Eurovision 1962: All or nothing | Super-cut with animated scoreboard

An edited down version of the Eurovision Song Contest 1962 from ‘the heart of Europe’, Luxembourg, with a scoreboard using today’s technology. This all started as a lockdown project!

This edit will give a flavour of the evening (once again on the 18th March, which makes it a Sunday evening but this is the last not to be on a Saturday). I think it’s with Flemish commentary as he does welcome viewers in the Netherlands and Belgium. I’m sure I won’t stay wrong for long :-)

For the first time of what will eventually be four hostings, the Contest heads to Luxembourg. Not the smallest country in the competition of course and the Grand Duchy also punches above it’s weight considerably in the broadcasting arena. Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Radiodiffusion was started in 1931 as one of the world’s first private broadcasters, relying on advertising rather than the usual public subscription that was common with other broadcasters in the EBU at this time. In 1954 ‘Radiodiffusion’ is replaced with ‘Télédiffusion’ and so we get the CLT we see here. If you follow the story through, full of mergers and boardroom changes you’ll get the RTL group which we have today, which currently operates 68 TV channels, and 31 radio stations across Europe.

In 1962, there weren’t many UK teenagers who didn’t know or listen to Radio Luxembourg. Until 1973, the BBC had a monopoly on radio broadcasting in the UK as other EBU members had in their own countries. Pop-up of ‘pirate stations’ on boats anchored off the coasts had started in 1958, broadcasting far reaching radio waves to a youthful audience that wanted something different than the official broadcasters could offer. There wasn’t a boat for Radio Luxembourg, just the most powerful privately owned transmitter in the world, and since it came from another territory, British legislation didn’t count.

What was on offer in the Contest for those rebellious teens? Not that much, although undoubtedly, Isabelle Aubret’s ‘look’ tipped more to what youthful audiences expected – pair that with a sultry song just the right amount of lyrical repetition to make it almost hypnotic and you have one giant entry in an average group of songs which seemed heavily reliant on wordless vocables and nonsense syllables.

The Contest had overrun so much in 1961 that the BBC had cut off the programme – this year we see harsh cutbacks in the production with not much of a gap between the songs at all. Another handy economising was the EBU getting each jury to rank the entries, with only the top three songs scoring any points. 3, 2 and 1 seemed to make sense I guess, but the total amount of points available dropped from 150 in 1961 to just 45. This flavour of ranking system would only last this edition and it produced a very uneven distribution of points. I expect France would have won this Contest comfortably under the old system too, but with so few points available, and juries rejecting 12 songs each, the first ‘nul’ points were handed out – a tradition that has survived even the 2016 points system and provided plenty of drama some 59 years later in Rotterdam.

*DESIGN AND THE BOARD*
If you’d seen my design video on ko-fi, you’ll know I started with a very different idea. In fact, going into 1962 I had no plan at all! I started with an accurate typeface, choosing Oswald from Google Fonts. Next, I knew CLT/RTL love their ‘Lion of Luxembourg’ on their medals, featuring in 1973 I know, but I felt it was all I had to go on! I liked the ‘starry night’ feel of the back of the entrance (I think the very first time we see anything moving behind the singers…a couple of lights blinking). Almost by mistake the medal became a moon, shining on a chequered floor – rings emanate, foreshadowing 1973’s logo and honouring Luxembourg’s broadcasting prowess. The arrangement of the board developed into something more standard after I tried to arrange them around the medal in the middle. Luxembourgish makes itself seen, if you like that sort of thing.

*TRANSFER NEWS* (source: Wiki)
For the first time, none.

*INTERVAL ACT*
Something quite bold from CLT here, the comedy/clown act of Achille Zavatta: anyone who starts with a scoreboard joke has my vote, although I’m not sure what the audience thought. His circus show was prohibited from performing the UK due to the Animal Welfare Act but it was popular in France, until clowns stopped being so funny.

*CREDITS*
@Martin Bertelsen for the show upload,
@tasosk3 for YUG.
@NATI NATAN for sound/NTS
Flags: countryflags.com
All Copyright belongs to CLT/RTL.

00:00 Intro
02:56 Song super-cut
20:23 Interval
23:05 Voting intro
23:42 The reorder board 62
36:56 Recap, data & reprise

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