Milestone Moments: 1969 - The Four-Way Tie

01 September 2016 at 14:00 CEST

The 1969 Eurovision Song Contest was held in Madrid, following Spain's victory the previous year in London. It is the only time that Spain has hosted the Eurovision Song Contest and it also marks the last time that Spain has won the competition. There were four winners in 1969 meaning that this particular contest would go down as being one of the most controversial in the competition's history. In part two of our Milestone Moments series we revisit that infamous contest.

The 1969 Eurovision Song Contest took place in the Teatro Real, an opera house in the Spanish capital, Madrid. 16 countries competed for the trophy. Monaco was represented by a 12 year old boy, Jean Jacques, who finished in 6th place whilst Austria withdrew from the competition.

Each country had a jury consisting of ten members who each awarded one point to their favourite song. At the end of the voting, four countries tied at the top of the scoreboard with 18 points. With no rule in place to decide the tie break, Spain, the UK, France and the Netherlands were all declared joint winners and were invited to perform their respective winning reprises.

The following year Finland, Portugal, Norway and Sweden all withdrew from the competition. The EBU introduced a tie break rule after the incident in 1969 meaning that from that point onwards, there will only ever be one winner of the Eurovision Song Contest.