The first Eurovision Song Contest in 1956 may not have produced any significant international hits, but the show was deemed to be a success and it was repeated in 1957. In the early days of the contest, there was no agreement that the winner would host the following year's event. Indeed had there been, there may well have been a slight problem as hosts Switzerland won in 1956 and in the early years of the competition, the host broadcaster bore the whole cost of organizing the event, something which may have challenged the Swiss broadcaster had they to do it for a second successive year.   

While the first Eurovision Song Contest was staged in late May, the second event was held in early March, meaning that there was only 283 days between the shows, which remains a record for the shortest gap between contests. 

It was agreed that West Germany would host the second contest, supporting the rumour that one of the German entries was the runner- up in 1956. The event was staged in Frankfurt-am-Main, a city which despite having significantly better facilities, had a few years earlier been narrowly beaten by Bonn in a competition to decide the capital city of the post war West German state.

Frankfurt was the biggest city in the American administered sector of Germany and during the 1950s it underwent one of the biggest re-building projects of any German city and was transformed into the  country's financial centre. 

The venue chosen for the 1957 Eurovision Song Contest was the Grosser Sendesaal des Hessisches Rundfunk (above), a television studio at the headquarters of the regional broadcaster that was responsible for staging the contest. Once again the live studio audience was less less than three hundred people.

Though the Eurovision Song Contest is now synonymous with Saturday night television viewing, early contests drew a much larger radio audience and the show was not staged on a Saturday until the eighth contest in 1963. 

All seven countries that participated in the first Eurovision Song Contest in 1956, returned a year later. In addition the three countries that had missed the deadline in 1956 made their Eurovision debuts in Frankfurt; Austria, Denmark and the United Kingdom.  

With ten countries in competition, it was decided that there would only be one song from each. A few other adjustments to the rules were also made. Entrants were now allowed to appear as duos, but groups of more than two were not permitted. 

Unlike 1956, several of the entries in 1957 including the first Austrian Eurovision entry, were internal selections made by the broadcaster. By contrast the BBC chose a very elaborate selection process to choose the first Eurovision entry from the United Kingdom, this included a series of three semi-finals, and the first ever use of regional juries to select the entry. 

With no reprises of the songs and no interval, the international juries had very little time to compile their votes before being called in by presenter Anaïd Iplicjian and her assistant telephonist. Thankfully the voting system was very straightforward. Each country had a jury consisting of ten members. Each juror had one vote, which they awarded to their favorite song, which could not be their own country's entry. Therefore each country awarded ten votes and with no translation of most votes, the voting sequence is the shortest in Eurovision history. The running order for voting was the reverse of the order in which the songs were performed. One other peculiarity to modern eyes is that the scoreboard did not contain the names of the countries, but only the titles of the songs.

If you like you Eurovision voting to be close and exciting, then you will find1957 to be very disappointing. The first jury from Switzerland awarded 7 of its 10 points to Netherlands and after just three countries had voted, it was pretty obvious that the Dutch were going to come out on top as they had scored 14 points, with West Germany back in second with only 6, all awarded by France. The Netherlands would go on to become the first country to lead the voting from start to finish, and gain points from every other jury, something which has been a surprisingly rare achievement in the intervening years.

In the end the only real competition was to see which country would finish as runner-up. When Luxembourg, the second last jury, awarded 4 points to France, it was clear that the French would be 2nd. After a very slow start in the voting, the Danish entry finished 3rd.

The biggest disappointment of the night was Switzerland who not only failed to repeat the success achieved a year earlier, but ended up with only one country finishing behind them, their neighbours Austria, opening their Eurovision account by finishing last, a result that would become quite familiar in years to come. 

Below you can find a table with the votes as they appeared after each country voted. 

"Net als toen" was chosen as the 1957 Dutch Eurovision entry in a national final staged in Hilversum on February 3rd. The winning entry, which was one of two songs performed by Corry Brokken in the selection and was chosen by the Dutch public, in a postal vote. 

When she returned to the Eurovision stage in 1957 with ""Net als toen" " she was accompanied by the diminutive violist Sem Nijveen, who's solo played in a major part in the performance of the song. Combined with Corry's expressive performance, "Net als toen" went on to become one of the biggest runaway winners in Eurovision history. However despite its success at Eurovision and the fact that Corry Brokken also recorded the song in French and German, it was not a huge commercial success outside the Netherlands. 

Corry Brokken returned to the Eurovision for a third time in 1958, but her song "Heel de wereld" (The whole world), but only scored a single point and ended up sharing last place. In 1960, Corry had her biggest commercial success when her version of Edith Piaf's "Milord" went on to be a huge hit in the Netherlands, despite outraging more conservative elements, with its theme of prostitution. For the rest of the decade Corry turned to a career in television. 

It was therefore no surprise when in 1976, Corry became the first former Eurovision Song Contest winner to present the competition, when it was staged in The Hague. A now more studious looking Corry chose the same year to give up her entertainment career and decided to study law. Corry became just as successful in her legal career and in 1988 she became a judge.

In 1997, the 40th anniversary of her Eurovision triumph, Corry Brokken called in the Dutch Eurovision votes and in 2003 she came out of retirement to become one of the guest judges in the Dutch Eurovision selection.

The composer of "Net als toen" was Guus Jansen, who was born in 1911, and who today is best remembered as a very successful jazz pianist. The lyricist behind the first Dutch winner was Willy van Hemert, born in Utrecht in 1912. During the 1940s he became successful writing musical revues and cabaret shows. In the 1950s he became involved in writing for television and he was associated with many successful shows. In 1951 he wrote and directed the very first television drama broadcast in the Netherlands: De Toverspiegel (The Magic Mirror).

"Net als toen" was the first of three Eurovision entries by Willy van Hemert. He returned in 1959 with "Een beetje", becoming the first songwriter behind two Eurovision winners, while his 1960 song "Wat een geluk" (What luck) which finished 12th, one of the worst results for a host nation at Eurovision. After Eurovision van Hermert's continued to concentrate on writing, directing and later producing for television until the 1980s. In 1972 he won the prestigious "Golden Harp" award. Willy van Hermert died in 1993.

The conductor of "Net als toen", was Dolf var den Linden, one of the most famous figures in Dutch musical television. He is still fondly remembered by Irish Eurovision fans as the man who conducted the orchestra for "All Kinds Of Everything", Ireland's first Eurovision Song Contest winner in 1970.