The Narcissus Festival in Montreux which was held exactly 50 years ago, on June 6th 1954, was the first transmission over the Eurovision network, and this is of course a cause for celebration today in the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

The EBU marked on June 6th the foundation of the Eurovision network with a special tribute- the renaming of the Montreux squere into “Place de l'Eurovision”, which is of course The Eurovision squere.

The first Eurovision viewers eagerly watched on 4 million television sets in homes, bars, and shop windows in Germany, Belgium, France, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. This first technical exploit opened the way for many other shared pictures, among them is one of the EBU's most recognized and enduring project, The Eurovision Song Contest, which will celebrate it's 50th anniversary in 2005.

'Our Eurovision network, providing daily transmissions of news pictures and sound, supporting the creation of documentaries, youth programming, and fiction, while entertaining, and also promoting cultural exchanges or the diversity of languages, has a duty to promote at every opportunity the fundamental values that only the public service can provide with real continuity', says Jean Réveillon, the EBU Secretary General.

Esctoday.com would like to wish the Eurovision network and the EBU a very happy 50th anniversary!