Eurovision Song Contest 1976

The Eurovision Song Contest 1976 was the 21st edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It was 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]

Eurovision Song Contest 1976
Dates
Grand 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)
Interval act	The Dutch Swing College Band
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      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"

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 of 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.

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, 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.

Participating countries

Sweden, Malta and Turkey did not enter after their participation the year prior, while Austria and Greece returned to the contest, making for eighteen participating countries.[1]

Sweden did not enter in the contest, as 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 not to take part.[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 and an average of 9.65 of 12; a record under the voting system introduced in 1975.[3]

Conductors

Each performance had a conductor who conducted the orchestra.[4][5]

•  United Kingdom – Alyn Ainsworth
•   Switzerland – Mario Robbiani
•  Germany – Les Humphries
•  Israel – Matti Caspi
•  Luxembourg – Jo Plée
•  Belgium – Michel Bernholc
•  Ireland – Noel Kelehan
•  Netherlands – Harry van Hoof
•  Norway – Frode Thingnæs
•  Greece – Michalis Rozakis
•  Finland – Ossi Runne
•  Spain – Joan Barcons
•  Italy – Maurizio Fabrizio
•  Austria – Erich Kleinschuster
•  Portugal – Thilo Krasmann
•  Monaco – Raymond Donnez
•  France – Tony Rallo
•  Yugoslavia – Esad Arnautalić

Returning artists

Five artists returned to the contest in 1976. Fredi who represented Finland in 1967, Anneli Koivisto who represented Finland in 1971 as part of the duo Koivistolaiset, 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

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 [N 1]

Draw	Country	Artist	Song	Language[6][7]	Place	Points
01	United Kingdom	Brotherhood of Man	"Save Your Kisses for Me"	English	1	164
02	Switzerland	Peter, Sue and Marc	"Djambo, Djambo"	English	4	91
03	Germany	Les Humphries Singers	"Sing Sang Song"	German, English	15	12
04	Israel	Chocolate, Menta, Mastik	"Emor Shalom" (אמור שלום)	Hebrew	6	77
05	Luxembourg	Jürgen Marcus	"Chansons pour ceux qui s'aiment"	French	14	17
06	Belgium	Pierre Rapsat	"Judy et Cie"	French	8	68
07	Ireland	Red Hurley	"When"	English	10	54
08	Netherlands	Sandra Reemer	"The Party's Over"	English	9	56
09	Norway	Anne-Karine Strøm	"Mata Hari"	English	18	7
10	Greece	Mariza Koch	"Panagia mou, Panagia mou" (Παναγιά μου, Παναγιά μου)	Greek	13	20
11	Finland	Fredi & The Friends	"Pump-Pump"	English	11	44
12	Spain	Braulio	"Sobran las palabras"	Spanish	16	11
13	Italy	Al Bano & Romina Power	"We'll Live It All Again"	English, Italian	7	69
14	Austria	Waterloo & Robinson	"My Little World"	English	5	80
15	Portugal	Carlos do Carmo	"Uma flor de verde pinho"	Portuguese	12	24
16	Monaco	Mary Christy	"Toi, la musique et moi"	French	3	93
17	France	Catherine Ferry	"Un, deux, trois"	French	2	147
18	Yugoslavia	Ambasadori	"Ne mogu skriti svoju bol" (Не могу скрити своју бол)	Serbo-Croatian	17	10

Notes

1. 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%.

Scoreboard

		Results
		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	Voting nation
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

Broadcasters, commentators and spokespersons

Spokespersons

Listed below is 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.

1.  United Kingdom – Ray Moore[5]
2.   Switzerland – Michel Stocker[8]
3.  Germany – Hans-Joachim Scherbening
4.  Israel – Yitzhak Shim'oni[9]
5.  Luxembourg – Jacques Harvey
6.  Belgium – André Hagon
7.  Ireland – Brendan Balfe[10]
8.  Netherlands – Dick van Bommel
9.  Norway – Sverre Christophersen[11]
10.  Greece – Irini Gavala
11.  Finland – Erkki Vihtonen[12]
12.  Spain – José María Íñigo
13.  Italy – Rosanna Vaudetti
14.  Austria – Jenny Pippal
15.  Portugal – Ana Zanatti[13]
16.  Monaco – Carole Chabrier
17.  France – Marc Menant
18.  Yugoslavia – Sandi Čolnik

Broadcasters and commentators

Each national broadcaster also sent a commentator to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language.[1]

Country	Broadcaster(s)	Commentator(s)	Ref(s)
Participating countries
Austria	FS2	Ernst Grissemann	[10]
	Hitradio Ö3	TBC
Belgium	RTB	French: Georges Désir	[10][14]
	BRT	Dutch: Luc Appermont	[10][15]
	RTB La Première	French: TBC
	BRT Radio 1	Dutch: Nand Baert and Jan Theys
Finland	YLE TV1	Vesa Nuotio	[10][16]
	Yleisohjelma	Erkki Melakoski
France	TF1	Jean-Claude Massoulier	[10][17][18]
	Radio France	Patrice Laffont
Germany	Deutsches Fernsehen	Werner Veigel	[19]
	Deutschlandfunk/Bayern 2	Wolf Mittler
Greece	ERT	Mako Georgiadou	[20]
Ireland	RTÉ	Mike Murphy	[10]
	RTÉ Radio	Liam Devally
Israel	Israeli Television	No commentator
Italy	Rete 1 and Rai Radio 2	Silvio Noto	[10]
Luxembourg	RTL Télé Luxembourg	Jacques Navadic
	RTL	André Torrent
Monaco	Télé Monte Carlo	Hélène Vida
Netherlands	Nederland 2	Willem Duys	[10][21]
	Hilversum 3	Willem van Beusekom	[22]
Norway	NRK	Jo Vestly	[11][23]
	NRK P1	Erik Heyerdahl
Portugal	I Programa	Eládio Clímaco	[10]
	RDP Programa 1	Amadeu Meireles
Spain	Primera Cadena	José Luis Uribarri	[10][24]
Switzerland	TV DRS	German: Theodor Haller	[10]
	TSR	French: Georges Hardy	[10][17]
	TSI	Italian: Enzo Guidi	[10]
United Kingdom	BBC1	Michael Aspel	[5][10][25]
	BBC Radio 2	Terry Wogan	[5]
	BFBS Radio	Andrew Pastouna and Richard Astbury	[5]
Yugoslavia	TVB 1	Serbian: Milovan Ilić
	TVZ 1	Croatian: Oliver Mlakar
	TVL 1	Slovene: Tomaž Terček
Non-participating countries
Algeria	ENTV	Unknown	[5]
Denmark	DR TV	Claus Toksvig
Iceland	Sjónvarpið	Jón Skaptason	[26]
Morocco	TVM	Unknown	[5]
Sweden	SR P3	Ursula Richter	[27]
Tunisia	RTT	Unknown	[5]
Turkey	Ankara Television	Bülend Özveren	[5]

References

1. "The Hague 1976 - Eurovision Song Contest". European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
2. O'Connor, John Kennedy (2007). The Eurovision Song Contest: The Official History. UK: Carlton Books. pp. 64–67. ISBN 978-1-84442-994-3.
3. O'Connor, John Kennedy (2007). The Eurovision Song Contest: The Official History. UK: Carlton Books. ISBN 978-1-84442-994-3.
4. "And the conductor is..." Retrieved 4 August 2020.
5. 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.
6. "Eurovision Song Contest 1976". The Diggiloo Thrush. Retrieved 15 August 2012.
7. "Eurovision Song Contest 1976". 4Lyrics.eu. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
8. Baumann, Peter Ramón (OGAE Switzerland)
9. "פורום אירוויזיון". Sf.tapuz.co.il. 1999-09-13. Archived from the original on October 8, 2011. Retrieved 2012-08-10.
10. "Eurovision 1976 - Cast and Crew". IMDb. Retrieved 4 August 2020.
11. Dyrseth, Seppo (OGAE Norway)
12. "Selostajat ja taustalaulajat läpi vuosien? • Viisukuppila". Viisukuppila.fi. Retrieved 2012-08-10.
13. "Comentadores Do ESC – escportugalforum.pt.vu | o forum eurovisivo português". 21595.activeboard.com. Archived from the original on April 21, 2012. Retrieved 2012-08-10.
14. "Concours Eurovision de la Chanson • Consulter le sujet – Commentateurs des pays francophones". Eurovision.vosforums.com. Retrieved 2012-08-10.
15. Adriaens, Manu & Loeckx-Van Cauwenberge, Joken. Blijven kiken!. Lannoo, Belgium. 2003 ISBN 90-209-5274-9
16. "Selostajat ja taustalaulajat läpi vuosien? • Viisukuppila". Viisukuppila.fi. Retrieved 2012-08-10.
17. "Au Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson". Radio TV - Je vois tout. Lausanne, Switzerland: Le Radio SA. 1 April 1976.
18. Christian Masson. "1976 – La Haye". Songcontest.free.fr. Retrieved 2012-08-10.
19. "Eurovision Song Contest 1976". Ecgermany.de. Retrieved 2012-08-10.
20. "Η Μακώ Γεωργιάδου και η EUROVISION (1970–1986)". Retromaniax.gr. Archived from the original on 2012-05-30. Retrieved 2012-08-10.
21. "Nederlandse televisiecommentatoren bij het Eurovisie Songfestival". Eurovision Artists (in Dutch).
22. RadioVisie.eu (1976-04-17). "RetroVisie: april 1976 [ RadioVisie.eu /nl /actueel ]". Radiovisie.eu. Retrieved 2012-08-10.
23. "Hvem kommenterte før Jostein Pedersen? - Debattforum". Nrk.no. Archived from the original on November 2, 2012. Retrieved 2012-08-10.
24. "FORO FESTIVAL DE EUROVISIÓN • Ver Tema – Uribarri comentarista Eurovision 2010". Eurosongcontest.phpbb3.es. Archived from the original on 2012-03-17. Retrieved 2012-08-10.
25. "Grand Final: 1976, 1976, Eurovision Song Contest". BBC.
26. Háskólabókasafn, Landsbókasafn Íslands -. "Timarit.is". timarit.is.
27. "Infosajten.com". Infosajten.com. Archived from the original on July 18, 2012. Retrieved 2012-08-10.

External links

• Official website