# Eurovision Song Contest 1966

The Eurovision Song Contest 1966 was the 11th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg, following the country's victory at the 1965 contest with the song "Poupée de cire, poupée de son" by France Gall. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Télédiffusion (CLT), the contest was held at the Villa Louvigny on 5 March 1966 and was hosted by Luxembourgish television presenter Josiane Chen.
Eighteen countries participated in the contest, the same that had competed the year before.
The winner was Austria with the song "Merci, Chérie", performed and composed by Udo Jürgens, and written by Jürgens and Thomas Hörbiger. This was Udo Jürgens third consecutive entry in the contest, finally managing to score a victory for his native country. Austria would not go on to win again until the 2014 edition. This was also the first winning song to be performed in German. The contest is also noted for its historic results for several countries. Austria who came first, Sweden who came second, Norway who came third and Belgium who came fourth all achieved their best results up until then, some of which would stand for several decades. In contrast, traditional Eurovision heavyweights such as France, United Kingdom, and Italy all achieved their worst result by far up till that point, with the general public in the aforementioned countries meeting these results with a degree of consternation.
The rule stating that a country could only sing in any of its national languages was created this year, possibly due to the 1965 Swedish entry which was sung in English.

## Location

The 1966 Eurovision Song Contest was hosted in Luxembourg City. The venue chosen to host the 1966 contest was the Villa Louvigny, which was also the venue for the 1962 edition. The building served as the headquarters of Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Télédiffusion, the forerunner of RTL Group. It is located in Municipal Park, in the Ville Haute quarter of the centre of the city.

## Participating countries

The same 18 countries which had participated in the previous year's event returned for a second consecutive contest.
The event featured two artists which had previously competed in the contest for their countries: Udo Jürgens made a third consecutive appearance in the contest, after previously representing Austria in 1964 and in 1965; and Domenico Modugno also participated in the contest a third time, after representing Italy in 1958 and in 1959. Also notable among the participants was Milly Scott, representing the Netherlands, who was the first black singer to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest.

## Production and format

The contest was organised and broadcast by CLT. The same production team which had worked on the 1962 contest returned to help stage this event, with Jos Pauly and René Steichen serving as producers and directors and Jean Roderès serving as musical director. Each participating broadcaster was allowed to appoint their own musical director to lead the orchestra during the performance of their entry, with the host musical director also conducting for those countries which did not nominate their own conductor. The contest was presented by Josiane Shen.
Following the confirmation of the eighteen competing countries, the draw to determine the running order of the contest was held on 13 January 1966.
A new change in rules was introduced this year, allowing music experts to be present in the juries again.
This was one of the first contests in which an entry was not accompanied by an orchestra. The Italian entry "Dio, come ti amo" performed by Domenico Modugno had been rearranged since its performance at the Sanremo Music Festival and officially broke the EBU rule that stated the arrangement should be finalised well in advance. During the Saturday afternoon rehearsal Modugno performed the new arrangement with three of his own musicians as opposed to the orchestra, which went over the three-minute time limit. Following his rehearsal Modugno was confronted by the show's producers about exceeding the time limit and was asked to use the original arrangement with the orchestra. Modugno was so dissatisfied with the orchestra that he threatened to withdraw from the contest. Both the producers and EBU scrutineer Clifford Brown felt it was too short notice to fly Gigliola Cinquetti to Luxembourg to represent Italy, so the EBU gave in and allowed Modugno to use his own ensemble instead of the orchestra. Despite websites and the official programme listing Angelo Giacomazzi as the conductor, Giacomazzi actually played the piano for the entry.

## Contest overview

The contest was held at 5 March 1966 at 22:00 (CET) and lasted 1 hour and 27 minutes. The interval act was a performance by the French Dixieland jazz group Les Haricots rouges [fr]. The prize for the winning artist and songwriters, a medallion engraved with the Eurovision logo designed by Hans Mettel [de], was presented by the previous year's winning artist France Gall.

### 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 their respective country. Known spokespersons at the 1966 contest are listed below.
* Finland – Poppe Berg [fi]
* Ireland – Frank Hall
* Luxembourg – Camillo Felgen
* Netherlands – Herman Brouwer
* Sweden – Edvard Matz [sv]
* United Kingdom – Michael Aspel

## Detailed voting results
### 5 points

Below is a summary of all 5 points in the final:
| N. | Contestant | Nation(s) giving 5 points |
| 4 | Austria | Belgium, Luxembourg, Monaco, Yugoslavia |
| 3 | Sweden | Denmark, Finland, Norway |
| 2 | Belgium | Germany, Netherlands |
| 1 | Germany | Switzerland |
| 1 | Ireland | France |
| 1 | Luxembourg | Sweden |
| 1 | Norway | Italy |
| 1 | Portugal | Spain |
| 1 | Spain | Portugal |
| 1 | Switzerland | Austria |
| 1 | United Kingdom | Ireland |
| 1 | Yugoslavia | United Kingdom |

## 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.
The contest was reportedly broadcast in 25 countries, including in the participating countries and Morocco; and in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union via Intervision; with an estimated global audience of 500 million viewers. Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.