1967 was a watershed in the history of Jeux Sans Frontières. The format got a brush-up, with all competing countries meeting eachother in every contest, so each fortnightly event would feature six countries rather than just two. It meant every edition would be of partisan interest to viewers from every competing nation, with the knock-on effect of consistently high viewing figures across Europe. Additionally, two nations new to JSF made their debuts: Great Britain and Switzerland. 

Initially the new teams, particularly the British found the competition more intense than they expected. The professionalism of the established teams was remarkable and the new nations had to find their feet quickly. The first British team to compete, Bridlington, came an ignominious last in Paris, the victims of poorly organised preparation and training. The Llandudno team who contested the heat in Locarno, Switzerland, were better prepared, having tackled a home-made assault course in the weeks leading up to the event, but even they admitted their most drastic undertaking prior to the event was that "the lads have laid off the beer"... It would be two years before a British team tasted the ultimate JSF success, when Shrewsbury came out joint winners of the 1969 International Final. This was after a tie-breaker, following the event - held in Blackpool, GB - having ended in a draw between Shrewsbury and the German team of Wolfsburg. Britain lost the tie-breaker, but in a gesture that serves to confirm the camaraderie between nations competing in JSF, the Germans sportingly agreed to call it a draw after all and had another trophy made so that the two towns could share it. Ahhhhh... What a nice bunch that Wolfsburg team were.

Transmissions of the 1960s editions of Jeux Sans Frontières were, as they would continue to be in the future, broadcast via the Eurovision Network. This network, administered by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), linked each affiliated country via cable and (in later years) satellite connections. The EBU transmissions of JSF events would be sent live down the wire and this feed would either be recorded and subsequently edited into a shorter programme dispensing with the set up time between each game (as usually happened in Britain) or transmitted live (as in Belgium, for instance). British transmissions were usually delayed by a day or two in the Sixties - incredibly many 1970s British Jeux Sans Frontières broadcasts were shown months after their broadcasts in mainland Europe. The language problem was dealt with by the competing countries sending commentators to each event, from where they would add a commentary for their audience at home. These would often be sent home via low bandwidth telephone cables - British broadcasts, for example, regularly sounded like they had been recorded in a bucket, but somehow this just added to the fun!

The series was certainly popular: for instance the 1968 International Final, staged in Brussels, Belgium, garnered 13 million viewers in Great Britain alone. Very impressive.

At this point in the series and throughout the era ending in 1982, each competing country hosted one of the international heats, with their national commentators hosting the event in person. The hosting of the International Final was generally decided on a rota basis.

The 1968 series proved difficult to mount, following student riots in Paris, which disrupted and ultimately cancelled the planned French heat. The 1968 series ended up starting a fortnight late, in Zofingen, Switzerland and a replacement heat was hurriedly organised to take place in Schwäbisch-Hall, Germany, in addition to the already-scheduled German heat in Siegen. The troubles contributed to France's non-entry in the 1969 competitions.

1970 saw the return of the French teams and for the first time, JSF was transmitted In Living Colour.

by Alan Hayes
with thanks to JSFnetFRANCE
and Philippe Minet