Eurovision Song Contest 1966

The Eurovision Song Contest 1966 was the 11th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg, following the country's victory at the with the song "Poupée de cire, poupée de son" by France Gall. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Télédiffusion (CLT), the contest was held at the Villa Louvigny on 5 March 1966 and was hosted by Luxembourgish television presenter Josiane Chen.

Eighteen countries participated in the contest, the same that had competed the year before.

The winner was with the song " Merci, Chérie", performed and composed by Udo Jürgens, and written by Jürgens and Thomas Hörbiger. This was Udo Jürgens third consecutive entry in the contest, finally managing to score a victory for his native country Austria. Austria would not go on to win again until the edition. This was also the first winning song to be performed in German. The contest is also noted for its historic results for several countries. Austria who came first, who came second, who came third and who came fourth all achieved their best results up until then, some of which would stand for several decades. In contrast traditional Eurovision heavyweights up to that point such as , and all achieved their worst result by far up till that point, with the general public in the aforementioned countries meeting these results with a degree of consternation.

The rule stating that a country could only sing in any of its national languages was originally created this year, possibly due to the 1965 edition's Swedish entry which was sung in English.

Location

The 1966 Eurovision Song Contest was hosted in Luxembourg City. The venue chosen to host the 1966 contest was the Villa Louvigny, which was also the venue for the edition. The building served as the headquarters of Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Télédiffusion, the forerunner of RTL Group. It is located in Municipal Park, in the Ville Haute quarter of the centre of the city.

Format

A new change in rules was introduced this year, allowing music experts to be present in the juries again.
1966 also marked the year the first ever black singer graced the Eurovision stage, Milly Scott representing the . She was also the first singer to use a portable microphone.

This year's voting was also characterised with numerous cases of "neighbourly" or "bloc" voting - a problem that would plague the contest in many future decades. for example received all its 16 points, bar one, from its Nordic neighbours - as did . likewise received all its points from Nordic nations. The voting of the Nordic countries was met with booing from the Luxembourg audience. and its sole neighbour exchanged maximum five points, with and - also two countries neighbouring each other - doing likewise. was spared the indignity of no points from its micro-state neighbour . awarded maximum points to its culturally closest neighbour the with doing the same for .

During the voting process, the presenter ( Josiane Chen) accidentally greeted United Kingdom by saying "Good night London". She then realized her mistake and said "Good evening, London". Afterwards Michael Aspel, who was the spokesperson for the United Kingdom at the time, responded by saying "Good morning, Luxembourg" prompting laughter from Josiane and the audience.

Participating countries

All countries who had participated in the 1965 contest returned for a second consecutive year.

Conductors

Each performance had a conductor who was maestro of the orchestra.

* Willy Berking
* Arne Lamberth
* Jean Roderès
* Jean Roderès
* Mojmir Sepe
* Øivind Bergh
* Ossi Runne

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