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.

Location

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. 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. Unlike today, the points were not given in order, 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.
Sweden did not enter in the contest, as broadcaster Sveriges Radio 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. 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.
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.

Conductors

Each performance had a conductor who conducted the orchestra.
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

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
DrawCountryArtistSongLanguagePlacePoints
01Brotherhood of Man"Save Your Kisses for Me"English1164
02Peter, Sue and Marc"Djambo, Djambo"English491
03Les Humphries Singers"Sing Sang Song"German, English1512
04Chocolate, Menta, Mastik"Emor Shalom" Hebrew677
05Jürgen Marcus"Chansons pour ceux qui s'aiment"French1417
06Pierre Rapsat"Judy et Cie"French868
07Red Hurley"When"English1054
08Sandra Reemer"The Party's Over"English956
09Anne-Karine Strøm"Mata Hari"English187
10Mariza Koch"Panagia mou, Panagia mou" Greek1320
11Fredi & The Friends"Pump-Pump"English1144
12Braulio"Sobran las palabras"Spanish1611
13Al Bano & Romina Power"We'll Live It All Again"English, Italian769
14Waterloo & Robinson"My Little World"English580
15Carlos do Carmo"Uma flor de verde pinho"Portuguese1224
16Mary Christy"Toi, la musique et moi"French393
17Catherine Ferry"Un, deux, trois"French2147
18Ambasadori"Ne mogu skriti svoju bol"Croatian1710

Scoreboard

12 points

Below is a summary of all 12 points in the final:
N.ContestantVoting nation
7United KingdomBelgium, Greece, Israel, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland
5FranceAustria, Germany, Monaco, Netherlands, Yugoslavia
1BelgiumFinland
1ItalyIreland
1IrelandItaly
1MonacoLuxembourg
1PortugalFrance
1SwitzerlandUnited Kingdom

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

  1. - Ray Moore
  2. - Michel Stocker
  3. - Hans-Joachim Scherbening
  4. - Yitzhak Shim'oni
  5. - Jacques Harvey
  6. - André Hagon
  7. - Brendan Balfe
  8. – Dick van Bommel
  9. - Sverre Christophersen
  10. - Irini Gavala
  11. - Erkki Vihtonen
  12. - José María Íñigo
  13. - Rosanna Vaudetti
  14. - Jenny Pippal
  15. - Ana Zanatti
  16. - Carole Chabrier
  17. - Marc Menant
  18. - Sandi Čolnik

    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.