Eurovision Song Contest 1959

The event took place in Cannes, France, following the nation's victory at the 1958 edition in Hilversum, Netherlands, with the song "Dors, mon amour", performed by André Claveau. The selected venue was the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, built in 1949 to host the Cannes Film Festival and located on the Promenade de la Croisette along the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. Due to the growth in the film festival a new building bearing the same name was opened in 1982, with the original building renamed as the Palais Croisette.

A garden space with plants from Southern France was installed in front of the building for the contest, and the flags of the participating nations were raised on the roof. The audience comprised 1500 invited guests.

This marked the second occasion in which the previous year's winning country organised the event, and the first time in which the winning country was given first choice at hosting the following year's event, as the rights to host the 1958 contest were only awarded to the Netherlands after all other countries declined.

A total of eleven countries competed in the contest, with Monaco making its first appearance and the United Kingdom returning after a one year absence. The United Kingdom's absence from the 1958 contest is generally reported to have been due to the country's poor result in 1957, but their return coincided with the international success of "Nel blu, dipinto di blu", the Italian entry from the previous year's contest, and the appointment of Eric Maschwitz as Head of Light Entertainment at the BBC. Beginning with this event the United Kingdom holds the record for the longest string of consecutive appearances in the Eurovision Song Contest, appearing in every subsequent contest final as of 2023^[update]. Luxembourg was absent from the event, having participated in all previous contests, and appears to have decided against participating late in the preparations for the contest as the country was listed among the participants in several radio and television listings.

Among this year's participants, two artists had previously competed in the contest. Birthe Wilke had placed third for Denmark in the 1957 contest, performing "Skibet skal sejle i nat" alongside Gustav Winckler, and Domenico Modugno had placed third for Italy in the 1958 contest with "Nel blu, dipinto di blu".

The contest was organised and broadcast by the French public broadcaster Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (RTF), with Marcel Cravenne [fr] serving as director and Franck Pourcel serving as musical director. 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 stage constructed for the event was designed by Gérard Dubois. Its design was inspired by the era of Louis XIV. The stage featured three revolving platforms, each of which was segmented into four, similar to a revolving door, to include various backdrops. These backdrops were specific to each of the participating countries and featured scenery or objects associated with that country.

A few days prior to the contest, hotel and shop owners in Cannes complained that the contest was covered and advertised too sparsely by RTF and subsequently feared that too few tourists would come to Cannes. In contrast, the Cannes Comité des Fêtes, which was involved in the organisation of the contest, believed that the broadcast of images from Cannes to many European households would have a significant impact on tourism in the weeks to follow.

As in the 1957 and 1958 contests, 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, with each country's jury containing ten individuals who each gave one vote to their favourite song, with no abstentions allowed and with jurors unable to vote for their own country. One rule change implemented for this contest specified that individuals employed in the music industry were no longer allowed to be included among the national juries.

The draw to determine the running order took place on 9 March 1959.

The contest was held on 11 March 1959, beginning at 21:00 CET (20:00 UTC) and lasted 1 hour and 12 minutes. The event was hosted by French television presenter Jacqueline Joubert.

The prelude of Charpentier's "Te Deum", the theme music of Eurovision broadcasts, was played as opening act by the orchestra under the direction of Franck Pourcel.

The winner was the Netherlands represented by the song "Een beetje", composed by Dick Schallies [nl], written by Willy van Hemert and performed by Teddy Scholten. The Netherlands became the first country to achieve two victories in the event, and Van Hemert became the first individual to win the contest twice, after previously providing lyrics for the Netherlands' winner in 1957, "Net als toen". The United Kingdom's result was the first of sixteen British entries to finish in second place, a contest record as of 2023^[update].

Alongside the traditional reprise performance of the winning song, the second- and third-placed songs were also performed again, for the first and only time at the contest.

After the show, a supper for the participating delegations was held on behalf of the city of Cannes at the Salon des Ambassadeurs of the Casino municipal [fr]. Initially, the prize of the contest taking the form of an engraved medallion was to be handed over solemnly during that supper but instead was presented by RTF's director of programming Jean d'Arcy [fr] to Teddy Scholten at the end of the show.

Spokespersons

Each country nominated a spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country via telephone. Known spokespersons at the 1959 contest are listed below.

•   Netherlands – Siebe van der Zee [nl]
•   Sweden – Roland Eiworth [sv]

The announcement of the results from each country was conducted in reverse order to that which each country performed.

Each participating broadcaster was required to relay the contest via its television network. No official accounts of the viewing figures are known to exist. An estimate given in the press was at least 20 million viewers.

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. Twelve commentator boxes were installed on the balconies of the auditorium. Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the table below.

• Official website

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