Wednesday 5 September 2012

Eurovision Song Contest 1976

Brotherhood of Man

Date: April 3, 1976
Venue: Nederlands Congrescentrum, The Hague, Netherlands
Presenter: Corry Brokken
Orchestra: Metrople Orchestra
Conductor: Jan Stulen
Director: Theo Ordeman
Scruteneer: Clifford Brown
Host broadcaster: NOS
Price presenter: Getty Kaspers
Interval act: The Dutch swing college band
Duration: 2 hours, 11 minutes
Number of entries: 18
Debuting countries: -
Returning countries: Austria, Greece
Withdrawing countries: Sweden, Malta, Turkey
Winning Song: Save Your Kisses For Me - Brotherhood of Man, UK
Voting system: Each country awarded 12, 10, 8-1 points to their 10 favourite songs

Entries

01. UK: Save your kisses for me - Brotherhood of Man (1st place, 164 points)
02. Switzerland: Peter, Sue and Marc - Djambo, Djambo (4th place, 91 points)
03. Germany: Les Humphries Singers - Sing sang song (15th place, 12 points)
04. Israel: Chocolat, Menta, Mastik - Emor shalom (6th place, 77 points)
05. Luxembourg: Jürgen Marcus - Chansons pour ceux qui sáiment (14th place, 17 points)
06. Belgium: Pierre Rapsat - Judy et Cie (8th place, 68 points)
07. Ireland: Red Hurley - When (10th place, 54 points)
08. The Netherlands: Sandra Reemer - The party's over (9th place, 56 points)
09. Norway: Anne-Karine Strøm - Mata Hari (18th place, 7 points)
10. Greece: Mariza Koch - Panagia mou, panagia mou (13th place, 20 points)
11. Finland: Fredi & Ystävät - Pump-pump (11th place, 44 points)
12. Spain: Braulio - Sobran las palabras (16th place, 11 points)
13. Italy: Al Bano & Romina Power - We'll live it all again (7th place, 69 points)
14. Austria: Waterloo & Robinson - My little world (5th place, 80 points)
15. Portugal: Carlos do Carmo - Uma flor de verde pinho (12th place, 24 points)
16. Monaco: Mary Christy - Toi, la musique et moi (3rd place, 93 points)
17. France: Catherine Ferry - Un, deux, trois (2nd place, 147 points)
18. Yugoslavia: Ambasadori - Ne mogu skriti svoju bol (17th place, 10 points)

Sandra Reemer

The Eurovision Song Contest 1976 was the 21th 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. The song was written by Tony Hiller, Lee Sheriden and Martin Lee.

Location

Nederlands Congrescentrum (presently known as The World Forum Convention Center) was the venue for the twenty-first edition of Eurovision. The venue was constructed in 1969.

Format

The scoring system introduced in the previous years 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.

 Catherine Ferry

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.

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. 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.

Sandra reemer

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. 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.

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.

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