The Eurovision Song Contest History

At the beginning of the television age in the early 1950’s, the European television landscape offered the image of a political divided and technical fragmented continent. Despite this sober picture of the European television landscape, some rays of hope have risen up to the European television sky in the early 1950’s.

Under these rays of hope, the light of one star has shone very promising: the star of “Eurovision”. The Eurovision emblem is designed in 1954 by Timothy O'Brien (BBC).

At the end of January 1955, Marcel Bezençon (president of the EBU Programme Committee), meeting in Monte Carlo, approved a project for further study: "European song contest" The competition was based upon the existing Sanremo Music Festival, held in Italy, and was seen also as a technological experiment in live television: in those days, it was a very ambitious project to join many countries together in a wide-area international network

Meeting in the Palazzo Corsini in Rome on 19 October 1955 (chaired by Sir Ian Jacob, director general of the BBC) the EBU General Assembly agreed to the organizing of a European Grand Prix to be held in Lugano in the spring of 1956.

The name "Eurovision" was first mentioned in relation to the EBU's network in the London Evening Standard from the 5th of November 1951. Written by the British journalist George Campey, he dubbed the Contest "Eurovision Grand Prix". The "Grand Prix" name was adopted by the Francophone countries, where the Contest became known as "Le Grand-Prix Eurovision de la Chanson Européenne". The "Grand Prix" has since been dropped and replaced with "Concours" (contest).

The Eurovision Network is used to carry many news and sports programmes internationally, among other specialised events organised by the EBU. However, the Song Contest is by far the most high profile of these programmes, and has long since become synonymous with the name "Eurovision".

from esc-history.com