Eurovision 1978: The ghost of Contests yet to come | Song super cut and animated scoreboard

An edited down version of the Eurovision Song Contest 1978 from Paris, with a scoreboard using today’s technology. This all started as a lockdown project!

This edit will give a flavour of the evening (22 April, 8:30:01pm) with a great early Wogan commentary. Footage comes via @SvenskTV once again, who provides some decent quality ARD footage, despite the issues with SECAM and the like.

As Léon Zitrone says at the beginning of the show, France had won this Contest 5 times, but 1978 represents only the third time a French broadcaster had hosted. If you totalled up the French music industry’s wins in Luxembourg and Monaco, Paris would be ahead of Ireland in all time wins of course. There’s a suggestion in one of the Irish newspapers that the newly separated TF1 (ORTF was split-up in 1975) intended to host 78 in Cannes, but modern security restrictions meant that Paris was the only city practicable. According to one journalist, TF1 decided to ‘hide’ the Contest in the sprawling Palais de Congrès in the northwest of the city - it took that particular journalist 30 minutes to find the auditorium where the rehearsals were happening, Paris and the Palais, bustling obliviously outside.

Once inside the hall, the vast majority of contemporaneous reports mention the lack of organisation. Whereas 1977 had challenges in the months leading up to the show, the days before 1978 were considered shambolic.

One cause of consternation appears to be the long rehearsals, where poor production lead to a complex presentation. There was a slippery stage with steps (which caught a few out) as well as problematic, casual backstage staff. Overall, the biggest issue was the sound mix that made it out to air, something which UK entrant Co-Co, and others like Turkey, felt cost them points on the night despite positive reactions in the hall. Despite bullish bookies, the UK fell to its worst performance so far, having never finished outside the top 10 before. The lingering wide shots, often missing close ups of carefully choreographed dance routines of many acts didn’t help.

There are positives though. The venue was optically impressive and the giant ladle-orchestra holder was an interesting idea. Lasers were clearly an attempt at a showstopper. Overall, because of the camera shots, this show feels a lot less visually interesting than 1977. The scoreboard was actually placed in another TV studio (perhaps in the Palais de Congrès, it has two within the complex) and was shown to the auditorium audience on a large screen. Many (BBC) viewers felt the board was hard to read - it lacks some punch of the 1977 board. Luckily there’s a YouTube channel dedicated to sorting this sort of stuff!

The double-headed presentation, the split screen during the scoring and the backstage shots of artists would all become staples of a modern show, which is noteworthy. The selection of songs felt like a good representation of where the Contest would be in the 1980s. To my mind, Switzerland, Denmark, France, Austria are all songs we’ll hear well into the next decade - a decade often considered a low point for Eurovision.

The big disappointment from 1977 was the chaotic voting, and TF1 had a very successful, errorless run which Mr Naef must have been proud of. The juries handed Israel it’s first win in emphatic fashion, with ‘A-Ba-Ni-Bi’ taking control of the board as soon as 6 juries in. It appears to have been an unpopular winner amongst fans, journalists, Jordanians, and the BBC audience - ‘A-Ba-Ni-Bi’ had been written for a Children’s Song Contest and squeaked through a tough Israeli selection programme. Unfortunately for the Contest, neither the 1977 or 1978 winner proved commercially successful, despite both being lauded by fans for years to come and this year really marked the end of the Paris music industry’s sway too. The Contest’s future looked increasingly like a predominately television spectacle rather than a blue-riband music event.


DESIGN AND THE BOARD
I think this year was a hard one to approach, but the saving grace with the choice of ITC Bernase Roman as a typeface for the scoreboard. It’s worth noting it doesn’t feature anywhere else, including the logo. The luma keyed name straps are so poorly rendered, the typeface is pretty much indistinguishable. So for me, with typefaces like Bernese being in fashion for branding, I decided to make a thing of it. Rainbow colours and prominent typography was my approach. I decided to let the rainbow sing and use dark backings elsewhere.

TRANSFER NEWS
BACK: DEN after 12 years!, TUR who decided to compete against Greece for the first time
18 + 2 = 20 - a new record.

INTERVAL ACT
A collection of performers doing jazz, cabaret type music.

CREDITS
@SvenskTV for the footage once again!
@JDSWorld for newspapers and research!
David King for French help!
Flags: countryflags.com

00:00 Intro with talkback
07:26 Song super-cut
49:00 Interval
53:58 The reorder board 78
1:25:30 Recap