Eurovision Song Contest 1959

Eurovision Song Contest 1959
Dates
Final	11 March 1959
Host
Venue	Palais des Festivals et des Congrès Cannes, France
Presenter(s)	Jacqueline Joubert
Conductor	Franck Pourcel
Directed by	Marcel Cravenne
Host broadcaster	Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (RTF)
Interval act	None
Participants
Number of entries	11
Debuting countries	Monaco
Returning countries	United Kingdom
Withdrawing countries	Luxembourg
Participation map      Participating countries     Countries that participated in the past but not in 1959
Vote
Voting system	Ten-member juries distributed 10 points among their favourite songs.
Nul points	None
Winning song	Netherlands "Een beetje"

The Eurovision Song Contest 1959 was the fourth edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest.

It was held on Wednesday 11 March 1959 in Cannes, France, following the country's victory at the 1958 edition.^[1] The contest was won by the Netherlands with the song "Een beetje", performed by Teddy Scholten. This was the second win for the Netherlands. Willy van Hemert was also the lyricist of "Net als toen", which won the 1957 contest.

Location

Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, Cannes – host venue of the 1959 contest.

The event took place in Cannes, France, with the venue being the original building of Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, after France got the right to host this edition of the Eurovision Song Contest for winning its previous 1958 edition with the song "Dors, mon amour" performed by André Claveau. Cannes, a city located on the French Riviera, is a busy tourist destination and known worldwide for hosting the annual Cannes Film Festival, with the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès also hosting the Film Festival. The original building was built in 1949 and was located on the boulevard of Promenade de la Croisette, on the present site of the JW Marriott Cannes.

Format

A new rule was created for this Eurovision, ensuring that no professional publishers or composers were allowed in the national juries. During the voting, Italy gave one point to France, no points to the UK and seven points to the Netherlands placing them just three points ahead of the UK. Later on, France gave only three points to Italy and four points to the Netherlands thus giving them a five-point lead over the UK, who were only one point ahead of France, leaving Italy behind in sixth position, behind Denmark, on nine points. Something that occurred this year, but never again, was that more than the winning entry was performed once again. The third- and second-placed songs, France and United Kingdom respectively, were allowed to sing again at the end of the show, together with the eventual winner, the Netherlands.

Participating countries

Luxembourg withdrew from the contest for the first time. The United Kingdom returned after missing the previous contest (appearing on the scoreboard as "Grande Bretagne") and finished second for the first time. The UK would have 15 second-place finishes in the country's history in the contest. Monaco made its debut in the contest, but came last.

Results

Draw	Country	Artist	Song	Language[3]	Place	Points
01	France	Jean Philippe	"Oui, oui, oui, oui"	French	3	15
02	Denmark	Birthe Wilke	"Uh, jeg ville ønske jeg var dig"	Danish	5	12
03	Italy	Domenico Modugno	"Piove (Ciao, ciao bambina)"	Italian	6	9
04	Monaco	Jacques Pills	"Mon ami Pierrot"	French	11	1
05	Netherlands	Teddy Scholten	"Een beetje"	Dutch	1	21
06	Germany	Alice & Ellen Kessler	"Heute Abend wollen wir tanzen geh'n"	German	8	5
07	Sweden	Brita Borg	"Augustin"	Swedish	9	4
08	Switzerland	Christa Williams	"Irgendwoher"	German	4	14
09	Austria	Ferry Graf	"Der K und K Kalypso aus Wien"	German	9	4
10	United Kingdom	Pearl Carr & Teddy Johnson	"Sing, Little Birdie"	English	2	16
11	Belgium	Bob Benny	"Hou toch van mij"	Dutch	6	9

Scoreboard

		Voting results
	France	15		4	1	2		4		1	1		2
	Denmark	12			1	1	1		4	1	2	2
	Italy	9	3			1			1	3			1
	Monaco	1									1
	Netherlands	21	4		7	1		2			3	1	3
	Germany	5	2		1					1			1
	Sweden	4		1			3
	Switzerland	14		2		1		1	3		1	5	1
	Austria	4				1			2	1
	United Kingdom	16	1	1		2	5			3	2		2
	Belgium	9		2		1	1	3				2
The table is ordered by appearance

International broadcasts and voting

The table above shows the order in which votes were cast during the 1959 contest along with the spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country. Each national broadcaster also sent a commentator to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language. Details of the commentators and the broadcasting station for which they represented are also included in the table below.^[4]

Voting order	Country	Spokespersons	Commentator(s)	Broadcaster(s)
01	Belgium	Bert Leysen	Nic Bal Paule Herreman	NIR, INR
02	United Kingdom	Pete Murray	Tom Sloan Pete Murray	BBC Television Service BBC Light Programme
03	Austria	Karl Bruck	Elena Gerhard	ORF
04	Switzerland	Boris Acquadro	Theodor Haller	TV DRS, TSR
05	Sweden	Roland Eiworth	Jan Gabrielsson	Sveriges Radio-TV, SR P1
06	Germany	Hans-Joachim Rauschenbach	Elena Gerhard	Deutsches Fernsehen
07	Netherlands	Siebe van der Zee	Piet te Nuyl	NTS
08	Monaco	TBC	Claude Darget	Télé Monte Carlo
09	Italy	Enzo Tortora	Renato Tagliani	Programma Nazionale
10	Denmark	Svend Pedersen	Sejr Volmer-Sørensen	DR TV
11	France	Marianne Lecène	Claude Darget	RTF
-	Luxembourg (non-participating country)	-	Claude Darget	Télé-Luxembourg

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Eurovision Song Contest 1959.

• Official website

Coordinates: 43°33′12″N 7°01′20″E / 43.55333°N 7.02222°E / 43.55333; 7.02222