The Spanish capital of Madrid hosted the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest after Massiel won the trophy in London the year before. Austria decided to stay home so the number of participants went down to 16 as no new countries entered.

Tie for first place

For the first time in the history of the Eurovision Song Contest, the outcome of the voting resulted in a tie for first place. Four countries gained 18 points each: France, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom. Since there was no solution for this situation, all four countries were declared winners. Luckily, there were four medals available to the four winning singers - the four medals were originally intended for the winning singer and three winning songwriters.

About the winners

The four winners differed a lot from one another: France had a haunting ballad performed by Frida Boccara, the Netherlands sent in Lenny Kuhr with a guitar, Spain and Salomé performed the energetic Vivo Cantando whereas the star from the United Kingdom, Lulu, the uptempo Boom Bang a Bang. However, having four winners caused a lot of criticism from the media and several TV-stations re-considered participating in the following Eurovision Song Contest.