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The Eurovision Song Contest 1975 was the 20th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Stockholm, Sweden, following the country's victory at the 1974 contest with the song "Waterloo" by ABBA. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Sveriges Radio (SR), the contest was held at Stockholmsmässan on 22 March 1975, and was hosted by Swedish television director Karin Falck. It was the first time that the contest had taken place in Sweden.

Eurovision Song Contest 1975
Dates
Final	22 March 1975
Host
Venue	Stockholmsmässan Stockholm, Sweden
Presenter(s)	Karin Falck
Musical director	Mats Olsson
Directed by	Bo Billtén
Executive supervisor	Clifford Brown
Executive producer	Roland Eiworth
Host broadcaster	Sveriges Radio (SR)
Interval act	The World of John Bauer
Website	eurovision.tv/event/stockholm-1975
Participants
Number of entries	19
Debuting countries	Turkey
Returning countries	France  Malta
Non-returning countries	Greece
Participation map      Participating countries     Countries that participated in the past but not in 1975
Vote
Voting system	Each country awarded 12, 10, 8-1 points to their 10 favourite songs
Nul points in final	None
Winning song	Netherlands "Ding-a-dong"
1974 ← Eurovision Song Contest → 1976

Nineteen countries participated in the contest, beating the previous record of eighteen, that was first set in the 1965 edition. France and Malta returned after their one-year and two-year absences, respectively. Turkey made its debut, while Greece decided not to enter after its debut the year prior.[1]

The winner of the contest was the Netherlands who won with the song "Ding-a-dong", performed by Teach-In, written by Will Luikinga and Eddy Ouwens, and composed by Dick Bakker. The country would not win again until 2019.

Location

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

To introduce each song, all the artists were recorded on videotape painting a portrait of themselves during the rehearsal period, incorporating their nation's flag into the illustration. Some artists included their backing artists in the painting, others chose only to paint the lead singer.

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, and so forth down to 1 point for the song ranked 10th. The 12–1 points system remained in use until 2015. 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

Nineteen countries took part in the contest; As a result of Turkey competing in the competition for the very first time, Greece decided not to enter after its 1974 debut in protest at the Turkish participation due to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus that had occurred the year before. Meanwhile, France and Malta returned to the contest after having been absent for one and two years, respectively .[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

Each performance had a conductor who conducted the orchestra.[6][7]

Returning artists

Artist	Country	Previous year(s)
Ellen Nikolaysen	Norway	1973 (as part of Bendik Singers) 1974 (as part of Bendik Singers)
John Farrar (as part of The Shadows)	United Kingdom	1973 (as backing singer for Cliff Richard)

Participants and results

R/O	Country	Artist	Song	Language[8][9]	Points	Place[10]
1	Netherlands	Teach-In	"Ding-a-dong"	English	152	1
2	Ireland	The Swarbriggs	"That's What Friends Are For"	English	68	9
3	France	Nicole Rieu	"Et bonjour à toi l'artiste"	French	91	4
4	Germany	Joy Fleming	"Ein Lied kann eine Brücke sein"	German, English	15	17
5	Luxembourg	Géraldine	"Toi"	French	84	5
6	Norway	Ellen Nikolaysen	"Touch My Life (with Summer)"	English	11	18
7	Switzerland	Simone Drexel	"Mikado"	German	77	6
8	Yugoslavia	Pepel in kri	"Dan ljubezni"	Slovene	22	13
9	United Kingdom	The Shadows	"Let Me Be the One"	English	138	2
10	Malta	Renato	"Singing This Song"	English	32	12
11	Belgium	Ann Christy	"Gelukkig zijn"	Dutch, English	17	15
12	Israel	Shlomo Artzi	"At Va'Ani" (את ואני)	Hebrew	40	11
13	Turkey	Semiha Yankı	"Seninle Bir Dakika"	Turkish	3	19
14	Monaco	Sophie	"Une chanson c'est une lettre"	French	22	13
15	Finland	Pihasoittajat	"Old Man Fiddle"	English	74	7
16	Portugal	Duarte Mendes	"Madrugada"	Portuguese	16	16
17	Spain	Sergio and Estíbaliz	"Tú volverás"	Spanish	53	10
18	Sweden	Lasse Berghagen and the Dolls	"Jennie, Jennie"	English	72	8
19	Italy	Wess and Dori Ghezzi	"Era"	Italian	115	3

Detailed voting results

Detailed voting results[11][12]

		Total score	Netherlands	Ireland	France	Germany	Luxembourg	Norway	Switzerland	Yugoslavia	United Kingdom	Malta	Belgium	Israel	Turkey	Monaco	Finland	Portugal	Spain	Sweden	Italy
Contestants	Netherlands	152		8	5	8	10	12	6	8	12	12	3	12	4	10	10	7	12	12	1
	Ireland	68	6		6			4	7	1	6	4	12				1	4	3	10	4
	France	91	8	12					3		8	7	2	7	1	7		12	8	8	8
	Germany	15					8					3							4
	Luxembourg	84	12	10	3					7	3	5		6	5		5	8	6	4	10
	Norway	11	2													2					7
	Switzerland	77	7	2	10	6	2	1			5	6	8		7	5	4	2			12
	Yugoslavia	22	3	4		2							5					1		7
	United Kingdom	138	4	3	12	10	12	7	8	12		8	10	10		12	7	5	10	5	3
	Malta	32	1		8		5	2	4	2			7	1	2
	Belgium	17	5			7				3										2
	Israel	40	10	1	1	1	1	5	2		1		1		6		3			6	2
	Turkey	3														3
	Monaco	22				3	4				2	1		2			2	3			5
	Finland	74		5		12	6	10	12	5	4			8		8			1	3
	Portugal	16			2										12				2
	Spain	53		7		5		3	5	4			4	4	3	4	8				6
	Sweden	72			7		7	8	1	6	7	2		3	8	6	6	6	5
	Italy	115		6	4	4	3	6	10	10	10	10	6	5	10	1	12	10	7	1

12 points

Below is a summary of all 12 points in the final:

N.	Contestant	Nation(s) giving 12 points
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

Spokespersons

This section needs additional citations for verification. (July 2021)

Listed below is 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.

Broadcasts

This section needs additional citations for verification. (July 2021)

Each national broadcaster also sent a commentator to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language.[1] In addition to the participating countries, the contest was also reportedly broadcast via Intervision to Eastern European countries, and in Chile, Hong Kong, Iceland, Japan, Jordan and South Korea.[7][13]

Broadcasters and commentators in participating countries

Country	Broadcaster(s)	Commentator(s)	Ref(s)
Belgium	BRT	Dutch: Jan Theys [nl]
	RTB	French: Paule Herreman
	BRT Radio 1	Dutch: Nand Baert [nl]
	RTB La Première	French: Jacques Bauduin [fr]
Finland	Yle TV1	Heikki Seppälä [fi]	[14][15]
	Rinnakkaisohjelma [fi]	Erkki Melakoski [fi]
France	TF1	Georges de Caunes	[16]
Germany	Deutsches Fernsehen	Werner Veigel
	Deutschlandfunk	Wolf Mittler
Ireland	RTÉ	Mike Murphy
	RTÉ Radio	Liam Devally
Israel	Israeli Television	No commentator
Italy	Rete 1	Silvio Noto
Luxembourg	RTL Télé Luxembourg	Jacques Navadic
	RTL	Camillo Felgen
Malta	MTV	Norman Hamilton
Monaco	Télé Monte Carlo	Georges de Caunes
Netherlands	Nederland 2	Willem Duys	[17]
Norway	NRK	John Andreassen
	NRK P1	Erik Heyerdahl [no]
Portugal	I Programa	Júlio Isidro
	Emissora Nacional Programa 1	Amadeu Meireles [pt]
Spain	Primera Cadena	José Luis Uribarri
Sweden	SR TV1	Åke Strömmer	[14]
	SR P3	Ursula Richter [sv]
Switzerland	TV DRS	German: Theodor Haller [de]
	TSR	French: Georges Hardy [fr]	[16]
	TSI	Italian: Giovanni Bertini
	RSR 1	French: Robert Burnier	[18]
Turkey	Ankara Television	Bülend Özveren
	Radyo 1	Şebnem Savaşçı
United Kingdom	BBC1	Pete Murray	[7][19]
	BBC Radio 2	Terry Wogan	[7]
	BFBS Radio	Richard Astbury	[7]
Yugoslavia	TVB 1	Serbo-Croatian: Milovan Ilić
	TVZ 1	Serbo-Croatian: Oliver Mlakar
	TVL 1	Slovene: Tomaž Terček [sl]

Broadcasters and commentators in non-participating countries

Country	Broadcaster(s)	Commentator(s)	Ref(s)
Austria	FS2	Ernst Grissemann [de]
Denmark	DR TV	Claus Toksvig
Greece	EIRT	Mako Georgiadou [el]
Hong Kong	RTV RTV-1 (delayed broadcast on 20 April and 4 August 1975)	Unknown	[20][21]
	RTV RTV-2 (delayed broadcast on 14 June 1975)	Unknown	[22]
Iceland	Sjónvarpið	Dóra Hafsteinsdóttir	[7][13][23]

Notable incidents

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. Sillstryparn's entry "Doin' the omoralisk schlagerfestival" (Doin' the immoral Eurovision festival) with lyrics criticizing the commercialised nature and lacking moral integrity of Eurovision, was the most popular song from the alternative event. 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. A concert film starring Cornelis Vreeswijk aired in its place.

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.[24]

References

External links

• Official website

На других языках

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- [en] Eurovision Song Contest 1975

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[ru] Евровидение-1975

Конкурс песни Евровидение 1975 — 20-й конкурс песни «Евровидение». Он прошёл 22 марта 1975 года в городе Стокгольм (Швеция) в Международном центре выставок и конгрессов (тогда ещё Центр имени Святого Эрика)[1].

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