The world gears up for Live Earth

On Sunday 25 June 1967, the Eurovision programme 'Our World' - the first-ever live international television production - was broadcast across the globe between 9pm and 11pm CET.

As the EBU website reminds us, it was an undertaking of incredible complexity, involving control rooms around the world, three satellites (Intelsat I, Intelsat II, and ATS-1), over 1.5 million km of cable, and ten thousand technicians and programme staff.

The ground rules for the show included that everything had to be live, and that no politicians or heads of state must be seen. Nevertheless, the world's politicians almost wrecked it. Just four days before the broadcast, five Eastern block countries dropped out. They were protesting the West's response to the 'Six day War' in the Middle East.

But the show went ahead to an estimated audience of between 400 and 700 million, an enormous audience even by today's standards. All in black and white, and various shades of grey, as colour TV was still in its infancy.

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source: RNW

photo:EBU