United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 1968

The United Kingdom held a national preselection to choose the song that would go to the Eurovision Song Contest 1968. It was held on 5 March 1968 and presented by Cilla Black as a special edition of her debut BBC1 TV series 'Cilla'. Black had been the BBC's first choice to sing the 1968 UK entry, but she had turned it down as she did not believe any nation was likely to win back-to-back contests. As in 1967 when the UK won with Sandie Shaw, a current pop singer, Cliff Richard, was chosen to sing the song. Unlike the last three UK selections, the songs were not presented at all before the final. Instead, for the first time, the songs were broadcast twice in the final, with the performances repeated immediately after Richard had sung them successively. Viewers cast votes by postcard via mail to choose the winner and 171,300 chose Congratulations, a catchy party song, with the runner up over 140,000 behind in the poll. The result was broadcast one week later on 12 March 1968. Richard released all six short listed songs on an Extended Play maxi single titled Congratulations: Cliff sings 6 Songs for Europe, with the winner and the runner up being released on a standard single that spent two weeks at No.1 in the UK singles chart. This was the first of only two tracks from the Eurovision Song Contest that topped the UK chart without winning the competition. Cliff recorded French, German, Italian and Spanish versions of the winning song, as well as a German version of Wonderful World, which was also recorded (in English) by Elvis Presley.

Eurovision Song Contest 1968
Country	United Kingdom
National selection
Selection process	A Song For Europe
Selection date(s)	5 March 1968
Selected entrant	Cliff Richard
Selected song	"Congratulations"
Selected songwriter(s)	Bill Martin Phil Coulter
Finals performance
Final result	2nd, 28 points
United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest
◄1967 • 1968 • 1969►

Congratulations finished a close second in the contest, losing only to Spain by one point.

As the contest was held in the UK, the BBC opted not to send a Television commentator, instead Katie Boyle introduced each act from the stage. However Pete Murray provided commentary for BBC Radio 1. The contest was also broadcast on British Forces Radio with commentary provided by Thurston Holland. Michael Aspel served as the spokesperson for the U.K jury.

Results

Artist	Song	Place	Points*
Cliff Richard	Wonderful World	3	19,990
Cliff Richard	Do you Remember?	6	4,200
Cliff Richard	High 'n' Dry	2	30,500
Cliff Richard	The Sound of the Candyman's Trumpet	4	11,200
Cliff Richard	Congratulations	1	171,300
Cliff Richard	Little Rag Doll	5	10,400
The table is ordered by appearance.
*Points were only announced rounded up.

"Congratulations" won the national and went on to come 2nd in the contest.