The Eurovision Song Contest 1972 was the 17th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom and was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), who agreed to stage the event after the Monégasque broadcaster Télé Monte Carlo (TMC), who won in 1971, was unable to meet the demands of hosting the event and could not find a suitable venue. The contest was held at the Usher Hall on 25 March 1972 and was hosted by Scottish ballet dancer Moira Shearer. Eighteen countries took part in the contest, the same number as the previous year.
This contest marked the first time that the event was hosted in Scotland. Prior to 1972, when the BBC hosted the contest in 1960, 1963, and 1968, it had always chosen a venue in London. However, for the Eurovision Song Contest 1972, the BBC broke this trend and chose to host the competition in the Scottish capital, marking the first time that London had not been chosen.[1] The 1972 contest also marked the first time that the event was broadcast live in Asia, with viewers in Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Thailand able to watch the show on television for the first time. The 1972 contest also marked the first time that a video wall was used to present song titles and artists prior to their performance.[1]
The winner was Luxembourg with the song "Après toi", performed by Vicky Leandros, with lyrics by Yves Dessca, and music composed by Mario Panas (which was the writing pseudonym of Vicky's father Leo Leandros). "Après toi" became the winner with the lowest percentage of the total vote, winning with just 8.30% of the votes available. Yves Dessca also wrote "Un banc, un arbre, une rue" that had won the previous edition, and became the second person to win the contest twice, the first person to win for two different countries and the first person to win two years in a row.[2]Germany finished in third place for the third consecutive year, equalling their highest placement from the previous two editions.
Location
Usher Hall, Edinburgh – host venue of the 1972 contest.
Following Monaco's win at the 1971 contest in Dublin, with the song "Un banc, un arbre, une rue" performed by Séverine, the winning broadcaster Télé Monte Carlo (TMC) planned to organise the 1972 contest as an open-air event, setting the date in June rather than early spring.[3] However, due to a lack of funding, TMC sought help from the French public broadcaster, Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française (ORTF), which accepted to organise the contest. Because TMC wanted the contest to be held in Monaco while ORTF wanted it in France, negotiations never came through.[4] In July 1971, TMC informed the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) that it was unable to organise the 1972 contest. The EBU asked Spain's Televisión Española (TVE) and Germany's ARD, which respectively finished second and third at the 1971 contest, but both broadcasters declined to host the 1972 contest.[3][5]
The event was eventually organised by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in Edinburgh, making it the first of five times that the BBC had chosen a venue outside London with the 1974, 1982, 1998, and 2023 contests held in Brighton, Harrogate, Birmingham, and Liverpool respectively. It is also the only time that the contest has been held in Scotland.[6] It is the only Eurovision Song Contest hosted in the United Kingdom to have been held outside England.
The Usher Hall, the venue for the 1972 contest, is a concert hall, situated on Lothian Road, in the west end of the city. It has hosted concerts and events since its construction in 1914 and can hold approximately 2,900[7] people in its recently restored auditorium, which is well loved by performers due to its acoustics. The Hall is flanked by The Royal Lyceum Theatre on the right and The Traverse Theatre on the left. Historic Scotland has registered the Hall with Category A listed building status.
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Eurovision Song Contest 1972–Participation summaries by country
Each participating broadcaster appointed two jury members, one aged between 16 and 25 and one aged between 26 and 55, with at least 10 years between their ages. They each awarded 1 to 5 votes for each song, other than the song of their own country. They cast their votes immediately after each song was performed and the votes were then collected and counted. For the public voting sequence after the interval act, the jury members were shown on the stage's screen with each lifting a signboard with the number between 1 and 5 for each song, as a visual verification of the scores they had awarded earlier.
Each participating broadcaster was required to relay the contest via its networks. Non-participating EBU member broadcasters were also able to relay the contest as "passive participants". Broadcasters were able to send commentators to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language and to relay information about the artists and songs to their television viewers.[14]
In addition to the participating countries, the contest was also reportedly broadcast in Iceland, Israel, Morocco, and Tunisia; in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania via Intervision; and Brazil, Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and Zaire. With an estimated global audience of 400 million viewers.[1][15][16][17] Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.
Broadcasters and commentators in participating countries
1 2 Roxburgh, Gordon (2014). Songs for Europe: The United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest. Volume Two: The 1970s. Prestatyn: Telos Publishing. pp.76–98. ISBN978-1-84583-093-9.
1 2 "Sandie will be third singin' in Eurovision Contest". Irish Examiner. Cork, Ireland. 23 March 1972. Mike Murphy will be RTE's television commentator and the radio commentary will be given by Liam Devally.
↑ "Radio | sabato 25 marzo"[Radio | Saturday 25 March]. Radiocorriere TV (in Italian). Vol.49, no.12. Turin, Italy. 19–25 March 1972. pp.74–75. Retrieved 6 June 2024– via Rai Teche.
↑ "Télé-Programmes". Luxemburger Wort (in German and French). Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. 24 March 1972. p.17. Retrieved 5 January 2023– via National Library of Luxembourg.
↑ "Die Luxemburger Jury-Mitglieder"[The Luxembourg jury members]. Luxemburger Wort (in German). Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. 25 March 1972. p.28. Retrieved 5 January 2023– via National Library of Luxembourg.
↑ Thorsson, Leif; Verhage, Martin (2006). Melodifestivalen genom tiderna: de svenska uttagningarna och internationella finalerna (in Swedish). Stockholm: Premium Publishing. pp.94–95. ISBN91-89136-29-2.
↑ "Radio – samedi 25 mars"[Radio – Saturday 25 March]. Radio TV – Je vois tout (in French). No.12. Lausanne, Switzerland. 23 March 1972. pp.62–63. Retrieved 5 January 2023– via Scriptorium.
↑ "Canal 6 hoje a cores"[Channel 6 today in color]. Diario do Paraná[pt] (in Brazilian Portuguese). Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil. 25 March 1972. p.3. Retrieved 12 June 2024– via National Library of Brazil. A transmissão a cores de hoje, pelo Canal 6, será direta de Edimburgo, na Escócia, gerada pela BBC d Londres. 18 países participam desta finalíssima do Festival da Eurovision.[...] Não perca hoje, ás 17h30m, esta iniciativa pioneira do Canal 6.[Today's color broadcast, on Channel 6, will be direct from Edinburgh, Scotland, generated by BBC London. 18 countries participate in this final of the Eurovision Festival.[...] Don't miss today, at 5:30 pm, this pioneering initiative by Channel 6.]
1 2 "So 25/3"[Sat 25/3]. Týdeník Československé televize (in Czech). No.13. Prague, Czechoslovakia. 20 March 1972. p.9. Retrieved 13 March 2025– via Arcanum Newspapers[hu].
1 2 "TV – szerda IV.5"[TV – Wednesday 5 April]. Rádió- és Televízió-újság (in Hungarian). Vol.17, no.14. Budapest, Hungary. 3 April 1972. p.7. Archived from the original on 5 January 2023. Retrieved 5 January 2023– via Nemzeti Archívum.
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Luxembourg 
