Belgium in the Eurovision Song Contest 1957

Eurovision Song Contest 1957
Country	Belgium
National selection
Selection process	Artist: Internal selection Song: De T.V. Maakt Muziek
Selection date(s)	19 February 1957
Selected entrant	Bobbejaan Schoepen
Selected song	"Straatdeuntje"
Selected songwriter(s)	Harry Frekin Eric Franssen
Finals performance
Final result	8th, 5 points
Belgium in the Eurovision Song Contest
◄1956 • 1957 • 1958►

Belgium was represented in the Eurovision Song Contest 1957 with the song "Straatdeuntje", composed by Harry Frekin, with lyrics by Eric Franssen, and performed in Dutch by Bobbejaan Schoepen. The Belgian participating broadcaster, Nationaal Instituut voor de Radio-omroep (NIR), selected its entry through a national final, after having previously selected the performer internally.

Flemish broadcaster Nationaal Instituut voor de Radio-omroep (NIR) opted to select their entry behind closed doors with a ten-member expert jury panel. However, the NIR did involve the public in the selection process by airing the candidate songs in a special edition of the show De T.V. Maakt Muziek.^[1]

In early 1957, NIR asked Bobbejaan Schoepen to represent them at Eurovision and, at the same time, asked seven composers to write songs for Schoepen. Since Schoepen was in the United States at the time, NIR decided to further reduce the number of songs. The seven songs were performed by other artists, and a jury selected three for Eurovision 1957. The singers of those three songs are unknown, but the singers of the other four are known as they were performed by their artists during the episode of De T.V. Maakt Muziek.^[1]

It is known that one of the songs was performed by Terry Lester, but not which.^[1]

Voting was done by a ten-member jury panel who each made rankings of the three songs and the ranking positions were summed. The jury panel which voted in the final consisted of: Marcel Put (composer; jury chairperson), Nic Bal [nl] (journalist), Francis Bay (conductor), Bob Boon [nl] (TV presenter and producer), Léonce Gras [nl] (NIR's musical director), Jacques Kruger (musical manager), Albert Rollewagen (music publisher), Paul Van Dessel [nl] (NIR's TV director), Gert Mertens, and Renaat Verbruggen [nl] (baritone singer).^[1]

The jury panel prepared to vote by watching the final of the 1957 Sanremo Music Festival and listening to the Dutch entry.^[1]

The results and winner of the national final weren't revealed until after the 19 February 1957 episode of De T.V. Maakt Muziek had aired.^[1]

NIR produced the show De T.V. Maakt Muziek which had been aired since 1955. The premise of the show was that it was roughly 40 minutes of just music videos and performances with hardly any speaking inbetween. On 19 February 1957 at 20:45 CET, an episode of the show was aired which featured the NIR's candidate songs for Eurovision 1957.^[1] The show was hosted at Studio 6 at the Flageyplein in Brussels. It was also broadcast in the Netherlands on Nederlandse Televisie Stichting (NTS).^[3] All three competing entries were performed by Bobbejaan Schoepen, as well as the four eliminated entries.^[1][2]

The show featured fourteen music videos. The first was set in a call centre and every subsequent video involved calling a "location" and then from that location a video of a song would be shown. The music was provided by the NIR entertainment orchestra, conducted by Francis Bay, and the Oscar De Nayer ensemble.^[2]

At the Eurovision Song Contest in Frankfurt, the Belgian entry was the first of the night preceding Luxembourg. Reflecting the song title, the stage was showing the picture of a street in the background. Schoepen delivered, as usual in these days, a simple performance which was remarkable because of the large whistling part in his song. At the close of voting, Belgium had received five points in total; the country finished shared eight among the ten participants. The Belgian jury gave half of its points, five, to the winning country, the Netherlands.

Each participating broadcaster assembled a ten-member jury panel. Every jury member could give one point to his or her favourite song. Among the jury members was Francis Bay, who would go on to conduct the Belgian entry at Eurovision in nine future edition of the contest.^[4]

Points awarded to Belgium[5] Score Country 2 points  Denmark  Germany 1 point   Switzerland

Points awarded by Belgium[5] Score Country 5 points  Netherlands 2 points  France 1 point  Germany  Italy  United Kingdom

• Jan Feddersen: Ein Lied kann eine Brücke sein. Die deutsche und internationale Geschichte des Grand Prix Eurovision. Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-455-09350-7.