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Eurovision’s Golden JubileePatrick Jaquin, Deputy Head of Communications, EBU

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Patrick JaquinDeputy Head of Communications, EBU

JubileeOn 6 June Eurovision willcelebrate its 50th anniversary!

. . . people were glued to the “box“

Eurovision’s Golden

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On 6 June 1954 Montreux, nestlingbetween vineyards and Lake Geneva,was the setting for the firstEurovision transmission: an outsidebroadcast of the Narcissus Festivaland a parade of 25 floats coveredwith flowers, yodellers, singers anda dozen brass bands. This wasfollowed by a 90-minute guided tourof the Vatican, which finished with ahomily, in Latin, by Pope Pius XII,on the promises and the dangers oftelevision, before he blessed theaudience, urbi et orbi , in sixlanguages.

In the next few days there was thePalio in Sienna, a party for refugee

pean Television Season� of Euro-pean programme exchanges, at theheart of which were the nineprogrammes exchanged for theWorld Football Cup. Watchingthese, people were glued to the�box� in homes and pubs and infront of shop windows.

“Lille Experiment”

Throughout these live broadcasts,engineers who had set up shop in theLille town hall tower strove feverishlyto prevent or repair networkbreakdowns. This control positiongave its name to the operation: the�Lille Experiment�.

The impact of the Season was due notonly to the programmes, some ofwhich were not particularly striking,but rather to the intention to repeatthe experiment. After all, the networkthat had been set up for the Seasonwas of a more permanent nature thanthe circuits patched together for thecoronation of Elizabeth II.

However, it was the coronationceremony that released televisionfrom the straitjacket of differentstandards. It was then it becameEuropean, with thousands of French,Belgian, Dutch, German and, ofcourse, British viewers witnessing �for the first time in history in such

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children in the Netherlands, anathletics meeting in Glasgow, a youthcamp on the Rhine with the partici-pation of Chancellor Adenauer, anagricultural fair in Denmark, aprocession in the Grand�Place inBrussels, the Royal Navy paradingpast Queen Elizabeth, and a horseshow in London.

Altogether, 18 programmes werebroadcast during this first �Euro-

For everyone else it was Eurovision,a word invented by an Englishjournalist, George Campey, who, inan article published in the LondonEvening Standard on 5 November1951, had written concerning a BBCprogramme relayed by Dutchtelevision: �Eurovision is a system ofcooperation for the exchange oftelevision programmes between thecountries of Western Europe, includingBritain�.

great numbers � the crowning of asovereign.

After the first Season of exchanges in1954, nothing could stop the tidalwave of Eurovision. Europe wantedto turn its back on the war, peoplewere starting to travel again, to crossborders, to trade. Internationalexchanges were the order of the day,and television reflected this newatmosphere.

The Narcissus Festival at Montreux and the Coronation of Elizabeth II

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The heads of Eurovision had set twokey engines in motion: the main linesof international exchanges and thepooling of technical facilities. At thesame time an ident was adopted: astarburst emblem accompanied by theopening ritornello from Marc-Antoine Charpentier�s Te Deum.

People who had not thought of itbefore were considering buying theirown set.

Pivotal date

To try and establish when the idea ofEurovision first germinated, we cango back to 8 September 1953. On thatday in Lime Grove, in a meeting roomof the London television centre, forthe first time delegates from Europe�stelevision nations got together anddecided to organize the EuropeanTelevision Season in the summer of1954.

It was then planned that each countryshould supply a programme to berelayed live in all the other partici-pating countries.

The committee

At the meeting of the AdministrativeCouncil held in Monte Carlo inNovember, Marcel Bezençon (SSR)explained the reasons that hadprompted the study group to request,unanimously, that a �televisioncommittee� be set up. As the delegateswere not convinced of the usefulnessof such a committee, the discussiondragged on and on. In the end, theCouncil proposed the setting up of aprogramme committee, which wouldbe accepted by the General Assemblyproviding that the new committeeconcentrated mainly on television.

While planning for the EurovisionSummer Season in June continued,Marcel Bezençon � together with thehelp of René McCall of the BBC andWladimir Porché of RTF � nowstarted to prepare the ProgrammeCommittee for action.

Marcel Bezençon

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In February 1954, at the first meetingof the Programme Committee, it wasdecided that the Committee�s Bureaushould be run by the eight represen-tatives of the organizations in thetelevision countries (RTB/BRT/Belgium, DR/Denmark, RTF/France,ARD/Germany, RAI/Italy, NTS/Netherlands, SSR/Switzerland, andBBC/United Kingdom). Two workingparties were established, one for thebroadcasting of films on television(GTV/1) under Sergio Pugliese (RAI), andthe other for live broadcasts (GTV/2),chaired by Jean d�Arcy. A planninggroup, chaired by Edouard Haas (SSR),had been added to GTV/2.

Problems

The first stumbling block the Pro-gramme Committee came up againstwas a concept for planning theprogrammes. At a television forum inSandpoort (Netherlands) comprisingtelevision journalists from eight

European countries, only a few topicslikely to be of international interestwere found; the British journalistsmerely suggested �Another Coron-ation�.

The clearing of films and technicalequipment through customs postsproved to be a source of problems, notto mention the performers. Forinstance, the BBC was planning tocontribute its famous variety showCafé Continental, presented byunionized performers who, because ofthe expected increase in the audiencefigures (close on three and a halfmillion viewers), demanded anincrease of 50% in their fee. Acompromise was found: the matterwould be settled by the EBUAdministrative Council. On the otherhand, there was no agreement inDenmark with the Tivoli artistes. Theprogramme Rendezvous in Copenhagenwas cancelled and replaced by a prizecattle show, eliciting this comment from

Der Spiegel: �Thank God cows don�tbelong to unions.�

Despite everything, the EBU wasdetermined to make a success of theexchange season. The most reliableway of ensuring this was the plannedcoverage of the World Football Cupin Berne, for which Marcel Bezençonhad negotiated the television rightswith the Chairman of the SwissFootball Association, Mr Thomma.�How much are you offering?� askedthe latter. �Nothing,� said Bezençon.�Are you joking?� Marcel Bezençonwas not joking, but nonetheless heoffered to make up any shortfall ingate money to a maximum of 10,000francs.

Leaflets announcing the broadcastsand advertising television in generalhad been published in the variousparticipating countries. In Germany,the price of television sets was fallingsignificantly. Obviously the television

World Football Cup

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The contest

Following the success of the SummerSeason, Marcel Bezençon � togetherwith the Committee�s Vice-Chairmen:Jean d�Arcy, director of FrenchTelevision and René C. McCall,deputy director of BBC Television �was convinced that it was necessaryto take a new initiative every year topromote television.

At the end of January 1955, the EBUProgramme Committee, meeting inMonte Carlo, approved two projectsfor further study: a European songcontest and a Eurovision cup foramateur entertainers (Top Townprogramme); the latter, lessconvincing than the former, fell by thewayside.

Meeting in the Palazzo Corsini inRome on 19 October 1955, andchaired by Sir Ian Jacob, directorgeneral of the BBC, the EBU GeneralAssembly agreed to the organizing ofa European Grand Prix � theEurovision Song Contest � to beheld, on a proposal of the Swissdelegation � in Lugano in the springof 1956.

Representing Switzerland, Lys Assiawon with Refrains: lyrics by EmileGardaz and music by Geo Voumard.

With this contest, the EBU set out toreally make its presence felt on theEuropean level. Mission accom-plished: the Eurovision Song Contestis coming up to its 49th edition in May2004, to be held in Istanbul with theparticipation of 36 countries � arecord figure � and is expected toattract 100 million viewers.

Content

The Contest has had spin-offs in theform of the Junior Eurovision SongContest, the Eurovision Competitionfor Young Musicians, and the Euro-

vision Competition for YoungDancers, without forgetting thefamous New Year Concert which willcelebrate its 47th edition in 2005.

In 1998 the EBU Award waspresented to the Vienna PhilharmonicOrchestra for its performances of thistraditional concert.

In addition to the programmesproduced expressly for Eurovision,we have gone from the unsteady andslightly blurred black-and-whitepictures reserved for a privileged fewto News Exchanges that reach over350 million viewers. Extensivecoverage of live events is offered viaone of the most reliable com-munication networks of its kind thatprovides permanent coverage ofEurope, the Americas, the MiddleEast, North Africa, and the Asia-Pacific region, together with ad hoccoverage of the African continent andthe Pacific Rim.

There are five different categories ofNews Exchange: news, sports news,

Lys Assia, Eurovision Song Contest, 1956

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youth news, regional exchanges andlive events.

Sport

The coordination of sports andentertainment transmissions is one ofEurovision�s main activities. Euro-vision�s success in this field isdemonstrated by the number ofbroadcasters who turn to Eurovisionfor programme feeds for the OlympicGames, UEFA Champions Leaguefootball matches, Formula 1 races,and ATP Tennis, to mention just a few.

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Eurovision, uses MPEG-2 4:2:2 digital technology. Video signals dare offered in SCPC or MCPC mode ranging from 6 Mbit/s forobreaking news coverage, to 24 Mbit/s for the highest sportM

contribution quality. Services can be provided from fixed riand transportable satellite uplinks throughout the worldrand are available 24 hours/day.

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Eurovision in figures

· More than 100,000 transmissions

in 2003.

· 15,000 hours of sport and

cultural events transmitted per

year.

· 30,000 individual news items

exchanged.

· 50 paths on five satellites.

· 70 satellite gateways worldwide.

· More than 700 digital decoders in

operation.

· Over 300 television stations

equipped with direct reception.

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From news to sport to special events,Eurovision is the strongest link in thecontent distribution chain.

Eurovision is the world�s largestprovider of international trans-mission services of live sports andnews events and one of the mostreliable communication networks ofits kind.

From a simple start in 1954 allowingtelevision stations in eight countriesto share news reports over the newly-named �Eurovision� network, the

News Exchanges today offer aplatform over which more than30,000 news items per year areexchanged between Eurovisionparticipants. More than 100 items airdaily on the News Exchanges,providing an invaluable supplementto broadcaster�s own news pro-duction capabilities.

Did the inventors of Eurovision seeso far ahead? Ever modest, MarcelBezençon said: �Eurovision, a simpleidea that has succeeded� � and it hasfor 50 years!