International song competition
The Eurovision Song Contest 1963 was the eighth edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest and took place in London, United Kingdom. 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, also having hosted the competition in 1959 and 1961. 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 had also participated the previous two years.
The contest this year was won by Denmark with the song "", performed by Grethe and Jørgen Ingmann. This was the first victory for any of the Nordic countries. 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.
Location.
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, 1974 and 2023 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 one of the largest broadcasting facilities in the world until the property was redeveloped in March 2013.
Participating countries.
All countries which participated in the 1962 edition also participated in the 1963 edition.
Production and format.
The production mode was unusual in comparison with other Eurovision Song Contests: In contrast to most previous and following editions which were filmed in concert halls or theatres, the staging of 1963 was done in television studios. Two studios (TC3 and TC4) were used: one for the mistress of ceremonies Katie Boyle, the audience, and the scoreboard (TC3); the other for the performers and the orchestra accompanying them (TC4). Unusually, a boom microphone (normally used for drama and comedy shows) was employed – the viewer could not 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. The use of television studios allowed a broader variety of staging elements not seen before in the contest, and the use of close-ups so to create an atmosphere of intimacy for television viewers.
After the 1962 edition was the only one to be held on a Sunday, the contest was held on a Saturday again in 1963.
Contest overview.
Spokespersons.
Each country nominated a spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country via telephone. Known spokespersons at the 1963 contest are listed below.
Detailed voting results.
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 songs with the most points got 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 votes in order. Errors in the Norwegian (see below) 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.
One controversy this year was during the voting. When it was Norway's turn to announce their votes, the spokesman in Oslo 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. Boyle asked Norway to repeat their results, but the Norwegian spokesman asked Boyle to return to them after all the other results were in. When Boyle went back to Norway again the votes had been altered, thus changing the outcome of the contest and giving the victory to 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. Switzerland's broadcaster SRG SSR reportedly intended to appeal and following numerous complaints, checked the transmissions of the votes made. It was later confirmed a month after the contest that the Norwegian jury didn't change their votes.
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 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).
5 points.
Below is a summary of all 5 points received:
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. Reports estimate that 50 million people would see the contest.
Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.
References.
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External links.
 Media related to at Wikimedia Commons