Eurovision Song Contest 1967 - Wikiwand

The Eurovision Song Contest 1967 was the 12th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Vienna, Austria, following the country's victory at the 1966 contest with the song "Merci, Chérie" by Udo Jürgens. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF), the contest was held at the Großer Festsaal der Wiener Hofburg on 8 April 1967, becoming the first contest held in the month of April, and was hosted by Austrian actress Erica Vaal.

Seventeen countries participated in the contest, one fewer than the record eighteen that had competed in the 1965 and 1966 editions. Denmark decided not to enter and left the contest at this point, not returning until 1978.^[1]

The United Kingdom won the contest for the first time with the song "Puppet on a String", written and composed by Bill Martin and Phil Coulter, and performed by Sandie Shaw. The entry had one of the widest margins of victory ever witnessed in the competition; it garnered more than twice as many points as the second-placed song. Shaw intensely disliked the composition, though her attitude towards the song somewhat mellowed in later years, even releasing a new version in 2007.^[1]

This was the last contest to be transmitted only in black and white as it would begin to be transmitted in colour from the 1968 edition onwards.

The 1967 Eurovision Song Contest was held in Vienna, the capital of Austria. The venue for the contest was the Festival Hall of the Hofburg Palace,^[2] which was the principal winter residence of the Habsburg dynasty, rulers of the Austro-Hungarian empire.^[3] It currently serves as the official residence of the President of Austria.

Denmark chose not to participate this year and left the contest at this point, not to be returning again until 1978. The reason was that the new director for the TV entertainment department at DR thought that the money could be spent in a better way.^[1]

The contest featured three representatives who had previously performed as lead artists for the same country. Claudio Villa had represented Italy in 1962, Kirsti Sparboe had represented Norway in 1965, and Raphael had represented Spain in 1966.

The entry from Luxembourg, "L'amour est bleu", sung by Vicky Leandros, came in fourth; nonetheless, it went on to become one of the biggest hits of the 1967 contest, and a year later would be a big instrumental hit for French musician, Paul Mauriat, under the English title, "Love Is Blue". Portugal was represented by Eduardo Nascimento, who was the first black male singer in the history of the contest; rumours claimed that Portuguese prime minister Salazar had chosen this particular singer to show the rest of Europe that he was not racist.^[1] After winning the Festival di Sanremo 1967, Italian participant Claudio Villa was due to perform the song "Non pensare a me", but the song was disqualified due to being commercially released too early, and was replaced with "Non andare più lontano".^[4]

Following the confirmation of the seventeen competing countries, the draw to determine the running order of the contest was held on 21 March 1967.^[8]

The stage setup was a little unusual this year. There was a staircase in the middle of the stage as well as two revolving mirrored walls on both ends of the stage; they began revolving at the start of each song, and stopped at its end. A change in rule also required half of every nation's jury to be less than 30 years old.

The presenter Erica Vaal became confused whilst the voting was taking place, and declared the United Kingdom's entry to be the winner before the last country, Ireland, had announced its votes. She also ended the programme by congratulating the winning song and country, and saying "goodbye" in several different languages.^[1]

The contest took place on 8 April 1967, beginning at 22:00 CET.^[9]

The voting sequence was one of the more chaotic in Eurovision history; the students from Vienna University who were operating the scoreboard made several errors during the telecast, which were corrected by the scrutineer. Hostess Erica Vaal also began to announce the winner before realising she had excluded the Irish jury.

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.^[18] Reports estimated the global viewership to be 150 to 350 million viewers.^[19][20]

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 Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland and the Soviet Union via Intervision.^[6]