Eurovision Song Contest 1996


The Eurovision Song Contest 1996 was the 41st edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Oslo, Norway, following Secret Garden's win at the 1995 contest in Dublin, Ireland with the song "Nocturne".
It was held on 18 May 1996 in Oslo Spektrum. The presenters were Morten Harket and Ingvild Bryn. Harket, lead singer of a-ha, opened the show with a performance of his single "Heaven's Not for Saints", which was a hit in Norway at the time. Twenty-three countries participated in the contest, with Eimear Quinn of Ireland crowned the winner after the final voting, with the song, "The Voice". The song was written by Brendan Graham, who also composed the 1994 winner "Rock 'n' Roll Kids". It was also a record seventh win for Ireland and the most recent win of Ireland.
A non-televised audio-only pre-qualification round was organised by the European Broadcasting Union, in order to shortlist the number of participating nations that would compete in the televised final from twenty-nine, to a more manageable twenty-three. ,,,,,, and all failed to qualify. Macedonia eventually went on to make their debut in. The 1996 contest remains the only Eurovision without a German entry at the Grand Final of the contest.

Location

is the capital and the most populous city in Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. For the first time, the Norwegian capital hosted the contest. This was the second time the event was staged in Norway, after the 1986 contest in Bergen. Oslo Spektrum, a multi-purpose indoor arena, was chosen as the host venue. Opened in December 1990, it is primarily known for hosting major events such as the annual Nobel Peace Prize Concert and concerts by artists of national and international fame

Format

The European Broadcasting Union continued to experiment in their efforts to find a broadly acceptable method of whittling down the large number of potential participating countries to a more realistic figure. This year, they reverted to the pre-qualifying round that had been used for the, but this time with just one country exempt from the process - the host Norway. The audio-only pre-qualification round, which was never televised or broadcast on radio, was used by the EBU in order to shortlist the number of participating nations that would compete in the televised final. With exception to the hosts, audio entries from twenty-nine countries were played to national juries, of which only twenty-two proceeded to the televised final in Oslo.,,,,,, and all failed to qualify. As a result, Macedonia's submission was never classified as a debut entry by the EBU, the nation eventually went on to make their official televised debut in.
It rapidly became evident that this system was no more sustainable than any other the EBU had tried, as it meant that several countries had gone through their traditional full-blown national selection procedure to come up with an entry, only to suffer the anti-climax of having their challenge quietly extinguished without even having had the opportunity of presenting the song to an international audience. As a leading financial contributor to the contest, Germany were particularly aggrieved that their entry, the techno song "Planet of Blue" performed by Leon, was one of the seven cast aside. It was the only year in the history of the ESC in which Germany did not participate in the final.
The 1996 contest also featured two novelties — which similarly failed to become a tradition — firstly a short 'good luck message' for each entry, recorded by a political leader or official from their country. The seniority of the figure who delivered the message varied wildly from country to country, ranging from Presidents and Prime Ministers on one end of the spectrum to junior ministers or ambassadors on the other, but a few very significant European political figures did appear, including long-serving Swedish premier Göran Persson, President Alija Izetbegović of Bosnia and Herzegovina and future UN Secretary-General António Guterres, then Prime Minister of Portugal. But of course the only good luck wish that was fully rewarded in the end was that of Irish Taoiseach John Bruton, who introduced the song that took his country to a fourth win in five years.
Secondly, the voting section was conducted using "blue screen" virtual reality technology provided by Silicon Graphics. The host Ingvild Bryn introduced the viewers to the 'blue room', upon which a 3D scoreboard, views of the green room, the jury spokespersons and country graphics appeared. The only physical aspects were Ingvild herself and two podiums. For the first time in the Eurovision history, during the voting a spokesperson came to stage down next to Ingvild: the Norwegian one, Ragnhild Sælthun Fjørtoft.

Conductors

Each performance had a conductor who maestro the orchestra.

Pre-qualifying round

Countries listed below submitted entries for the audio-only pre-qualification round, which was never televised, and was used by the EBU in order to shortlist the number of participating nations that would compete in the televised final. Despite a submitted entry from Macedonia, it was never classified as an official debut entry, although the nation would eventually make their official televised debut in.

Results

DrawCountryArtistSongLanguagePlacePoints
01Şebnem Paker"Beşinci Mevsim"Turkish1257
02Gina G"Ooh Aah... Just a Little Bit"English877
03Antonio Carbonell"¡Ay, qué deseo!"Spanish2017
04Lúcia Moniz"O meu coração não tem cor"Portuguese692
05Constantinos"Mono gia mas" Greek972
06Miriam Christine"In a Woman's Heart"English1068
07Maja Blagdan"Sveta ljubav"Croatian498
08George Nussbaumer"Weil's dr guat got"Vorarlbergish1068
09Kathy Leander"Mon cœur l'aime"French1622
10Marianna Efstratiou"Emis forame to himona anixiatika"
Greek1436
11Maarja-Liis Ilus & Ivo Linna"Kaelakee hääl"Estonian594
12Elisabeth Andreassen"I evighet"Norwegian2114
13Dan Ar Braz & l'Héritage des Celtes"Diwanit Bugale"Breton1918
14Regina"Dan najlepših sanj"Slovene2116
15Maxine & Franklin Brown"De eerste keer"Dutch778
16Lisa del Bo"Liefde is een kaartspel"Dutch1622
17Eimear Quinn"The Voice"English1162
18Jasmine"Niin kaunis on taivas"Finnish239
19Anna Mjöll"Sjúbídú"Icelandic1351
20Kasia Kowalska"Chcę znać swój grzech..."Polish1531
21Amila Glamočak"Za našu ljubav"Bosnian2213
22Marcel Palonder"Kým nás máš"Slovak1819
23One More Time"Den vilda"Swedish3100

Voting structure

Each country had a jury that awarded 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 point for their top ten songs. One year later, televoting would be introduced in only some countries, such as Sweden and the United Kingdom. When Belén Fernández de Henestrosa, the Spanish spokesperson, announced the votes of the Spanish jury, she awarded two points to "Czechoslovakia". Furthermore, she awarded six points to "Holland", which host Ingvild Bryn misheard as "Poland." The official results table corrected this error, and the Netherlands' seventh-place result was restored at the expense of the United Kingdom, who ultimately finished eighth. Because originally Poland awarded six points from Spain, Greece was placed 14th over Poland after the official results table corrected this error. Norway's entry, "I evighet", is notable for being the only runner-up not to receive a single "12 points" score in a Eurovision final since the current voting method was introduced in 1975.

Score sheet

Pre-qualifying round

12 points

Below is a summary of all 12 points in the pre-qualifying round.
N.ContestantVoting nation
10SwedenBelgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Macedonia, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland
4IrelandAustria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, United Kingdom
3MaltaRomania, Slovakia, Spain
3United KingdomIsrael, Sweden, Turkey
2AustriaFrance, Malta
2NetherlandsHungary, Portugal
1Bosnia and HerzegovinaSlovenia
1CyprusGreece
1EstoniaRussia
1GreeceCyprus
1IcelandNorway
1SlovakiaCroatia

Final

12 points

Below is a summary of all 12 point in the final:
N.ContestantVoting nation
7IrelandBosnia and Herzegovina, Estonia, Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Switzerland, Turkey
3EstoniaFinland, Iceland, Sweden
2AustriaFrance, Malta
2CyprusGreece, United Kingdom
2MaltaCroatia, Slovakia
2PortugalCyprus, Norway
2United KingdomBelgium, Portugal
1BelgiumSpain
1NetherlandsAustria
1SwedenIreland

Qualification for the 1997 contest

In addition to the host country of the 1997 contest, Ireland, the 23 countries with the highest average scores between 1993 and 1996 were allowed to take part in the Eurovision Song Contest 1997.
Key:
Automatic qualifier
Qualifier
Replacement qualifier
Withdrew

Good luck wishes

In 1996 all contestants were wished good luck by a politician from their own country in their own language. Those wishes were shown right before their performance. This was the only year in Eurovision with such wishes. These are the people who wished their country's participant good luck :

Voting and spokespersons

The spokespersons announced the score from their respective country's national jury in running order.
  1. - Ömer Önder
  2. - Colin Berry
  3. - Belén Fernández de Henestrosa
  4. - Cristina Rocha
  5. - Marios Skordis
  6. - Ruth Amaira
  7. - Daniela Trbović
  8. - Martina Rupp
  9. - Yves Ménestrier
  10. - Niki Venega
  11. - Annika Talvik
  12. - Ragnhild Sælthun Fjørtoft
  13. - Laurent Broomhead
  14. - Mario Galunič
  15. - Marcha
  16. - An Ploegaerts
  17. - Eileen Dunne
  18. - Solveig Herlin
  19. - Svanhildur Konráðsdóttir
  20. - Jan Chojnacki
  21. - Segmedina Srna
  22. - Alena Heribanová
  23. - Ulla Rundqvist

    Commentators

Participating countries

Most countries sent commentators to Oslo or commented from their own country, in order to provide coverage of the contest, such as add insight to the participants.