Eurovision Song Contest 1957

Großer Sendesaal des hessischen Rundfunks, Frankfurt – venue of the 1957 contest

The 1957 contest took place in Frankfurt, West Germany. The selected venue was the Großer Sendesaal des hessischen Rundfunks, a music hall and former broadcasting studio located in the Dornbusch district, and part of the wider Broadcasting House Dornbusch which serves as the headquarters and main broadcasting facility of the German public broadcaster for the state of Hesse, Hessischer Rundfunk (HR).[3][4] The contest was held in front of an audience of around 400 people.[5][6]

A new plan for staging the event was invoked ahead of the 1957 contest, with a different broadcaster organising the contest each year, after Switzerland's SRG SSR, which had both hosted the contest and provided the winning entry in 1956, declined to stage it for a second time.[6] Germany was subsequently selected to host the second edition, after Hans-Otto Grünefeldt, TV program director at HR, offered to organise it on behalf of ARD.[lower-alpha 1][3][7]

Ten countries participated in the 1957 contest, with the seven countries which took part in the first contest being joined by Austria, Denmark and the United Kingdom in their first appearances.[3] Austria and Denmark had originally planned to compete in 1956, but missed the cut-off date for entry.[8][9]

Two of the participating artists, Switzerland's Lys Assia and the Netherlands' Corry Brokken, had previously competed at the 1956 contest. Brokken was one of the two Dutch participants in that year's contest, competing with the song "Voorgoed voorbij", while Assia had performed both of Switzerland's entries, "Das alte Karussell" and "Refrain", the latter of which had won the contest.[10]

Participants of the Eurovision Song Contest 1957[11][12][13][14]

Country	Broadcaster	Artist	Song	Language	Songwriter(s)	Conductor
Austria	ORF	Bob Martin	"Wohin, kleines Pony?"	German	Kurt Svab Hans Werner	Carl de Groof
Belgium	NIR	Bobbejaan Schoepen	"Straatdeuntje"	Dutch	Eric Franssen Harry Frékin	Willy Berking
Denmark	Statsradiofonien	Birthe Wilke and Gustav Winckler	"Skibet skal sejle i nat"	Danish	Erik Fiehn Paul Sørensen	Kai Mortensen
France	RTF	Paule Desjardins	"La Belle amour"	French	Francis Carco Guy Lafarge	Paul Durand
Germany	HR[lower-alpha 2]	Margot Hielscher	"Telefon, Telefon"	German[lower-alpha 3]	Friedrich Meyer Ralph Maria Siegel	Willy Berking
Italy	RAI	Nunzio Gallo	"Corde della mia chitarra"	Italian	Giuseppi Cavaliere Mario Ruccione	Armando Trovajoli
Luxembourg	CLT	Danièle Dupré	"Tant de peine"	French	Jean-Pierre Kemmer Jacques Taber	Willy Berking
Netherlands	NTS	Corry Brokken	"Net als toen"	Dutch	Willy van Hemert Guus Jansen	Dolf van der Linden
Switzerland	SRG SSR	Lys Assia	"L'Enfant que j'étais"	French	Émile Gardaz Géo Voumard	Willy Berking
United Kingdom	BBC	Patricia Bredin	"All"	English	Alan Stranks Reynell Wreford	Eric Robinson

The contest was organised and broadcast by HR on behalf of ARD, with Michael Kehlmann serving as director and Willy Berking serving as musical director, leading the Tanz- und Unterhaltungsorchester des Hessischen Rundfunks during the event.[16][17][18] 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.[12][14]

The stage built in the Großer Sendesaal featured a staircase for each artist and conductor to make their entrance, and a harp-shaped background. The centre of the background contained a removable background, allowing for a different graphic to be used for each nation's performance.[6][19] The entire contest, including the performances and voting, lasted around one hour in total.[5][20] Held just over nine months after the inaugural contest, the contest date of 3 March remains the earliest date in the calendar year in which the contest has been held.[6]

A number of changes from the rules of the previous year's contest were enacted in 1957. Each country was now permitted to send only one song to compete, as opposed to the maximum of two in 1956.[19] Up to two people were now allowed on stage during the performance – only solo artists were permitted to compete previously – however no other vocal backing was allowed.[3][6][19]

A new voting system was introduced, with ten individuals in each country giving one vote to their favourite song, with no abstentions allowed.[6] In an additional change to the 1956 rules, jurors were not allowed to vote for the song from their own country.[6][16] A scoreboard was introduced for the first time, and the voting process was now included as part of the broadcast, rather than conducted in secret as in 1956. This new aspect of the contest was inspired by the United Kingdom's Festival of British Popular Songs, which included voting by regional juries and the points received shown on a scoreboard, a telerecording of which was viewed by EBU organisers.[5][6] Each jury assembled in their own country to follow the contest on television and were then contacted by telephone by the contest's presenter in order to receive their votes, in a change from 1956 when the jurors were co-located to the contest venue.[6][19]

Each song, as in 1956, was required to last no longer than three minutes and 30 seconds, however several of the competing entries went beyond this limit. Italy's song, which lasted for five minutes and nine seconds, remains the longest song in the contest's history and, despite heavy protest, was not disqualified.[6][19] Conversely, the United Kingdom's first entry lasted for one minute and 53 seconds in total, and remained the shortest song to compete in the contest until 2015.[6] Subsequently the restriction on song length was more strictly monitored from 1958 onwards.[6][19]

The draw that determined the running order was held on 2 March 1957.[21]

Corry Brokken (pictured in 1958) had previously represented the Netherlands in 1956 before entering the contest again in 1957 and ultimately winning.

The contest was held on 3 March 1957, beginning at 21:00 CET (20:00 UTC) and lasted 1 hour.[12][22] The event was hosted by German actress Anaid Iplicjian.[3][6]

The winner was the Netherlands represented by the song "Net als toen", composed by Guus Jansen, written by Willy van Hemert and performed by Corry Brokken.[23] Notable among this year's participants were Denmark's Birthe Wilke and Gustav Winckler, the first duo to compete in the contest, who made an impact with a passionate on-screen kiss at the end of their performance; and Germany's Margot Hielscher, the first Eurovision act to use a prop during their performance, in this instance a telephone.[3][6]

Awards were presented to the winning artist and songwriters for the first time, taking the form of a medallion engraved with the Eurovision logo, which were awarded at the end of the broadcast by Eberhard Beckmann, director of Hessischer Rundfunk.[16][24] and which had been commissioned by Deutsches Fernsehen.[25]

Results of the Eurovision Song Contest 1957[12][26][27]

R/O	Country	Artist	Song	Points	Place
1	Belgium	Bobbejaan Schoepen	"Straatdeuntje"	5	8
2	Luxembourg	Danièle Dupré	"Tant de peine"	8	4
3	United Kingdom	Patricia Bredin	"All"	6	7
4	Italy	Nunzio Gallo	"Corde della mia chitarra"	7	6
5	Austria	Bob Martin	"Wohin, kleines Pony?"	3	10
6	Netherlands	Corry Brokken	"Net als toen"	31	1
7	Germany	Margot Hielscher	"Telefon, Telefon"	8	4
8	France	Paule Desjardins	"La Belle amour"	17	2
9	Denmark	Birthe Wilke and Gustav Winckler	"Skibet skal sejle i nat"	10	3
10	Switzerland	Lys Assia	"L'Enfant que j'étais"	5	8

The announcement of the results from each country was conducted in reverse order to the order in which each country performed.[16]

Each participating broadcaster was required to relay the contest via its networks. Non-participating EBU member broadcasters were also able to relay the contest as "passive participants". 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.[32] Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.

The 1957 contest is the earliest edition to exist in full in the EBU's archives, as the 1956 edition has survived solely through audio recordings, with some missing segments, and limited video footage of the winning reprise performance through newsreel and other recordings.[6][20][33] Although the number of households which had access to a television in Europe continued to grow, this edition, as in the case of the 1956 contest, was still mainly accessed by spectators via radio.[3]

Broadcasters and commentators in participating countries

Country	Broadcaster	Channel(s)	Commentator(s)	Ref(s)
Austria	ORF	ORF		[34]
Belgium	NIR	NIR		[35]
	INR	INR		[35]
Denmark	Statsradiofonien	Statsradiofonien TV, Program 2	Svend Pedersen	[36]
France	RTF	RTF	Robert Beauvais	[22]
		Paris-Inter		[37]
Germany	ARD	Deutsches Fernsehen		[22][35]
Italy	RAI	Programma Nazionale, Secondo Programma	Bianca Maria Piccinino	[37][38][39]
Luxembourg	CLT	Télé-Luxembourg		[40]
Netherlands	NTS	NTS	Piet te Nuyl Jr.	[35][41]
Switzerland	SRG SSR	SRG		[22][37]
		TSR	Robert Beauvais
		DRS 1
		RSR 1
		RSI
United Kingdom	BBC	BBC Television Service	Berkeley Smith	[1][12]

Broadcasters and commentators in non-participating countries

Country	Broadcaster	Channel(s)	Commentator(s)	Ref(s)
Monaco	Radio Monte-Carlo			[37][42]
Sweden	SR	Sveriges TV	Nils Linnman	[42]

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