Eurovision 1958: *IMPORTANT* - the reason it still exists! | Super-cut with animated scoreboard

An edited down version of the Eurovision Song Contest 1958 in Hilversum with a scoreboard using today’s technology. This all started as a lockdown project!
This edit will give a flavour of the evening (Wednesday 12 March) with Dutch commentary.
Yes, the contest moves to a Wednesday evening and it seems to have tidied itself up on the way to Hilversum. Although television was still considered a ‘challenging new technology’, the Dutch successfully tidied up the visual presentation of the show. Unlike 1957, it didn’t feel like television cameras were clandestinely recording a radio programme. Like 1957, we have plenty of returnees, Corry Brokken returns to try and retain the crown and ‘Champion 1’, Lys Assia returns for the third time to try and take it back. And she very nearly does it.
The 133 words above is enough before mentioning Domenico Modugno and ‘Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu’. The impact of this song cannot be underestimated - it almost certainly kept the show going and growing. The juries of course, saw it differently. Some did not see it at all to begin with(!), but after two performances, only 13 out 90 jurors felt strong enough to vote for it. Luckily, the jurors at the Grammy’s in Los Angeles saw differently, and the song won the inaugural award there. Domenico would enjoy chart success all over Europe, and in America. The song would go on to be covered by loads of artists, although I think Dean Martin’s cover is probably the once you’ve heard.
This success quietened fears that the Contest wasn’t producing chart hits. Without that, television executives would start asking why the EBU was bothering. The juries ended up giving the prize to one of the oldest winners ever - the delightfully camp André Claveau. In an exquisite example of what Wogan would call ‘coming up on the rails’, watch Switzerland close in on the French…it’s quite a watch! Although Assia’s ‘Giorgio’ was a strong way to end the show, such a ‘novelty’ song winning may have left the EBU reaching for the vino at the café. The best result would have been an Italian win, but failing that, a French gentle ballad winning felt like the sort of compromise that any European political summit would be proud of.
Domenico’s hit in the UK meant the BBC saw value in returning in 1959. Although there was no English entrant here, the level of English is higher than in 57. The production choice to not have in-person presentation at the start meant the commentators had to do all the heavy lifting. Only the French speaking countries delivered their points in French, the rest in English (avoiding the polyglot mess seen previously). I think this may be the start of the ‘working languages’ rule. The show kept to it’s 75-minute running time, although the BBC did two things - edited it down to 60 minutes and aired it on Sunday (3:15pm).
DESIGN AND THE BOARD
I love the clarity of the 1958 board, and at first glance I thought: they’re using Gill Sans all lower case! At close inspection, it’s not Gill. We’re in a world of paint or lettering applied by sticky film - the typeface certainly uses some shapes from that typeface but there are some flourishes that detract from it (the 5 for example). What we do have is an offset rectangular look going on when you see the whole board. Admittedly you never really see the entire board during the programme, it’s very tightly zoomed - so much so that many television sets would cut off large parts of the text. A quick look on Wiki and you’ll see why I’ve added this design more prominently - the NTS instead went for clarity of shot, which I can entirely understand.
My design was more about ‘formica’ and 1950s utility with a nod to ‘Space Age’ design than anything else. The real board also has, for the first time, a notification of points per round awarded - something that would still allude RTÉ in the 1990s! It did take a while to reset though, but we’ve moved on from black card being rolled around…there’s independent numbers denoting 10s and single figures. I would have liked to have seen what it looks like from behind! More on the song captions in the comments below.
TRANSFER NEWS (source: Wiki)
OUT: The UK, as discussed.
IN: Sweden - a delightful song introducing the traditional dress trick!
Total = Stays at 10.
INTERVAL ACT
Two! The Metropole Orkest play a nice range of genres. Not sure the mid-competition act will stick around!
CREDITS
@ESC Stuff for the high quality upload!
Flags: countryflags.com
All Copyright belongs to NOS.
00:00 Intro
00:55 Song super-cut
06:28 Interval 1
08:00 Song super-cut
15:29 Interval 2, voting intro
16:44 The reorder board 58
31:27 Recap, data & reprise

[@thereorderboard]

A few other things I couldn’t fit in the description: - Firstly, a big thank you to those who’ve supported me on ko-fi/thereorderboard! It’s just a way to say ‘thanks’ for content, if you feel inclined - more of a tip than anything else. I won’t be retiring on it! I’ve thrown in some little bits along the way too. Supporters there saw this design last week, when I was building it, and it may well be a good place to put un-audio chopped videos. I’ve noticed 1985 disappeared as the copyright holder wasn’t happy with La Det Swinge being in my video! - For the first time, we see some overlayed graphics in the Eurovision Song Contest! Once again, ‘televisualised’ slates of text were overlayed over the pictures…I assume by some sort of vision mixing, which we also see when the medal and board are faded in over each other at the end. The text overlays were achieved by literally pointing a camera at a physical board and then ‘overlaying’ the picturs. They provided a nice visual reminder, particularly to the commentators, who were doing all the work for this show and had no presenter between songs to help them out! I think it’s well under 2 minutes between the programme beginning and Italy appearing on stage. - You may be forgiven that you’re not watching a reordering scoreboard in the first round! Most countries, apart from France, adopted the rule of giving the points out in performance order. With so few points, the logic basically gets down to the 30th (?) line of logic and asks where they performed in the running order - the result is that very little moves in round 1. A strong start for Sweden in the Contest though, finishing the first round on top! And of course, the highest score from any jury until it’s equalled in 1970 (someone will correct me if I’m wrong!) is awarded to France a bit later on. - Now, the history writes that the first victim of the number 2 slot was Corry Brokken, who came last. Of course, she did come last, but the reorderboard actually ranks her 9th, owing to her advantageous running order position. - This is the last scoreboard not to feature country names on it. Apparent in 1957, most jurors referred to which country they were voting for, rather than the song number or the (often lengthy) song title. - I think Germany’s point-giving this year is a textbook example of how to do it! Austria needs to take some advice! Crackly phone lines appeared to be the issue, although not into Hilversum…it seems the issue is getting the sound to Hannie Lips’ phone set! - We don’t appear to hear Te Deum at the beginning of this programme, although I think that may well be because of where the recording starts. Dolf van der Linden’s band certainly plays it when the prize is collected. - There’s a great summary of Dolf van der Linden’s life and his relationship with the Eurovision Song Contest on ‘andtheconductoris.eu’. He had conducted the orchestra for Corry Brokken’s win in 1957. He missed the chance to be the Contest’s very first conductor in 1956 due to a prior engagement (the Dutch performed first in Lugano), but his contribution to the Contest is remarkable. He led the orchestra we see here in the show, which had excellent reviews from all over Europe and we’ll continue to see Dolf in subsequent shows. Here’s an excerpt specifically about 1958: - In a 1985 interview, Van der Linden recalled how he experienced the rehearsals in ’58: “A tough job it was, especially for my musicians, who had to adapt to foreign conductors. Nevertheless, they enjoyed every bit of it. When speaking about the festival in general, it was nice meeting up annually with the same people: the producers and the directors from all European broadcasters… they more or less formed one big Eurovision family. It was extremely pleasant to be with them, have a chat, and exchange ideas.” Moreover, Van der Linden struck up a friendship with Danish conductor Kai Mortensen. This resulted in mutual invitations to perform as guest conductors of each other’s orchestras in other projects, and even in visiting each other during holidays. - I’ll mention the winning director, Franck Pourcel in the 1959 video. - In the last video I described how German TV was organised. In the Netherlands, it’s quite complicated. The NTS was created in 1951 and like the radio equivalent (the NRU) it wasn’t simply a company like the BBC. Member associations (broadcasters) were responsible for their own output and the NTS would provide studios, outside broadcasts and orchestras. In 1956 the NTS started making it’s own programmes though, to complicate things…including the news (NTS Journaal). This situation lasted until the until the merging the NTS and the NRU to form the NOS in 1969. In 1995, the NOS was split: the Nederlandse Programma Stichting took over most of what the NOS was doing (culture, arts, childrens & education) but not news, sports and live events which remained with them. In 2002, NOS’s role in organising public tv in the Netherlands was now being handled new organisation called: Publieke Omroep (Public Broadcasting), but still administered by NOS. Not bored of tinkering, the Dutch government then split it up further (legally) and renamed it Nederlandse Publieke Omroep (NPO), (Netherlands Public Broadcasting). This removed any bias the NOS had as a programme maker as it had also organised what was on the channels too. The 1958 contest would have been shown on ‘Nederland 1’, the first channel. That name stayed until 2013 when Nederland 1, 2 and 3 became NPO 1, 2, 3. With the NOS still providing news programming, and even a 24-hr news channel. This is a very long way of explaining why the 2020/1 Contest has three broadcasters…AVROTROS (the AVRO bit owned the radio studio that the 58 contest came from), the NOS and the umbrella bit, the NPO. If I were doing a 2021 board, it would say AVROTROS/NOS/NPO on it! Quite a mouthful! - There’s some out-there artwork for this Contest on the Wikipedia that says it’s a logo - and I’m sure that’s not wrong, although it wasn’t much use as branding in the same way didn’t really exist in 1958. I certainly didn’t exist in the programme. I expect those ‘logos’ are actually the programme covers? - I started the channel covering 1980…a Dutch held Contest that kept the thing going when no one else could host. They did the same for 1970. In so many ways, the government and people of Rotterdam and the NPO/NOS/AVROTROS have helped the Contest to return after one of it’s toughest moments once again in 2020/21. Bedankt, Nederland! - What was happening in Europe? About a fortnight after this Contest, Krushchev became leader of the USSR after years of politicking and communal leadership following the death of Stalin in 1953. In France, where the contest will head in 1959, the country was in political turmoil. Algeria was not a colony of France, but a part of it…in fact, it had essentially entered the contests up to 1961. An ongoing war of Algerian independence had started 4 years before this show, but a political coup d’etat in Algiers (by some French officers) essentially called for De Gaulle to come back to power. Worried about another debacle as seen in Vietnam in 1954, the government in Paris seemed to cave in, worried about civil war in France. It seems extraordinary now, and I haven’t really done it justice here. In the end, de Gaulle offered his services as was elected in December. Eventually, Algeria would gain its independence but for now the Fourth Republic was thrown out and the Fifth proclaimed. For those counting, in 2028, the Fifth Republic will become the longest form of French government since the 1792 revolution. - Other stuff going on : January 1st saw the beginning of the EEC. In Brussels, in April, the World’s Fair is opened by the Belgian King - the ‘Atomium’ structure was the centre piece. In May, in Bristol (UK), the first phone call to another exchange was made by what’s called ‘Subscriber Trunk Calling’. The Queen publicised it by ringing Edinburgh from Bristol, the longest call you could make without speaking to an operator. And two important television moments, in October ‘Blue Peter’ starts on the BBC…it’s a kids show that’s still on air, and although not European news, in the US, Jim Henson starts the Muppets in November.

[@meskbren]

That is sucky that 1985 was taken down. Hopefully there will not be any more.

[@DitzyNizzy2009]

I wasn’t expecting that much English in a year (the last one, in fact) without an English speaking country competing. (I would be surprised if English was as widely spoken back then as it is now.)

[@mrjdsworld80]

I don’t think any Eurovision presenter spends less time on screen during the contest than Hannie Lips in 1958. She doesn’t introduce the contest, instead (as you mention) it’s straight to the first song. She only appears after all the songs have been performed to inform viewers of the tech issue that affected the Italian entry. She then vanishes again until after the interval act. Once the voting is complete she announces the winner and after the reprise hands flowers to the winner. She doesn’t even bid viewers goodnight! Toto might have learned something from her...

[@Adrian-S.]

Hillerius!

[@Botafogoplayground]

Hahaha. Indeed

[@mrjdsworld80]

Actually at the next Dutch hosting in 1970, the presenter didn’t do a great deal more. She does introduce the contest (very quickly) and isn’t seen again until the voting.

[@Botafogoplayground]

@@mrjdsworld80 Yes, that's right ;-)

[@kaitlinbilous4605]

It's a shame because her dress was beautiful

[@morbidsearch]

18:47 The Austrian spokesperson interrupting her gets me every time

[@mrjdsworld80]

She really does struggle to be patient with him.

[@mrjdsworld80]

It’s actually quite clever how the scoreboard was integrated into the stage this year. Pictures of the event with wider shots of the stage, show that part of the scoreboard (the columns with the numbers) formed part of the stage. These columns weren’t visible to television viewers during the song performances. The remainder of the scoreboard, with song numbers and song titles was the other side of the stage backdrop we saw while the acts performed. This backdrop then revolved around as the voting began to show the rest of the scoreboard. As there was a small gap between the two parts, you can sometimes see someone working away behind the scoreboard!

[@JeSuisRene]

Gosh, this orchestra are a group of talented fellows, aren’t they? Great work as always! And of course, my winner is from 🇮🇹Italy!

[@joaovitormatos8147]

The madlad jury from Denmark voting for Belgium instead of France like the other 9 have my respect

[@LuizCarneiro]

Already waiting for the 1959 Contest! Fantastic job, as usual! Douze points!

[@mig12pts]

Thanks, and congratulations. Once again, your work is fantastic. ;)

[@pointlessnostalgic78]

Awesome job, as always, for such a lovely jazzy feeling contest. Thank you so much

[@mrjdsworld80]

Great job, as always. As you mention, this scoreboard had a separate column with points received from each jury, something the RTÉ scoreboards didn’t show in the 1990s! Though I see there’s only room for one digit, so I don’t know what they would have done in the (admittedly unlikely) event a song received 10 votes from a single jury!

[@LoveYaAngelino]

Probably like many things the contest didn't take into account. They must have thought that the chance of getting full marks was almost impossible as like they didn't really prepared for an tie-break until they got surprised with an 4-way tiebreak in 1969. The contest was in its childly ages and i think only from 1992 onwards we really get an full grown contest: Tie-break rules, votes only given in 2 languages,...

[@JeSuisRene]

They’d have most likely put the points straight onto the board (ie change the tens digit only and keep the initial column unchanged)

[@almantara02]

i still gotta admit those scoreboards are well made, as always 😌

[@WolfyTotalDrama]

At the beginning of the voting i love how it seems like the presenter is yelling at the spokesperson lol

[@sadikigehrmann61]

Great work as always!

[@sabcialove]

Your work is amazing ♥️

[@esczaman1299]

YES!! More scoreboards, i LOVE IT!

[@EldaMengisto]

Another great scoreboard you've got there! I appreciate the images of the artist in the background--that was a nice touch with who was going to vote. Interesting use of aesthetics for the board itself--I particularly like the fonts! Considering your commentary about how significant Nel blu dipinto di blu was in 1958, it definitely was a turning point for the contest. I was thinking not unlike 1970, because the latter only had 12 countries competing and it looked like the end. That said, there was the sense of a TV show forming, with the orchestration interval acts, but there was something missing in it all. My top three (including my favorite songs from this decade!): 3. SUI -- There was something flighty and charming about Giorgio that made it so good. And Lys delivers really well; it definitely is flighty and happy! 2. SWE -- Sweden's debut, everyone's favorite country to either love or hate at Eurovision. In their only internally selected song, Lilla Sjarta is so beautiful: it takes you in the narrator's story and has a dream-like soundscape. I like Alice's vocals too; she conveys such an innocence to this song. Would easily be my favorite, if not for... 1. ITA -- The original classic, with its surrealistic lyrics and fantastical soundscape.

[@peterkirby7270]

Thank you for sharing these Eurovision Song Contests. I am a fan of the contest for 50 years now.

[@thereorderboard]

Thanks for watching Peter! And congrats on being such a great fan of the Song Contest!

[@Adrian-S.]

Amazing!

[@Botafogoplayground]

And of course the wonderful array of telephones uses by Marloes Fluitsma in 1980 is a tribute to Hannie Lips.

[@Botafogoplayground]

I think that the big text overlays covering the whole screen that we see in the 1970 edition are a fine tribute to the 1958 edition.

[@Botafogoplayground]

Geweldig!!!

[@nadirhajjour]

This is so satisfying watching it being Dutch. This accent is funny af.

[@andreabove1147]

Heeey. Ik studeer Nederlands. Maar ik spreek enkel een beetje. Waarom is dat grappig? Klinkt het oud?

[@meskbren]

I love this presentation and particularly the font. Very 1950s and I love the points rushing up to the side. I am generally unenthused about the early years so I dont have a ranking. Mind you, I think Germany's song is cute and is probably my favourite of this year. Sweden was good too and I don't think Netherlands deserved last place. France was a rather undeserving winner.

[@fryede]

It amuses me that we had to wait until the 13th contest before someone thought to make the scoreboard in the same aspect ratio as the television screen.

[@mrjdsworld80]

It wasn’t a huge issue in the early days as there weren’t many competing countries. But you’re right, by 1960 it wasn’t possible to fit the entire scoreboard into one camera shot. 1966 is particularly bad, it’s a very long scoreboard. As a result, the following year ORF split the board into left and right hand sides to overcome this, but it backfired as they ended up with a really wide scoreboard (thanks to those lights) and so we still had the same problem with not being able to see the entire scoreboard clearly in one shot.

[@WillHearteChannel]

Thank you for doing these amazing videos from the time Eurovision was truly amazing, before it was ruined... You're awesome!

[@Botafogoplayground]

The music at the end is amazing

[@Pawhlen]

So, the year when we finally made our debut, the first and only contest that we have chosen our song and artist internally

[@luukjoling1]

Germany did see Italy, good on them! 💯

[@klaudiaszilagyi669]

I wish they still used song titles instead of country names on the scoreboard. I understand it might be confusing for the viewers (for example when two songs share the exact same title) and tricky for the graphic designers (especially when a song's title is too long). But I think it'd be a bit more "personal"; you'd actually feel you're voting for a particular song that you liked, not for a country that you don't necessarily like.

[@kaitlinbilous4605]

If Austria and Slovenia both made it, things would get confusing unless they used flags as well

[@mrjdsworld80]

It seems to me that in the early days, songs competed, not countries.

[@jejtherusheddoodle23]

Voting Timestamps: 1. Switzerland 🇨🇭: 17:01-18:09 (3 pts to 🇸🇪) 2. Austria 🇦🇹: 18:47-20:02 (7 pts to 🇫🇷) 3. Germany 🇩🇪: 21:17-21:48 (5 pts to 🇧🇪) 4. Belgium 🇧🇪: 22:11-23:14 (4 pts to 🇮🇹) 5. Denmark 🇩🇰: 23:32-24:05 (9 pts to 🇫🇷) 6. Sweden 🇸🇪: 24:25-25:32 (4 pts to 🇨🇭) 7. Luxembourg 🇱🇺: 25:54-26:58 (5 pts to 🇨🇭) 8. France 🇫🇷: 28:07-28:44 (3 pts to 🇦🇹, 🇨🇭) 9. Netherlands 🇳🇱: 29:03-30:03 (6 pts to 🇨🇭) 10. Italy 🇮🇹: 30:29-31:29 (6 pts to 🇫🇷) Most Votes for Each Country: 1. Italy 🇮🇹: 4 pts from 🇧🇪 2. Netherlands 🇳🇱: 1 pt from 🇨🇭 3. France 🇫🇷: 9 pts from 🇩🇰 4. Luxembourg 🇱🇺: 1 pt from 🇨🇭 5. Sweden 🇸🇪: 3 pts from 🇨🇭, 🇱🇺 6. Denmark 🇩🇰: 1 pt from 🇸🇪, 🇫🇷, 🇳🇱 7. Belgium 🇧🇪: 5 pts from 🇩🇪 8. Germany 🇩🇪: 2 pts from 🇫🇷 9. Austria 🇦🇹: 3 pts from 🇫🇷 10. Switzerland 🇨🇭: 6 pts from 🇳🇱 First Points to Each Country: 11. Sweden 🇸🇪: 3 pts from 🇨🇭

[@escpapao]

thanks

[@winni.76]

Good👍👍👍👍👍

[@What_am_i-yn3ig]

The Austrian voter: yeah, let’s just give the host no time Host: let’s restart

[@grahamnancledra7036]

Wonderful. The Italians voted for a French language sone over an Italian language song from Switzerland. I've always had a soft spot for Lys Assia and here Italian "Georgio".

[@SonOfFurzehatt]

What do you use to build your scoreboards? I have been designing my own for a Eurovision fan thing, and I'd like to up my game.

[@vahvahdisco]

10:23 - The first of those over-the-top outfits ! Lol

[@JeSuisRene]

Out of interest, back in the day (1992 and prior), why did Italy almost always provide the result in French and not English?

[@mig12pts]

French and english are both official languages of EBU. The true question is : why Italy voted in italian, in 1991 ? But, we all know the answer.

[@mrjdsworld80]

I think when it comes to Italy, there’s no point in trying to find an explanation for the things they do!

[@marbe166]

@@mig12pts They did not. Actually, the Italian spokesperson was very reluctant to say anything at all in Italian, probably because she was embarassed by the way Toto and Gigiola had messed up. She only said "buonasera tutti" in Italian, and did the rest in French.

[@mig12pts]

@@marbe166 You're right. My memory was mistaken. Thanks. Kind regards. 😉

[@andreabove1147]

Why is that then? :)

[@helltotheno.]

Danish jury, why?

[@mrjdsworld80]

Personally, I think Dors Mon Amour is the weakest winner from the early years of the contest, but while Giorgio is a lot of fun, and definitely stood out from the chansons, I’m not sure the contest would have entered 1959 so strongly had it won. Of course, Italy should have won, but that fact that it didn’t, and its huge success outside the contest afterwards just merely proves that it’s not a recent development that what does well at Eurovision isn’t necessarily what does well with the music-buying public!

[@Hans_van_der_veen]

I don't like the self-made scoreboard. It is history, keep the original!

[@EdgeRatedR007]

There are videos of the original recording so feel free to watch them instead. These videos are literally made so we can keep track of the scores.

[@pirukiddingme1908]

Italy robbed 😡