# Eurovision Song Contest 1962

The Eurovision Song Contest 1962 was the 7th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, held on 18 March 1962 in the Grand Auditorium of the Villa Louvigny in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg and presented by Mireille Delannoy. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Télédiffusion (CLT), and originally known as the Grand Prix Eurovision 1962 de la Chanson Européenne (English: Eurovision Song Contest Grand Prix 1962), the contest was held in Luxembourg following the country's victory at the 1961 contest with the song "Nous les amoureux" by Jean-Claude Pascal. Sixteen countries participated in the event, with the same line-up of nations as at the previous year's contest.
For the third time in five years the winner was France with the song "Un premier amour", composed by Claude-Henri Vic [fr], written by Roland Valade and performed by Isabelle Aubret. Monaco placed second for the first time, while the host nation came third, resulting in French language-songs occupying all of the top three positions. For the first time in the contest's history an entry received nul points from all juries, with Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain all receiving zero points overall.

## Location

The 1962 contest took place in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg, following the country's victory at the 1961 contest with the song "Nous les amoureux performed by Jean-Claude Pascal. It was the first time that Luxembourg had hosted the event. The chosen venue was the Villa Louvigny, situated within the city's Municipal Park in the Ville Haute quarter of the city centre, which served as the headquarters of the Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Télédiffusion (CLT), the Luxembourgish public broadcaster. The contest itself was held in the building's Grand Auditorium.

## Participating countries

There was no change in the participants line-up for the first time, with no new countries joining the event and the same sixteen countries which had competed in 1961 returning for 1962.
Four artists in this year's event had previously participated in past contests: Luxembourg's Camillo Felgen and Monaco's François Deguelt competed for their respective countries for the second time after both appearing in the 1960 contest; Jean Philippe, representing Switzerland at this event, also participated for the second time, after previously competing for France in 1959; and Fud Leclerc made his fourth contest appearance for Belgium, following past entries in 1956, 1958 and 1960. Philippe became the first artist to represent two different countries in separate Eurovision Song Contests, while Leclerc became the first of only four acts to compete in four separate contests, alongside Switzerland's Peter, Sue and Marc (1971, 1976, 1979 and 1981), Norway's Elisabeth Andreassen (1982, 1985, 1994 and 1996) and San Marino's Valentina Monetta (2012, 2013, 2014 and 2017). Four other artists competing in this event would go on to compete in the contest on another occasion: the United Kingdom's Ronnie Carroll (1963); Italy's Claudio Villa (1967); France's Isabelle Aubret (1968); and Finland's Marion Rung (1973). As a result, half of the competing artists in this year's event had competed, or would eventually compete, in multiple Eurovision Song Contests.

## Production and format

The contest was organised and broadcast by CLT. Jos Pauly and René Steichen served as producers and directors, Jean-Paul Conzemius served as designer, and Jean Roderès served as musical director, leading around forty musicians of the Grand orchestre symphonique de Radio Luxembourg. Each country was allowed to nominate their own musical director to lead the orchestra during the performance of their country's entry, with the host musical director also conducting for those countries which did not nominate their own conductor. The contest was presented by Mireille Delannoy, one of Télé-Luxembourg's regular continuity announcers.
Each country, participating through a single EBU member broadcaster, was represented by one song performed by up to two people on stage. The results of the event were determined through jury voting; in a change from previous events, each country awarded three points to the jury's collective favourite entry, with two points awarded to the jury's second favourite, and one point given the jury's third favourite. Each jury comprised ten individuals representing the average television viewer and radio listener; as such no individuals in the music industry, including composers, music publishers, and people employed by record companies, were able to sit on the jury.
The draw to determine the running order took place on 16 March 1962 in the Villa Louvigny, conducted by Delannoy and assisted by her 4-year-old son Olivier. Rehearsals were held in the contest venue on 17 and 18 March, with two full dress rehearsals scheduled before the live broadcast on the evening of 18 March.

## Contest overview

The contest was held at 18 March 1962 at 21:30 (CET) and lasted 1 hour and 27 minutes. Held on a Sunday, this is the last time that the contest's grand final was not held on a Saturday. The interval act was a performance by the French clown Achille Zavatta, in a skit as the contest's seventeenth participant representing "Zavattaland". The prize for the winning artist and songwriters, a medallion engraved with the figure of a winged lion, the heraldic animal of CLT, and designed by Hans Mettel [de], was presented by the previous year's winning artist Jean-Claude Pascal.
The contest suffered from two power failures which impacted the broadcast of the event: the first occurred during the Dutch entry, which affected the picture quality and plunged the performance into total darkness for around 30 seconds for some broadcasters; the second occurred immediately following the French entry as the auditorium went completely dark for around 1 minutes and 30 seconds, leading to broadcasters showing "breakdown" captions on-screen as the issue was resolved and a delay in the performance of the Norwegian entry.
The winner was France represented by the song "Un premier amour", composed by Claude-Henri Vic [fr], written by Roland Valade and performed by Isabelle Aubret. This was France's third contest victory in five years, also setting a new record as the first country to win the contest three times. Monaco secured its first second-place finish, while the host nation's entry finished in third place; the top three positions were therefore all performed in the French language. Monaco's François Deguelt, who had previously come third in 1960, became the first of only five artists who have placed second and third in the contest without having won, alongside the UK's Cliff Richard, Germany's Katja Ebstein, Malta's Chiara Siracusa and Serbia's Željko Joksimović. For the first time in the contest's history an entry scored nul points from all juries; four countries ultimately scored zero points, namely Belgium, Spain, Austria and the Netherlands.

### Spokespersons

Each participating broadcaster appointed a spokesperson, connected to the contest venue via telephone lines and responsible for announcing, in English or French, the votes for its respective country. Known spokespersons at the 1962 contest are listed below.
* Sweden – Tage Danielsson
* United Kingdom – Alex Macintosh

## Detailed voting results

Jury voting was used to determine the points awarded by all countries. The announcement of the results from each country was conducted in reverse order to that which each country performed, with the spokespersons announcing their country's points in English or French in descending order. The detailed breakdown of the points awarded by each country is listed in the tables below, with voting countries listed in the order in which they presented their votes.
The new voting system produced what some consider to be one of the least exciting voting sequences in the contest's history, with France quickly taking the lead and ultimately finishing with double the number of points compared to the runner-up Monegasque entry. With each country only able to award points to three of the potential fifteen countries available, leaving twelve countries without points, the new system also most likely contributed to countries being awarded zero points overall for the first time.

### 3 points

The below table summarises how the maximum 3 points were awarded from one country to another. The winning country is shown in bold. France received the maximum score of 3 points from five of the voting countries, Luxembourg and Monaco each received three sets of 3 points, Yugoslavia received two sets of maximum scores, and Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom received one maximum score each.

## Broadcasts

Broadcasters competing in the event were required to relay the contest via its networks; non-participating EBU member broadcasters were also able to relay the contest. 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. These commentators were typically sent to the venue to report on the event, and were able to provide commentary from small booths constructed at the back of the venue. At least 15 commentators were present at the contest, with an estimated global viewership and listenership of 60 to 100 million reported in the media. Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the table below.