Eurovision Song Contest 1976

Eurovision Song Contest 1976
Dates
Final date	3 April 1976
Host
Venue	Nederlands Congrescentrum The Hague, Netherlands
Presenter(s)	Corry Brokken
Conductor	Jan Steulen
Director	Theo Ordeman
Executive supervisor	Clifford Brown
Host broadcaster	Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (NOS)
Interval act	The Dutch Swing College Band
Participants
Number of entries	18
Debuting countries	None
Returning countries	Austria  Greece
Withdrawing countries	Malta  Sweden  Turkey
Participation map      Participating countries     Countries that participated in the past but not in 1976
Vote
Voting system	Each country awarded 12, 10, 8-1 points to their 10 favourite songs
Nul points	None
Winning song	United Kingdom "Save Your Kisses for Me"
Eurovision Song Contest
◄1975 • 1976 • 1977►

The Eurovision Song Contest 1976 was the 21st edition of the contest hosted by NOS and held in The Hague, Netherlands. The arena for the event was the Nederlands Congrescentrum. Teach-In's victory in Stockholm the previous year gave The Netherlands the right to host the contest for the third time. The Contest was won by Brotherhood of Man, who sang "Save Your Kisses for Me" in English, representing the United Kingdom.^[1]

Location

Nederlands Congrescentrum, The Hague. Host venue of the 1976 Eurovision Song Contest.

The songfestival was hosted in The Hague, at the Nederlands Congrescentrum (presently known as the World Forum). The venue was constructed in 1969.

Format

The scoring system introduced in the previous year's competition returned in 1976. Each jury gave 12 points to the best song, 10 to the second best, then 8 to the third, 7 to the fourth, 6 to the fifth and so forth until the tenth best song (in the jury's opinion) received a single point. Unlike today, the points were not given in order (from 1 up to 12), but in the order the songs were performed. The current procedure was not established until 1980.

Participating countries

Sweden, Malta and Turkey withdrew from this contest reducing the number of participating countries down to eighteen from the previous competitions record of nineteen countries that took part. Austria and Greece returned to the contest.^[1]

Sweden withdrew from the contest, as the broadcaster Sveriges Radio (SR) did not have enough money to host another contest if Sweden won again. A new rule was therefore introduced that in the future each broadcaster participating would have to pay a part of the cost of staging the contest. As the author and historian John Kennedy O'Connor notes in his book The Eurovision Song Contest - The Official History, there had been public demonstrations in Sweden against the contest, which also played a part in SR's decision to withdraw.^[2] The same book also notes that the victorious song went on to become the biggest selling winning single in the history of the contest and won with 80.39% of the possible maximum score; a record under the voting system introduced in 1975.^[3]

Malta, having selected Enzo Guzman with the song "Sing Your Song, Country Boy" to represent them, then withdrew from the contest for undisclosed reasons, as the singer has confirmed.^[4] Malta would not return to the competition until 1991. The entry from Greece aroused controversy as it was about the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The previous year Greece had withdrawn from the contest in protest over this matter. This year it was Turkey's turn to withdraw.

Liechtenstein attempted to submit an entry to the contest, but as they had no broadcasting service of their own, they were not allowed to. Their entry would have been "Little Cowboy" by Biggi Bachmann.^[4][5]

Conductors

Each performance had a conductor who maestro the orchestra.

Returning artists

Four artists returned to the contest in 1976. Fredi who represented Finland in 1967, Sandra Reemer returned having represented Netherlands in 1972, Peter, Sue and Marc also returned having represented Switzerland in 1971, and finally Anne-Karine Strøm represented Norway again having last done so in 1974; she repeated her finishing result by coming last once more.

Results

Draw	Country	Language[6]	Artist	Song	English translation	Place	Points
01	United Kingdom	English	Brotherhood of Man	"Save Your Kisses for Me"	-	1	164
02	Switzerland	English	Peter, Sue and Marc	"Djambo, Djambo"	-	4	91
03	Germany	German	Les Humphries Singers	"Sing Sang Song"	-	15	12
04	Israel	Hebrew	Chocolate, Menta, Mastik	"Emor Shalom" (אמור שלום)	Say Hello	6	77
05	Luxembourg	French	Jürgen Marcus	"Chansons pour ceux qui s'aiment"	Songs for Those Who Love Each Other	14	17
06	Belgium	French	Pierre Rapsat	"Judy et Cie"	Judy and co	8	68
07	Ireland	English	Red Hurley	"When"	-	10	54
08	Netherlands	English	Sandra Reemer	"The Party's Over"	-	9	56
09	Norway	English	Anne-Karine Strøm	"Mata Hari"	-	18	7
10	Greece	Greek	Mariza Koch	"Panagia Mou, Panagia Mou" (Παναγιά μου, Παναγιά μου)	My lady, my lady	13	20
11	Finland	English	Fredi & Ystävät	"Pump-Pump"	-	11	44
12	Spain	Spanish	Braulio	"Sobran las palabras"	Words are Unnecessary	16	11
13	Italy	English, Italian	Al Bano & Romina Power	"We'll Live It All Again" (Noi lo rivivremo di nuovo)	-	7	69
14	Austria	English	Waterloo & Robinson	"My Little World"	-	5	80
15	Portugal	Portuguese	Carlos do Carmo	"Uma flor de verde pinho"	A Green-Pine Flower	12	24
16	Monaco	French	Mary Christy	"Toi, la musique et moi"	You, the Music and I	3	93
17	France	French	Catherine Ferry	"Un, deux, trois"	One, Two, Three	2	147
18	Yugoslavia	Bosnian	Ambasadori	"Ne mogu skriti svoju bol"	I Can't Hide My Pain	17	10

Scoreboard

		Results
	United Kingdom	164		12	8	12	8	12	3	10	12	12	10	12	4	10	12	10	7	10
	Switzerland	91	12		5	4	1	7	1	6	10	2	7	4		8	7	4	6	7
	Germany	12		2			2	1						2					2	3
	Israel	77	6	7	3		7	5	4	2	7		8	1	10	6	2	1		8
	Luxembourg	17						6	6	5
	Belgium	68	7	6		1				4	6		12		8	3	8	8	5
	Ireland	54	10		1	3	3					8		5	12	2		6	3	1
	Netherlands	56		4	4	8	4	4	2		1	7		3	2	4	6	2		5
	Norway	7								3							4
	Greece	20						2					4		5		1		8
	Finland	44	2		6	6			5	1	4			6		7		7
	Spain	11	3									1			3			3	1
	Italy	69	1	8		2			12		3	10	6			1	10		10	6
	Austria	80	4	3	10	10	5	3	10	7	2	6	5	8				5		2
	Portugal	24					6					4	1		1				12
	Monaco	93	5	5	7	7	12	8	8	8	5		2	7	7	5	3			4
	France	147	8	10	12	5	10	10	7	12	8	5	3	10	6	12	5	12		12
	Yugoslavia	10		1	2							3							4

12 points

Below is a summary of all 12 points in the final:

International broadcasts and voting

The table below shows the order in which votes were cast during the 1976 contest along with the spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country.

Voting and spokespersons

Television commentators

Each national broadcaster also sent a commentator to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language.

Radio commentators

References