Eurovision Song Contest 1975
| Eurovision Song Contest 1975 | |
|---|---|
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|
| Dates | |
| Final | 22 March 1975 |
| Host | |
| Venue | Stockholmsmässan Stockholm, Sweden |
| Presenter(s) | Karin Falck |
| Conductor | Mats Olsson |
| Executive supervisor | Clifford Brown |
| Host broadcaster | Sveriges Radio (SR) |
| Interval act | The World of John Bauer |
| Participants | |
| Number of entries | 19 |
| Debuting countries | |
| Returning countries | |
| Withdrawing countries | |
|
|
| Vote | |
| Voting system | Each country awarded 12, 10, 8-1 points to their 10 favourite songs |
| Nul points | None |
| Winning song | "Ding-a-dong" |
The Eurovision Song Contest 1975 was the 20th edition of the contest hosted by SR and held in Stockholm, Sweden. The arena for the event was the newly built Stockholmsmässan in Älvsjö in southern Stockholm. ABBA's victory in Brighton the previous year gave Sweden the right to host the contest for the first time. The Contest was won by Teach-In, who sang "Ding-a-dong" in English, representing the Netherlands.[1]
Contents
Location[edit]
The contest took place in Stockholm, the capital and largest city of Sweden, which has long been one of the country's cultural, media, political, and economic centres as well as the most populated urban area in Scandinavia.[2][3] The venue for the contest was Stockholmsmässan (or Stockholm International Fairs in English). The main building is in Älvsjö – a southern suburb of Stockholm Municipality for which the building got its nickname. It was constructed in 1971 and holds 4,000 people.
Format[edit]
This year a new scoring system was implemented. Each country would be represented by a jury of 11 members, at least half of whom had to be under the age of 26. Each jury member had to award every song a mark of between 1 and 5 points, but could not vote for their own nation's entry. The votes were cast immediately after the song was performed and collected by the adjudicator straight away. After the last song was performed, the jury secretary added up all the votes cast and awarded 12 points to the song with the highest score, 10 to the second highest score, then 8 to the third, 7 to the fourth, 6 to the fifth and so forth down to 1 point for the song ranked 10th. The jury spokesperson then announced the ten scores in the order the songs were presented when called upon by the hostess. The hostess Karin Falck several times confused the new system with questions like "How much is seven in France?" 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 of announcing the scores in ascending order, beginning with 1 point, was not established until 1980. This scoring system remained in use until 1996, although the number of jurors varied (it was 11 from 1975 to 1987, and 16 from 1988 to 1997) and the scores they awarded each song increased to 10 rather than 5. In from 1997, some juries were replaced by televotes and from 1998, all countries were encouraged to televote when possible. In the 2009 final and the 2010 semi-finals, the juries were reintroduced to provide 50% of the scores. Despite these changes in how the points were decided, the 'douze points' scoring system remained in place from 1975–2015. In 2016 it was altered to each country providing two separate sets of points, however, modelled after the former model.[4]
Participating countries[edit]
Greece withdrew from this contest in response to the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus, in protest of Turkey's participation. Despite this, a record of nineteen countries took part. Turkey made their début, while France and Malta returned to the contest.[1]
The Portuguese entry "Madrugada" was an unabashed celebration of the Carnation Revolution, during which the country's 1974 Eurovision entry had played a pivotal practical role. According to author and historian John Kennedy O'Connor in his book The Eurovision Song Contest – The Official History, the Portuguese performer had to be dissuaded from wearing his Portuguese army uniform and carrying a gun onto the stage.[5] Some competitors (notably Portugal and Yugoslavia) opted to perform their songs in English for the rehearsals heard by the judges, but in their native tongue at the final. Others, such as Belgium and Germany, opted for a mix of their own language and English.
Conductors[edit]
Each performance had a conductor who maestro the orchestra.[6]
Netherlands - Harry van Hoof
Ireland- Colman Pearce
France - Jean Musy
Germany - Rainer Pietsch
Luxembourg - Phil Coulter
Norway - Carsten Klouman
Switzerland - Peter Jacques
Yugoslavia - Mario Rijavec
United Kingdom - Alyn Ainsworth
Malta - Vince Tempera
Belgium - Francis Bay
Israel - Eldad Shrim
Turkey - Timur Selçuk
Monaco - André Popp
Finland - Ossi Runne
Portugal - Pedro Osório
Spain - Juan Carlos Calderón
Sweden - Lars Samuelson
Italy - Pier Natale Massara
Returning artists[edit]
Norway's Ellen Nikolaysen was the only participant to return to the contest this year. Ellen's previous participations where with the band Bendik Singers in 1973.[1]
Results[edit]
Scoreboard[edit]
12 points[edit]
Below is a summary of all 12 points in the final:
| N. | Contestant | Voting nation |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | Netherlands | Israel, Malta, Norway, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom |
| 4 | United Kingdom | France, Luxembourg, Monaco, Yugoslavia |
| 2 | Finland | Germany, Switzerland |
| France | Ireland, Portugal | |
| 1 | Ireland | Belgium |
| Italy | Finland | |
| Luxembourg | Netherlands | |
| Portugal | Turkey | |
| Switzerland | Italy |
International broadcasts and voting[edit]
The table below shows the order in which votes were cast during the 1975 contest along with the spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country. Each national broadcaster [with the exception of Israel] also sent a commentator to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language. Details of the commentators and the broadcasting station for which they represented are also included in the table below.[1]
Non-participating countries[edit]
Austria - Ernst Grissemann (FS2)
Denmark - Claus Toksvig (DR TV)
Greece - Mako Georgiadou (ERT)
Iceland - Dóra Hafsteinsdóttir (Sjónvarpið)[21]
Notable incidents[edit]
Intelligence reports at the time pointed out the festival as a possible target for a terrorist attack by the Red Army Faction which forced the organizers to tighten security considerably. The attack struck the West German embassy in Stockholm instead about a month later (see West German embassy siege).
The Swedish left movement protested against the contest and its commercial aspect. At first the criticism was directed towards SR for the huge amount of money they spent on the contest but soon the protests developed into a movement against commercial music overall. When the Eurovision Song Contest took place an alternative festival was organized in another part of Stockholm where anybody who wanted could perform a song. Most popular became Sillstryparn's entry "Doing the omoralisk schlagerfestival" (Doing the immoral Eurovision festival). In the autumn of 1975 SR informed that Sweden would not participate in the 1976 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest due to the high costs that came with hosting the show. The rules later changed so that the costs were split more equally between the participating broadcasters. In the end, SR did not broadcast the 1976 Contest.
Swedish TV technicians refused to broadcast the festival to Chile, where Canal 13 (an associate member of the EBU) had plans to air it. The refusal was in protest to the military dictatorship that has been ruling the country since the 1973 Chilean coup d'etat led by Augusto Pinochet.[22]
References[edit]
- ^ a b c d "Eurovision Song Contest 1975". European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
- ^ "Tätorter 2010" (PDF) (in Northern Sami). Statistics Sweden. Retrieved 2011-06-16. External link in
|publisher=(help) - ^ "Byopgørelsen 1. januar 2010" (PDF). Retrieved 2011-06-03.
- ^ Dahlander, Gustav. "SVT bakom historisk förändring inför Eurovision Song Contest i Stockholm 2016".
- ^ O'Connor, John Kennedy. The Eurovision Song Contest – The Official History. Carlton Books, UK. 2007 ISBN 978-1-84442-994-3
- ^ "Conductors 1975". 4Lyrics.com. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
- ^ "Eurovision Song Contest 1975". The Diggiloo Thrush. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
- ^ "Nederlandse televisiecommentatoren bij het Eurovisie Songfestival". Eurovision Artists (in Dutch).
- ^ a b Christian Masson. "1975 – Stockholm". Songcontest.free.fr. Retrieved 2012-08-10.
- ^ "Eurovision Song Contest 1975". Ecgermany.de. Retrieved 2012-08-10.
- ^ a b Dyrseth, Seppo (OGAE Norway)
- ^ Baumann, Peter Ramón (OGAE Switzerland)
- ^ "Grand Final: 1975, Eurovision Song Contest". BBC.
- ^ Roxburgh, Gordon (2014). Songs For Europe – The United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest Volume Two: The 1970's. UK: Telos Publishing. p. 182. ISBN 978-1-84583-065-6.
- ^ Richard Astbury's commentary was not broadcast – his apologies to BFBS listeners due to 'technical difficulties' are conveyed by Terry Wogan in his BBC Radio 2 commentary which was the commentary broadcast by BFBS. http://www.qa-show.com/wiki/20514
- ^ "פורום אירוויזיון". Sf.tapuz.co.il. 1999-09-13. Archived from the original on 8 October 2011. Retrieved 2012-08-10.
- ^ a b "Selostajat ja taustalaulajat läpi vuosien? • Viisukuppila". Viisukuppila.fi. Retrieved 2012-08-10.
- ^ "Comentadores Do ESC – escportugalforum.pt.vu | o forum eurovisivo português". 21595.activeboard.com. Archived from the original on 21 April 2012. Retrieved 2012-08-10.
- ^ "FORO FESTIVAL DE EUROVISIÓN • Ver Tema – Uribarri comentarista Eurovision 2010". Eurosongcontest.phpbb3.es. Archived from the original on 17 March 2012. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
- ^ a b c "Infosajten.com". Infosajten.com. Archived from the original on 18 July 2012. Retrieved 2012-08-10.
- ^ Háskólabókasafn, Landsbókasafn Íslands -. "Timarit.is". timarit.is.
- ^ "Geopolitics of Eurovision: Chile Edition". CommoditiesControl. 5 May 2015. Retrieved 6 May 2017.

