News - Happy 50th birthday: Eurovision Song Contest | Eurovision Song Contest News - 2010 Oslo, Norway 

Yesterday, 24th May, 2006 marked the actual 50th birthday of the Eurovision Song Contest. Today, one day later, we look back at the first contest in detail. It all started 50 years ago, in the Teatro Kursaal, Lugano, Switzerland. Just seven countries entered that first contest, each competing with two songs each. The honour of being the very first song ever went to the Netherlands with Jetty Paerl performing De vogels van holland. Since then 45 different countries have entered, and over a thousand songs have competed in the annual contest.

The 1956 event was introduced for the first and only time to date by just one male presenter Lohengrin Filipello. Since then, there have been 67 different presenters, including two people who presented the contest more than once, Jacqueline Joubert (1959 & 1961) and Katie Boyle (1960, 1963, 1968 & 1974). There have been a varierty of former participants and winners who have also presented the contest, amongst them Corry Brokken, Gigliola Cinquetti, Yardena Arazi, Lils Lindfors, Ase Kleveland, Toto Cutugno, Dafna Dekel, Renars Kaupers, Marie N and most recently Sakis Rouvas.

The first contest was won by the host nation, Switzerland with the song Refrain sung by Lys Assia, composed by Geo Voumard and Emile Gardaz, and conducted by Fernando Paggi. There are now a total of 54 songs have taken the title of Eurovision song contest winner, up to Hard rock, hallelujah from Lordi, including no less than four songs in 1969, following a tie in the voting.

That first contest had no scoreboard, the winner was just announced at the end, the voting was never made public. Each country was to send just two jurors each to the contest. Since then there have been a variety of voting systems, and now thousands of people all over Europe and beyond, use their phones to choose the winning song.

It seems that from the first contest only audio recordings exist in the archives, plus a few minutes of newsreel footage showing Lys Assia being presented with flowers and performing her winning reprise. We have witnessed the contest go from black and white television on 405 lines, then onto a more defined  625 lines,  to colour, then came stereo and internet broadcasts. Last week's contest has been recorded in High Definition Television for the archives of the future.

From its humble beginings, the Eurovision Song Contest has gained a massive following, with fan clubs all over the world, and of course internet sites like esctoday.com!

To everyone who has been involved in the Eurovision Song Contest over the last fifty years, we say a happy 50th birthday!