The Eurovision Song Contest 1968 was the 13th Eurovision Song Contest. The contest was won by the Spanish song "La La La", performed by Massiel.

Originally Spain entered Joan Manuel Serrat to sing "La La La", however his demand to sing in Catalan was an affront to Francoist Spain. Serrat was withdrawn by Spain and replaced by Massiel who sang the same song in Spanish.

1968 was the first time that the Eurovision Song Contest was broadcast in colour. The countries that broadcast it in colour were France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom as an encore presentation on BBC2 the next day.

Spain's victory was their first. According to author and historian John Kennedy O'Connor in his book The Eurovision Song Contest – The Official History, the margin of victory – 1 vote – was the closest contest to date and the relative margin – 3.45% – the 6th closest contest ever.

Allegations of vote rigging

In May 2008, a documentary by the Spanish film-maker Montse Fernandez Vila alleged that the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest was rigged by the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who sent state television officials across Europe offering cash and promising to buy television series and contract unknown artists in return for votes for the Spanish entry. The documentary claimed that the contest should in fact have been won by the United Kingdom's entry – "Congratulations" performed by Cliff Richard – which finished second by 1 vote.

Massiel, the performer of the winning entry, was outraged by the allegations, insisting to have won because her song was better, and that Franco would have not been able to buy any votes for her in the first place. She also blamed the allegations on competition among Spanish TV channels.

Individual Entries

Results

Score sheet

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center; font-size: 85%" !colspan="2" rowspan="2" | !colspan="43"|Results |-

Draw	Country	Language	Artist	Song	English Translation	Place	Points
1		Portuguese	Carlos Mendes	Verão	Summer	11	5
2		Dutch	Ronnie Tober	Morgen	Tomorrow	16	1
3		French	Claude Lombard	Quand Tu Reviendras	When Will You Come Back	7	8
4		German	Karel Gott	Tausend Fenster	Thousands Of Windows	13	2
5		French	Chris Baldo & Sophie Garel	Nous Vivrons D'Amour	We Will Live By Love	11	5
6		Italian	Gianni Mascoio	Guardando Il Sole	Looking Into The Sun	13	2
7		French	Line & Willy	À Chacun Sa Chanson	To Everyone His Song	7	8
8		Swedish	Claes-Göran Hederström	Det börjar verka kärlek, banne mej	It's Beginning To Look Like Love, Damn It	5	15
9		Finnish	Kristina Hautala	Kun Kello Käy	When Time Goes By	16	1
10		French	Isabelle Aubret	La Source	The Source	3	20
11		Italian	Sergio Endrigo	Marianne	-	10	7
12		English	Cliff Richard	Congratulations	-	2	28
13		Norwegian	Odd Børre	Stress	Stress	13	2
14		English	Pat McGeegan	Chance Of A Lifetime	-	4	18
15		Spanish	Massiel	La La La	-	1	29
16		German	Wencke Myhre	Ein Hoch Der Liebe	A Toast To Love	6	11
17		Serbo-Croatian	Luči Kapurso & Hamo Hajdarhodžić	Jedan dan	One Day	7	8
	Portugal		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	3	0	0
	Netherlands	0		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Belgium	1	0		0	1	0	0	0	1	1	3	1	0	0	0	0	0
	Austria	0	0	0		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0
	Luxembourg	0	1	0	1		0	1	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	0
	Switzerland	0	0	0	0	0		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2
	Monaco	0	2	0	0	1	0		0	3	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	0
	Sweden	1	1	0	0	0	0	0		1	0	0	2	6	4	0	0	0
	Finland	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0		0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0
	France	0	3	6	2	3	3	0	1	0		2	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Italy	1	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	0		0	0	0	2	0	2
	United Kingdom	1	2	2	0	1	4	5	3	2	4	1		0	1	0	2	0
	Norway	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0		0	1	0	0
	Ireland	1	1	1	4	1	0	0	4	0	0	0	0	0		0	0	6
	Spain	4	0	0	2	1	0	4	0	3	4	3	0	1	1		6	0
	Germany	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	2	0	0	0	5	0	0	2		0
	Yugoslavia	1	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	0	2
THE TABLE IS ORDERED BY APPEARANCE

Map

References