Marcel Bezençon (; 1 May 1907 – 17 February 1981) was a Swiss

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

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and the director of the

European Broadcasting Union The European Broadcasting Union (EBU; , UER) is an alliance of Public broadcasting, public service media organisations in countries within the European Broadcasting Area (EBA) or who are member states of the Council of Europe, members of the ...

between 1954 and 1970. In 1955, he conceived the idea of the

Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest (), often known simply as Eurovision, is an international Music competition, song competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) among its members since 1956. Each participating broadcaster ...

, based on the famous

Sanremo Music Festival The Sanremo Music Festival ( ), officially the Italian Song Festival (), is the most popular Italian song contest and awards ceremony, held annually in the city of Sanremo, Liguria, organized and broadcast by (RAI). It is the longest-running ...

. Bezençon graduated with a degree in art history from the

University of Lausanne The University of Lausanne (UNIL; ) in Lausanne, Switzerland, was founded in 1537 as a school of Protestant theology, before being made a university in 1890. The university is the second-oldest in Switzerland, and one of the oldest universities ...

in 1932, and then started work as a freelance art and theater critic before becoming editor of the newspaper Feuille d'Avis. In 1939, he joined Radio suisse romande (RSR), where he served as its director until 1950 when he became Director-General of the

Swiss Broadcasting Corporation The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (; ; ; ; SRG SSR) is the Swiss public broadcasting association, founded in 1931, the holding company of 24 radio and television channels. Headquartered in Bern, the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation is a non-pro ...

(SRG SSR), which he served until 1972. Bezençon also sat as a member of the board of directors of the Swiss Telegraphic Agency (SDA ATS) between 1963 and 1972. In 2002, the Marcel Bezençon Awards were founded by Christer Björkman (

Melodifestivalen Melodifestivalen (; ) is an annual song competition organised by Swedish public broadcasters Sveriges Television (SVT) and Sveriges Radio (SR). It determines the country's representative for the Eurovision Song Contest, and has been staged almo ...

winner and Swedish ESC participant in 1992) and Richard Herrey (

and Swedish ESC winner in 1984 as part of the

Herreys Herreys (), sometimes Herrey's or Herrey, is a Swedish pop group, consisting of the three brothers Per Herrey (born 9 August 1958), Richard Herrey (born 19 August 1964), and Louis Herrey (born 3 November 1966). They won the Eurovision Song C ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bezencon, Marcel 1907 births 1981 deaths People from Orbe