monte Carlo
Netherlands	NTS	Willem Duys	[4]
Norway	NRK, NRK P1	Øivind Johnssen	[4]
Spain	TVE	[es]	[4]
Sweden	Sveriges TV, SR P1	[sv]	[4][15]
Switzerland	TV DRS	German:  [de]	[4]
	TSR	French:  [fr]	[4]
	TSI	Italian: Renato Tagliani	[4]
United Kingdom	BBC TV	David Jacobs	[4]
	BBC Light Programme	Michael Aspel
Yugoslavia	Televizija Beograd	Serbo-Croatian:  [sr]
	Televizija Zagreb	Serbo-Croatian:  [hr]
	Televizija Ljubljana	Slovene: Saša Novak	[4]

Broadcasters and commentators in non-participating countries

Country	Broadcaster(s)	Commentator(s)	Ref(s)
Portugal	RTP	Federico Gallo	[4][16]

Incidents[]

Norwegian jury votes[]

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If Norway did not make a statement in terms of results, Norway would still have its mark on the vote. Switzerland and Denmark quickly took the lead in the competition, and when Norway voted as number five, problems arose. The Norwegian counter had not managed to figure out the votes of the jury members, and the Norwegian points were therefore not clear. In the confusion, Roald Øyen read a preliminary result and had to ask Katie Boyle to come back later in the vote.

At the end of the vote, Switzerland led two points ahead of Denmark. When the correct Norwegian points were read, however, Switzerland and Denmark switched places, so that Denmark won the competition two points ahead of Switzerland. The Norwegian jury was later accused of having helped a neighboring country to win, and Switzerland protested against the result. However, NRK rejected the accusations and emphasized that the Norwegian jury had given the right points.

The reason for the chaos was that the Norwegian counter was simply not finished counting the votes when Norway was called up. Not only were the votes wrong, but a stressed eye also read the points incorrectly. When Norway was called back at the end of the vote, the results from the Norwegian jury were clear and correct. "We have good conscience regarding the outcome. The 20 jury members' ballot papers are on the television for control if necessary ”, NRK's Odd Grythe assured.

One of the Norwegian jury members from 1963, Olaf Kjell Wathne Gar, was interviewed by NRK P2 in 2017, and he told about chaotic conditions at NRK Marienlyst during the vote.^[17] Gar was a student in 1963, and according to him, Gar and some fellow students were hacked in by NRK in a hurry the same day as the final. They were picked up in taxis and driven to NRK Marienlyst. There they heard the songs twice through loudspeakers in a tiny room. However, the students had decided in advance to vote for Denmark and a few other countries, because they "had the most sympathy for Denmark."

The 20 jury members then voted, and program secretary Einar Johannessen summed up the votes on a chalkboard when London suddenly called. "We were barely half-finished, and at full speed he improvised and scribbled some numbers," Gar said, adding: "It was all so simple and primitive that one would hardly have believed it today". The jury members received NOK 150 each in order to "throw away the Saturday night", which NRK, according to Gar, had called the assignment.

References[]

External links[]

Media related to Eurovision Song Contest 1963 at Wikimedia Commons

• Official website