Eurovision Song Contest 1976

Eurovision Song Contest 1976
Dates
Final	3 April 1976
Host
Venue	Nederlands Congresgebouw The Hague, Netherlands
Presenter(s)	Corry Brokken Hans van Willigenburg (green room)
Musical director	Jan Stulen
Directed by	Theo Ordeman
Executive supervisor	Clifford Brown
Executive producer	Fred Oster
Host broadcaster	Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (NOS)
Website	eurovision.tv/event/the-hague-1976
Participants
Number of entries	18
Debuting countries	None
Returning countries	Austria   Greece
Non-returning countries	Malta   Sweden   Turkey
Participation map      Competing 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
Winning song	United Kingdom "Save Your Kisses for Me"
1975 ←  Eurovision Song Contest  → 1977

The Eurovision Song Contest 1976 was the 21st edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in The Hague, Netherlands, following the country's victory at the 1975 contest with the song "Ding-a-dong" by Teach-In. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (NOS), the contest was held at the Nederlands Congrescentrum on 3 April 1976 and was hosted by 1957 Dutch Eurovision winner Corry Brokken.

Eighteen countries took part in the contest with Sweden, Malta and Turkey opting not to return to the contest after participating the previous year. Malta would not return to the contest again until 1991. On the other hand, Austria and Greece returned to the competition, having been absent since 1972 and 1974 respectively.

United Kingdom won the contest this year with the song "Save Your Kisses for Me" by Brotherhood of Man. ^[1] The 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 and an average of 9.65 of 12; a record under the voting system introduced in 1975. ^[2]

Location

Nederlands Congresgebouw – host venue of the 1976 contest.

The Hague is the seat of government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the capital city of the province of South Holland. It is also the third-largest city in the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Located in the west of the Netherlands, The Hague is in the centre of the Haaglanden conurbation and lies at the southwest corner of the larger Randstad conurbation. The contest took place at the Congresgebouw (presently known as the World Forum ). The venue was constructed in 1969.

Participating countries

Further information: List of countries in the Eurovision Song Contest

Eurovision Song Contest 1976 –Participation summaries by country
Austria Belgium Finland France Germany Greece Ireland Israel Italy Luxembourg Monaco Netherlands Norway Portugal Spain Switzerland United Kingdom Yugoslavia

Sweden, Malta and Turkey all decided not to participate this year, while Austria and Greece returned to the contest, making for eighteen participating countries. ^[1]

Sweden did not enter the contest as broadcaster Sveriges Radio (SR) did not have enough money to host another contest if Sweden should win again. A new rule was therefore introduced that in the future each participating broadcaster would have to pay a part of the cost of staging the contest. However, the introduction of a participation fee lead to Malta withdrawing from the Eurovision Song Contest 1976, despite already confirming participation and accepting submissions for their planned national final. ^{[3] [4]} 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 not to take part. ^{[5] [6]}

Participants of the Eurovision Song Contest 1976 ^{[7] [8] [9] [10]}

Country	Broadcaster	Artist	Song	Language	Songwriter(s)	Conductor
Austria	ORF	Waterloo and Robinson	"My Little World"	English	Gerhard Heinz	Erich Kleinschuster
Belgium	RTB	Pierre Rapsat	"Judy et Cie"	French	Pierre Rapsat Eric Van Hulse	Michel Bernholc
Finland	YLE	Fredi and the Friends	"Pump-Pump"	English	Pertti Reponen Matti Siitonen	Ossi Runne
France	TF1	Catherine Ferry	"Un, deux, trois"	French	Jean Paul Cara Tony Rallo	Tony Rallo
Germany	HR [lower-alpha 1]	Les Humphries Singers	"Sing, Sang, Song"	German, English	Kurt Hertha Ralph Siegel	Les Humphries
Greece	ERT	Mariza Koch	"Panaghia mou, panaghia mou" (Παναγιά μου, παναγιά μου)	Greek	Mihalis Fotiades Mariza Koch	Mihalis Rozakis
Ireland	RTÉ	Red Hurley	"When"	English	Brendan Graham	Noel Kelehan
Israel	IBA	Chocolate, Menta, Mastik	"Emor Shalom" (אמור שלום)	Hebrew	Matti Caspi Ehud Manor	Matti Caspi
Italy	RAI	Romina and Al Bano	"We'll Live It All Again"	English, Italian	Albano Carrisi Detto Mariano Romina Power	Maurizio Fabrizio
Luxembourg	CLT	Jürgen Marcus	"Chansons pour ceux qui s'aiment"	French	Vline Buggy Fred Jay Jack White	Jo Plée
Monaco	TMC	Mary Christy	"Toi, la musique et moi"	French	Georges Costa Gilbert Sinoué	Raymond Donnez
Netherlands	NOS	Sandra Reemer	"The Party Is Over Now"	English	Hans van Hemert	Harry van Hoof
Norway	NRK	Anne-Karine Strøm	"Mata Hari"	English	Philip Kruse Frode Thingnæs	Frode Thingnæs
Portugal	RTP	Carlos do Carmo	"Uma flor de verde pinho"	Portuguese	Manuel Alegre José Niza	Thilo Krasmann
Spain	TVE	Braulio	"Sobran las palabras"	Spanish	Braulio García Bautista	Joan Barcons
Switzerland	SRG SSR	Peter, Sue and Marc	"Djambo Djambo"	English	Peter Reber	Mario Robbiani
United Kingdom	BBC	Brotherhood of Man	"Save Your Kisses for Me"	English	Tony Hiller Martin Lee Lee Sheriden	Alyn Ainsworth
Yugoslavia	JRT	Ambasadori	"Ne mogu skriti svoju bol" (Не могу скрити своју бол)	Serbo-Croatian	Slobodan Đurašović Slobodan Vujović	Esad Arnautalić

Returning artists

Artist	Country	Previous year(s)
Fredi (Along with "The Friends")	Finland	1967
Anneli Koivisto (As part of "The Friends")	Finland	1971 (as part of Koivistolaiset)
Peter, Sue and Marc	Switzerland	1971
Sandra Reemer	Netherlands	1972
Anne-Karine Strøm	Norway	1973 (as part of Bendik Singers) 1974 (Along with Bendik Singers)

Format

As with the Dutch hosted contest of 1970, each song was introduced by a pre-recorded film of the performing artist on location in their home nation. Unlike the 1970 films, the Dutch broadcaster made all of the films themselves, sending a crew to each nation to capture the footage. Both the artists from Monaco and Luxembourg were filmed in their respective nations, despite again not being from the country they were representing. Each film was preceded by an animated insert featuring the flags of the eighteen participating nations and ended with a profile shot of the artists.

The interval act was The Dutch Swing College Band led by Peter Schilperoort, who performed live on the stage, intercut with brief interviews with the artists from France, Israel, Austria, Belgium and Spain backstage in the green room conducted by Hans van Willigenburg. Willigenburg asked each of the five artists which song they thought would win, but only French singer Catherine Ferry was willing to give a definite answer; correctly predicting the United Kingdom.

The scoring system introduced in the previous year's competition returned in 1976. Each jury voted internally and awarded 12 points to the highest scoring song, 10 to the second highest, then 8 to the third, and then 7 to 1 (from fourth to tenth best song, according to the jury). 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 (also held in The Hague).

Contest overview

The following tables reflect the officially verified scores given by each jury, adjusted after the transmission. During the live broadcast, France failed to announce the 4 points they awarded to Yugoslavia, an error overlooked by the scrutineer, Clifford Brown. Thus in the live show, Norway were placed 17th and Yugoslavia 18th. After the broadcast, the scores were adjusted and the two nations swapped places, with Yugoslavia's score being adjusted from 6 to 10 points, moving Norway down to last place.

In terms of points gained as a percentage of maximum available, the winning UK entry from Brotherhood of Man is statistically the most successful winning Eurovision entry since the introduction of the 'douze points' scoring system inaugurated in 1975. ^{[lower-alpha 2]}

Results of the Eurovision Song Contest 1976 ^[12]

R/O	Country	Artist	Song	Points	Place
1	United Kingdom	Brotherhood of Man	"Save Your Kisses for Me"	164	1
2	Switzerland	Peter, Sue and Marc	"Djambo Djambo"	91	4
3	Germany	Les Humphries Singers	"Sing, Sang, Song"	12	15
4	Israel	Chocolate, Menta, Mastik	"Emor Shalom"	77	6
5	Luxembourg	Jürgen Marcus	"Chansons pour ceux qui s'aiment"	17	14
6	Belgium	Pierre Rapsat	"Judy et Cie"	68	8
7	Ireland	Red Hurley	"When"	54	10
8	Netherlands	Sandra Reemer	"The Party Is Over Now"	56	9
9	Norway	Anne-Karine Strøm	"Mata Hari"	7	18
10	Greece	Mariza Koch	"Panaghia mou, panaghia mou"	20	13
11	Finland	Fredi and the Friends	"Pump-Pump"	44	11
12	Spain	Braulio	"Sobran las palabras"	11	16
13	Italy	Romina and Al Bano	"We'll Live It All Again"	69	7
14	Austria	Waterloo and Robinson	"My Little World"	80	5
15	Portugal	Carlos do Carmo	"Uma flor de verde pinho"	24	12
16	Monaco	Mary Christy	"Toi, la musique et moi"	93	3
17	France	Catherine Ferry	"Un, deux, trois"	147	2
18	Yugoslavia	Ambasadori	"Ne mogu skriti svoju bol"	10	17

Spokespersons

Each country nominated a spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country via telephone. Known spokespersons at the 1976 contest are listed below.

•  Spain – José María Íñigo ^[13]
•  United Kingdom – Ray Moore ^[8]

Detailed voting results

Detailed voting results ^{[14] [15]}

		Total score	United Kingdom	Switzerland	Germany	Israel	Luxembourg	Belgium	Ireland	Netherlands	Norway	Greece	Finland	Spain	Italy	Austria	Portugal	Monaco	France	Yugoslavia
Contestants	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:

N.	Contestant	Nation(s) giving 12 points
7	United Kingdom	Belgium ,   Greece ,   Israel ,   Norway ,   Portugal ,   Spain ,    Switzerland
5	France	Austria ,   Germany ,   Monaco ,   Netherlands ,   Yugoslavia
1	Belgium	Finland
	Italy	Ireland
	Ireland	Italy
	Monaco	Luxembourg
	Portugal	France
	Switzerland	United Kingdom

Broadcasts

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. ^{[1] [16]}

Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below. In addition to the participating countries, the contest was also reportedly broadcast in Algeria, Hong Kong, Iceland, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey. ^[8]

Broadcasters and commentators in participating countries

Country	Broadcaster	Channel(s)	Commentator(s)	Ref(s)
Austria	ORF	FS2	Ernst Grissemann	[17] [18]
Belgium	RTB	RTB		[19] [20] [21]
	BRT	BRT		[19] [21]
Finland	YLE	TV1	Heikki Seppälä  [ fi ]	[22] [23]
		Rinnakkaisohjelma  [ fi ]	Erkki Melakoski  [ fi ]
France	TF1		Jean-Claude Massoulier  [ fr ]	[20] [24]
Germany	ARD	Deutsches Fernsehen	Werner Veigel	[25] [21] [26]
Greece	ERT	ERT
Ireland	RTÉ	RTÉ	Mike Murphy	[27] [28]
		RTÉ Radio		[29]
Israel	IBA	Israeli Television		[30]
Italy	RAI	Rete Uno	Silvio Noto	[31]
Luxembourg	CLT	RTL Télé-Luxembourg		[20]
Monaco	Télé Monte-Carlo			[32]
Netherlands	NOS	Nederland 2	Willem Duys	[21]
		Hilversum 3
Norway	NRK	NRK Fjernsynet	Jo Vestly  [ no ]	[33]
		NRK	Erik Heyerdahl  [ no ]
Portugal	RTP	I Programa		[34]
Spain	TVE	TVE 1	José Luis Uribarri	[35]
Switzerland	SRG SSR	TV DRS	Theodor Haller  [ de ]	[24] [25] [36] [37]
		TSR	Georges Hardy  [ fr ]
		TSI
		RSI 1
United Kingdom	BBC	BBC1	Michael Aspel	[38]
		BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2	Terry Wogan	[8] [39] [40]
	BFBS	BFBS Radio	Andrew Pastouna	[8]
Yugoslavia	JRT	TV Koper-Capodistria		[31] [41] [42]
		TV Ljubljana 1  [ sl ]
		TV Zagreb 1

Broadcasters and commentators in non-participating countries

Country	Broadcaster	Channel(s)	Commentator(s)	Ref(s)
Denmark	DR	DR TV	Per Møller Hansen	[43]
Iceland	RÚV	Sjónvarpið [lower-alpha 3]	Jón Skaptason	[44]
Sweden	SR	SR P3	Ursula Richter  [ sv ]	[6] [22] [33]
Turkey	TRT	TRT Televizyon		[45]

See also

• OTI Festival 1976

Notes

1. On behalf of the German public broadcasting consortium ARD ^[11]
2. As noted on a TOTP2 Eurovision special, the 1997 Katrina and the Waves entry Love Shine a light ranks third in the rankings of points achieved as a percentage of maximum available with 227 out of 288 or 78.81%, behind Nicole's "Ein bißchen Frieden" in 1982 (161 out of 204 or 78.92%) and Brotherhood of Man's "Save Your Kisses for Me" in 1976 (164 out of 204 or 80.39%). For comparison, Elena Paparizou's 2005 win took 230 points out of a possible 456, or only 50.04% while Portugal's dominant 2017 win from Salvador Sobral took 758 points from a possible 984 available, equating to 77.04%.
3. Delayed broadcast on 25 April 1976 at 20:35 WET (20:35 UTC) ^[44]

References

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4. "Malta out of Eurovision Song Contest". Times of Malta. 5 November 1975. p. 9.
5. O'Connor, John Kennedy (2007). The Eurovision Song Contest: The Official History. UK: Carlton Books. pp. 64–67. ISBN   978-1-84442-994-3.
6. Thorsson, Leif; Verhage, Martin (2006). Melodifestivalen genom tiderna : de svenska uttagningarna och internationella finalerna (in Swedish). Stockholm: Premium Publishing. pp. 120–121. ISBN   91-89136-29-2.
7. "Participants of The Hague 1976". European Broadcasting Union. Archived from the original on 31 March 2023. Retrieved 6 July 2023.
8. Roxburgh, Gordon (2014). Songs for Europe: The United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest. Volume Two: The 1970s. Prestatyn: Telos Publishing. pp. 227–243. ISBN   978-1-84583-093-9.
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33. "TV-Radio programmene". Oppland Arbeiderblad (in Norwegian). Gjøvik, Norway. 3 April 1976. p. 35. Retrieved 9 January 2023– via National Library of Norway.
34. "Televisão – Hoje". Diário de Lisboa (in Portuguese). 3 April 1976. p. 15. Retrieved 9 January 2023– via Casa Comum.
35. "Programas de Radio y T.V." . La Vanguardia (in Spanish). Barcelona, Spain. 3 April 1976. p. 65. Retrieved 9 January 2023.
36. "Televisione". Gazzetta Ticinese (in Italian). Lugano, Switzerland. 3 April 1976. p. 8. Retrieved 9 January 2023– via Sistema bibliotecario ticinese  [ it ].
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38. "Eurovision Song Contest – BBC1". Radio Times . 3 April 1976. Retrieved 9 January 2023– via BBC Genome Project.
39. "Eurovision Song Contest 1976 – BBC Radio 2". Radio Times . 3 April 1976. Retrieved 9 January 2023– via BBC Genome Project.
40. "Schedule – BBC Radio 1 – 3 April 1976". Radio Times . 3 April 1976. Retrieved 10 January 2023– via BBC Genome Project.
41. "Televizija – sobota 3" (PDF). Glas (in Slovenian). Kranj, SR Slovenia, Yugoslavia. 3 April 1976. p. 11. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 January 2023. Retrieved 9 January 2023.
42. "JRT – subota" . Slobodna Dalmacija (in Serbo-Croatian). Split, SR Croatia, Yugoslavia. 3 April 1976. p. 16. Retrieved 9 January 2023.
43. "Programoversigt" (in Danish). LARM.fm. Retrieved 12 January 2023.
44. "Sjónvarp – Sunnudagur 25. apríl". Dagblaðið (in Icelandic). Reykjavík, Iceland. 24 April 1976. p. 23. Retrieved 9 January 2023– via Timarit.is.
45. "Televizyon". Cumhuriyet (in Turkish). Istanbul, Turkey. 3 April 1976. p. 6. Archived from the original on 9 January 2023. Retrieved 9 January 2023.

External links

• Official website