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Post by Dave Andrews on Oct 4, 2018 16:51:20 GMT
Apologies if this has come up before (I've done a search and nothing comes up), and apologies because strictly this isn't about a missing episode (Mods - feel free to move this to a more appropriate location) but this seems the best place to ask this.
BBC2 started scheduled colour transmissions in July '67 and in March '68 the '68 Eurovision Song Contest was held, in wonderful PAL colour, in London ('cos we won the '67 !). The UK broadcasts were in B&W on BBC1, and then repeated the following night in colour on BBC2.
But what happened in 1969 ? The ESC was in March but BBC1 didn't start scheduled colour broadcasts until November. However, there's no colour repeat shown in BBC Genome for any time that year on BBC2.
So, was the ESC only broadcast in B&W that year, or ... was it sneakily transmitted in colour on those BBC1 transmitters enabled for colour ? (As indeed some, few, programmes were prior to the November launch).
It just seems odd that the Beeb would go to the trouble of a colour repeat on BBC2 in for the '68 ESC, but apparently not bother in '69.
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Post by paul carney on Oct 4, 2018 17:11:01 GMT
To the best of my knowledge the show was broadcast from Spain who didn't have colour tv until the early 70s.All countries broadcast the feed from the host broadcaster.
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Post by Dave Andrews on Oct 4, 2018 17:16:32 GMT
No, it was in colour, there are plently of videos of it (YouTube).
It was the year of the four-way win, we (Lulu, Boom Bang-a-banging) had a quarter share in the win.
True Spain itself had no colour TV service, but 'Spanish TV' hired colour equipment (from Germany, I believe) for the occasion.
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Post by paul carney on Oct 4, 2018 17:29:59 GMT
I stand corrected😊
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Post by Dave Andrews on Oct 4, 2018 17:40:31 GMT
But you've got me thinking ...  The previous year Spain won over Cliff Richard with a song consisting mainly of La,la,la's, and indeed some allege that Gen.Franco bribed a few juries, so maybe the Beeb just didn't want to give Spain much of a show ... ? Or, perhaps the Beeb didn't want its UK audience to even think that Spain already had colour TV when we were just getting going with it. Otherwise it just seems odd that the Beeb would apparently turn down an opportunity to push colour with a show that was very very popular, even then. |
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Post by Ray Langstone (was saintsray) on Oct 4, 2018 18:13:50 GMT
Well, diplomatic relations with Spain were at an all-time low in 1969; the border with Gibraltar was closed with Spain in the Summer of that year; my immediate thought is that may have had something to do with it.
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Post by Ray Langstone (was saintsray) on Oct 4, 2018 18:14:54 GMT
.....plus also, the fact that relations were fraught at the time may have made the Spanish not inform the UK until shortly before the contest that they were hiring in colour equipment....
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Post by gordonroxburgh on Oct 4, 2018 18:15:27 GMT
The 1969 Eurovision Song Contest was indeed produced and broadcast in colour. However it was only shown in the UK on BBC1 in black and white, as BBC1 didn't start colour transmission until November 1969.
The 1968 contest, produced by the BBC was the first contest to be broadcast in colour. Likewise it was broadcast live on BBC1 in black and white. However it was re-broadcast the following day on BBC2 in colour. The 1969 contest is therefore the only contest never to have been broadcast in colour in the UK. From 1970 BBC1 broadcast all subsequent contests live in colour.
Unfortunately the BBC has not retained their broadcasts of either the 1968 or 1969 contests (or indeed 1970 or 1971) but several other European broadcasters have retained them, although no broadcaster has an entire full colour copy of the 1970 contest, although about 95% exists in colour with the rest only available in black and white.
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Post by Dave Andrews on Oct 4, 2018 20:42:28 GMT
The 1969 Eurovision Song Contest was indeed produced and broadcast in colour. However it was only shown in the UK on BBC1 in black and white, as BBC1 didn't start colour transmission until November 1969. The 1968 contest, produced by the BBC was the first contest to be broadcast in colour. Likewise it was broadcast live on BBC1 in black and white. However it was re-broadcast the following day on BBC2 in colour. <snip> Err, sorry but that's what I said in my original post. The question is ... Was the '69 actually broadcast only in b&w or was it broadcast in unannounced colour on BBC1 ? It's the fact that they didn't do a colour repeat on BBC2 that time that makes me wonder. There were some unadvertised colour broadcasts (not all transmitters) on BBC1 before November '69 ... was this one of them ? |
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Post by gordonroxburgh on Oct 4, 2018 21:48:25 GMT
I was just confirming your original post. The 1969 contest was ONLY broadcast on BBC1 in black and white, and was never broadcast in colour by the BBC. My understanding is that at the time as the host broadcaster in 1968 the BBC had the rights to do what they wanted with the show (ie a repeat the following day on BBC2). The Spanish broadcaster TVE hold the rights for the 1969 contest, and if the BBC had wanted to repeat the show, either in colour or black and white then they would have had to pay for the privilege, which was probably something they weren't prepared to do.
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SydV
Member
Posts: 203
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Post by SydV on Oct 5, 2018 9:46:39 GMT
The 1969 Eurovision Song Contest was indeed produced and broadcast in colour. However it was only shown in the UK on BBC1 in black and white, as BBC1 didn't start colour transmission until November 1969. The 1968 contest, produced by the BBC was the first contest to be broadcast in colour. Likewise it was broadcast live on BBC1 in black and white. However it was re-broadcast the following day on BBC2 in colour. <snip> Err, sorry but that's what I said in my original post. The question is ... Was the '69 actually broadcast only in b&w or was it broadcast in unannounced colour on BBC1 ? It's the fact that they didn't do a colour repeat on BBC2 that time that makes me wonder. There were some unadvertised colour broadcasts (not all transmitters) on BBC1 before November '69 ... was this one of them ? BBC1 began colour tests on UHF in September 1969, Eurovision was in March so the answer would be no. Pure speculation, but one possibility for it not being repeated on BBC2 in colour would be that the viewing figures for the 1968 repeat wouldn't justify it. Another would be that BBC2 were screening the major series of the period "Civilization" at 8:15-9:05pm on Sunday so scheduling it around that might have been an issue as well. |
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Post by Dave Andrews on Oct 5, 2018 12:36:59 GMT
Yeh, that could well be the answer.
I see that the '68 BBC2 repeat was actually a 'special', earlier than the normal '2' schedule ie it was 16.30 (the Sunday 'tea-time' slot). BBC2 normally opened later at 19.00, so come '69 (when '2' still opened at 19.00) maybe they thought, as you suggest, on previous experience it was just not not worth the bother.
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