Waarom

Belgium was represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 1963 with the song "", composed by with lyrics by Wim Brabants, and performed by Jacques Raymond. The Belgian participating broadcaster, Dutch-speaking (BRT), selected its entry through a national final. Raymond had previously finished second in the , and would later represent the country in a duet with Lily Castel in .

Before Eurovision

was the national final format developed by Dutch-speaking broadcaster (BRT) which determined the song that would represent Belgium at the Eurovision Song Contest 1963. The competition consisted of nine semi-finals held between October 1962 and February 1963, and a final on 16 February 1963.

''Canzonissima 1963'' was the first of four series of the show, with seasons in , 1967–1968, and . The 1966–1967 and 1970–1971 editions of the show acted as BRT's national final for the Eurovision Song Contest in their respective years. The ''Canzonissima'' format would also inspire the format for ', the first edition of ''Eurosong'' – the long-term Dutch-speaking selection for the Eurovision Song Contest.

Format

''1963'' consisted of nine semi-finals and final. Each semi-final consisted of twelve songs which would be scored by a jury panel and through audience voting. The top three songs from each semi-final qualified to the next semi-final, whilst the remaining songs would be eliminated and be replaced with new songs in the next semi-final. For a song to qualify to the final, it would have to finish in the top three in three consecutive semi-finals.

Since songs introduced in semi-finals 8 and 9 could not participate in three semi-finals, the rules for qualification were changed in semi-final 9. Instead, songs would have to get more than the average number of points that every song that qualified to the final got in their last semi-final.

Competing entries

Twelve artists, chosen by BRT, competed in ''1963'': Bob Benny, Chris Ellis, , , Jacques Raymond, , Jo Leemans, Lieve Olga, Lize Marke, , Staf Wesenbeek, and Will Ferdy. However, a list published by prior to the start of the first show claimed that Chris Wijnen would compete, instead of Bob Benny.

BRT opened submission periods for interested composers for all nine semi-finals separately. The submission deadline for each semi-final was 21 days prior to the airing of that semi-final. All submissions had to be anonymous (the names of the songwriter(s) of an entry were only revealed after a song was chosent to compete), include the lyrics and at least a piano score of the song, not have been published beforehand, and had to last no longer than 3½ minutes. A total of 88 songs were chosen to compete in ''1963''.

The songwriter(s) of a song were allowed to pick which of the twelve artists they would like to perform their song. However, BRT did not always follow the songwriter(s) recommendation. If a songwriter did not specify an artist then the same jury that chose the competing entries would select an artist for them.

Shows

= Semi-finals

=
Voting in the semi-finals was done by an applause meter and a 5-member jury panel. The applause meter gave out 1 to 50 points depending on how loud the applause from the audience was, but since it only counted noise, boos were also counted by the applause meter. The 5-member jury panel consisted of Pieter Leemans, Jef Claessen, , , and Gerd Mertens, who would each give out 1 to 10 points to every song.

After semi-final 3, "Ode aan de zon" was disqualified as it was released by the composer Henk van Montfoort. Because of this, the 4th places of semi-final 2 and semi-final 3 were added to semi-final 4, causing it to have 14 songs instead of 12.

After semi-final 4, "Kleine blauwe zwaluw" was disqualified as Bob Benny had published the song. Instead, "Zo mooi" by Jo Leemans qualified for the next semi-final.

To qualify from the ninth semi-final, songs had to receive at least 73 points, the average number of points that every previous song that qualified to the final got in their last semi-final.

= Final

=
The final was held on 16 February at the Amerikaans Theater in Brussels, hosted by Denise Maes and . The winner was chosen by two separate juries. The first jury consisted of 20 professionals, while the second jury consisted of 20 people who were mostly winners of , a Dutch-speaking music quiz show. At the start of the show, the hosts explained that the competition was exclusively to select the song that would represent Belgium in the Eurovision Song Contest 1963, and not the artist. However, Jacques Raymond was selected as the performer of "" at the Eurovision Song Contest 1963 anyway. Each song was sung twice by two different artists; songs 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 were performed by Anita Berry, and song 5 was performed by John De Mol, then every song was performed by the singer who performed it in the semi-finals.

At Eurovision

On the night of the final Raymond performed 14th in the running order, following and preceding . Voting was by each national jury awarding 5-4-3-2-1 to their top 5 songs, and at the close of the voting "" had received 4 points (all from ), placing Belgium 10th of the 16 competing entries. The Belgian jury awarded its 5 points to contest winners .

The contest was broadcast on BRT (with commentary by the hosts of the national final) and RTB (with commentary by Pierre Delhasse).

Voting

References

{{Eurovision Song Contest 1963

1963
Countries in the Eurovision Song Contest 1963
Eurovision