The Eurovision Song Contest 1987 was the 32nd edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Brussels, Belgium, following the country's victory at the 1986 contest with the song "J'aime la vie" by Sandra Kim. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Radio-télévision belge de la Communauté française (RTBF), the contest was held at the Centenary Palace on 9 May 1987 (also Europe Day) and was hosted by French-Belgian singer Viktor Lazlo.

Eurovision Song Contest 1987
Dates
Final	9 May 1987
Host
Venue	Palais du Centenaire Brussels, Belgium
Presenter(s)	Viktor Lazlo
Musical director	Jo Carlier
Directed by	Jacques Bourton
Executive supervisor	Frank Naef
Executive producer	Michel Gehu
Host broadcaster	Radio-télévision belge de la Communauté française (RTBF)
Opening act	"Breathless" performed by Viktor Lazlo
Interval act	Marc Grauwels
Website	eurovision.tv/event/brussels-1987
Participants
Number of entries	22
Debuting countries	None
Returning countries	Greece  Italy
Non-returning countries	None
Participation map      Participating countries     Countries that participated in the past but not in 1987
Vote
Voting system	Each country awarded 12, 10, 8–1 point(s) to their 10 favourite songs
Nul points in final	Turkey
Winning song	Ireland "Hold Me Now"
1986 ← Eurovision Song Contest → 1988

Twenty-two countries took part in the contest with Greece and Italy returning to the competition after their absences the previous year. This set the record for the highest number of competing countries up until that point.

The winner was Ireland with the song "Hold Me Now" by Johnny Logan. Johnny Logan had also won the 1980 contest, and he remains the only performer to have won the Eurovision Song Contest twice.

Location

The contest took place at the Brussels Exhibition Centre (Brussels Expo) in Brussels, Belgium, a set of exhibition halls built from 1930 on the Heysel/Heizel Plateau (Heysel Park) in Laeken (northern part of the City of Brussels) to celebrate the centenary of Belgian Independence.The Centenary Palace (French: Palais du Centenaire, Dutch: Eeuwfeestpaleis), where the main stage was located, is one of the remaining buildings of the Brussels International Exposition of 1935. Currently, it is still being used for trade fairs, as well as concerts, usually for bigger acts and artists.

Host city selection

Brussels Expo

Cirque Royal

Antwerp

Liege

Locations of the considered venues: the chosen venue is marked in blue, while the eliminated locations are marked in red.

An expert committee designated the Royal Theatre of Antwerp as the ideal hosting venue, as both locations proposed by the Francophones (the Palais du Centenaire in Brussels and the Patinoire de Coronmeuse [fr] in Liege) would have required too much renovation work. Nevertheless, RTBF demanded that the contest be hosted in Brussels, Belgium's capital city. On 6 October 1986, 7 months before the contest, RTBF unilaterally announced that the Palais du Centenaire in Brussels would host Eurovision 1987. In the Flemish newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws, BRT proposed instead to host Eurovision at the Cirque Royal, also located in Brussels, adding that RTBF would be solely in charge of organizing the contest if BRT's counter-offer was not taken into consideration. However, RTBF moved forward and confirmed the Palais du Centenaire as the host venue of Eurovision 1987.[1] The Flemish broadcaster was offended by the choice of Brussels as host city, and withdrew from the organization.

Format

Host broadcaster

Sandra Kim's Eurovision victory in 1986 occurred amidst a complex political situation in Belgium: starting in the 80s, the country transitioned from a central to a federal government model due to rising tensions between the two major linguistic regions of Belgium, Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia. Both regions had had independent broadcasters since 1960 (BRT in Flanders and RTBF in Wallonia) but had still agreed to jointly host the contest in the event of a Belgian victory. While the triumph of "J'aime la vie" in 1986 – an entry sent by French-speaking RTBF – reignited a sense of national union across all Belgian regions, the two regional broadcasters weren't able to overcome their disagreements to allow for a joint hosting of the 1987 contest.[1] BRT eventually withdrew from the project and RTBF organised the contest alone as host broadcaster.[2] BRT remained in charge of the selection of the Belgian entry for the contest, as in all other odd-numbered years until 1993.

In her academic study "Which Belgium Won Eurovision? European Unity and Belgian Disunity" published in 2019, scholar Julie Kalman describes how, as a consequence, the opening of Eurovision 1987 mostly showed footage of Wallonia.[3]

Budget

The necessary budget was so important that a new law had to be adopted, allowing the use of advertising to finance the Belgian public channels. This was the first time that sponsors helped to produce the contest and appeared on screen.[4] After the closing of the 1987 contest, BRT President Cas Goossens praised RTBF for a "perfect organization" while at the same time regretting that the two broadcasters weren't able to collaborate. He added that the cost of hosting Eurovision would have been difficult to justify to the Flemish taxpayers.[1]

Contest overview

The 1987 Eurovision was the biggest contest at that time, with 22 countries taking part. Only Malta, Monaco and Morocco failed to compete out of all the countries which had entered the contest in the past. Due to the number of countries, and the time it took for the contest to be held, the EBU set the limit of competing countries to 22. This became problematic over the next few years as new and returning nations indicated an interest in participating, but could not be accommodated.[5]

Controversy erupted in Israel after their song was selected, "Shir Habatlanim" by the Lazy Bums. The comedic performance was criticised by the country's culture minister, who threatened to resign should the duo proceed to Brussels. They went on to perform for Israel, placing eighth; however the culture minister's threat was left unfulfilled.[5]

The presenter was Viktor Lazlo who agreed to present the contest on the condition she was allowed to open with a song of her own, "Breathless".

Participating countries

Conductors

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

Returning artists

Bold indicates a previous winner.

Artist	Country	Previous year(s)
Gary Lux	Austria	1983 (member of Westend), 1984 (as backing singer for Anita), 1985
Alexia	Cyprus	1981 (member of Island)
Wind	Germany	1985
Johnny Logan	Ireland	1980

Participants and results

R/O	Country	Artist	Song	Language[8][9]	Points	Place[10]
1	Norway	Kate Gulbrandsen	"Mitt liv"	Norwegian	65	9
2	Israel	Datner and Kushnir	"Shir Habatlanim" (שיר הבטלנים)	Hebrew	73	8
3	Austria	Gary Lux	"Nur noch Gefühl"	German	8	20
4	Iceland	Halla Margrét	"Hægt og hljótt"	Icelandic	28	16
5	Belgium	Liliane Saint-Pierre	"Soldiers of Love"	Dutch[lower-alpha 1]	56	11
6	Sweden	Lotta Engberg	"Boogaloo"	Swedish	50	12
7	Italy	Umberto Tozzi and Raf	"Gente di mare"	Italian	103	3
8	Portugal	Nevada	"Neste barco à vela"	Portuguese	15	18
9	Spain	Patricia Kraus	"No estás solo"	Spanish	10	19
10	Turkey	Seyyal Taner and Lokomotif	"Şarkım Sevgi Üstüne"	Turkish	0	22
11	Greece	Bang	"Stop" (Στοπ)	Greek	64	10
12	Netherlands	Marcha	"Rechtop in de wind"	Dutch	83	5
13	Luxembourg	Plastic Bertrand	"Amour, amour"	French	4	21
14	United Kingdom	Rikki	"Only the Light"	English	47	13
15	France	Christine Minier	"Les mots d'amour n'ont pas de dimanche"	French	44	14
16	Germany	Wind	"Laß die Sonne in dein Herz"	German	141	2
17	Cyprus	Alexia	"Aspro mavro" (Άσπρο μαύρο)	Greek	80	7
18	Finland	Vicky Rosti and Boulevard	"Sata salamaa"	Finnish	32	15
19	Denmark	Anne-Cathrine Herdorf and Bandjo	"En lille melodi"	Danish	83	5
20	Ireland	Johnny Logan	"Hold Me Now"	English	172	1
21	Yugoslavia	Novi fosili	"Ja sam za ples" (Ја сам за плес)	Serbo-Croatian[lower-alpha 1]	92	4
22	Switzerland	Carol Rich	"Moitié, moitié"	French	26	17

Detailed voting results

12 points

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

N.	Contestant	Nation(s) giving 12 points
8	Ireland	Austria,  Belgium,  Finland,  Italy,  Netherlands,  Sweden,   Switzerland,  United Kingdom
5	Italy	Germany,  Ireland,  Portugal,  Spain,  Yugoslavia
2	Germany	Denmark,  Iceland
	Yugoslavia	Norway,  Turkey
1	Cyprus	Greece
	France	Luxembourg
	Greece	Cyprus
	Netherlands	France
	Sweden	Israel

Spokespersons

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

Each country announced their votes in the order of performance. The following is a list of spokespersons who announced the votes for their respective country.

Broadcasts

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

National broadcasters were able to send a commentary team to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language.

Broadcasters and commentators in participating countries

Country	Broadcaster(s)	Commentator(s)	Ref(s)
Austria	FS1	Ernst Grissemann [de]
	Hitradio Ö3	Hans Leitinger [de]
Belgium	RTBF1	French: Claude Delacroix
	BRT TV1	Dutch: Luc Appermont	[16]
	RTBF La Première	French: Patrick Duhamel [fr] and Stéphane Dupont
	BRT Radio 2	Dutch: Rita Jaenen
Cyprus	RIK	Fryni Papadopoulou
	RIK Deftero	Pavlos Pavlou
Denmark	DR TV	Jørgen de Mylius
	DR P3	Poul Birch Eriksen [dk]
Finland	YLE TV1	Heikki Harma and Kari Lumikero [fi]
	YLE 2-verkko	TBC
France	Antenne 2	Patrick Simpson-Jones [fr]
	France Inter	Julien Lepers
Germany	Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen	Lotti Ohnesorge [de] and Christoph Deumling [de]
	Deutschlandfunk/NDR Radio 2	Peter Urban
Greece	ERT	Dafni Bokota
	Proto Programma	Dimitris Konstantaras [el]
Iceland	Sjónvarpið	Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir	[17]
Ireland	RTÉ 1	Marty Whelan	[18]
	RTÉ Radio 1	Larry Gogan
Israel	Israeli Television	No commentator
	Reshet Gimel	Yigal Ravid
Italy	Rai Due	Rosanna Vaudetti
	Rai Radio 2	Antonio De Robertis
Luxembourg	RTL Télévision	Valérie Sarn [fr]
	RTL plus	TBC
	RTL	André Torrent [fr]
Netherlands	Nederland 1	Willem van Beusekom	[19]
	Radio 2	Rudi Carrell
Norway	NRK	John Andreassen and Tor Paulsen
	NRK P2	Roald Øyen
Portugal	RTP1	Maria Margarida Gaspar
Spain	TVE 2	Beatriz Pécker [es]
Sweden	TV1	Fredrik Belfrage
	SR P3	Jacob Dahlin
Switzerland	SRG Sportkette [de]	German: Bernard Thurnheer [de]	[20]
	SSR Chaîne sportive	French: Serge Moisson [fr]	[20]
	TSI Canale sportivo	Italian: Wilma Gilardi	[20]
Turkey	TV1	Gülgün Baysal
United Kingdom	BBC1	Terry Wogan	[21][7]
	BBC Radio 2	Ray Moore	[7]
Yugoslavia	TVB 1, TVZ 1	Serbo-Croatian: Ksenija Urličić	[15]
	TVL 1	Slovene: Miša Molk
	Radio Val 202	Slovene: Marjeta Keršič Svetel

Broadcasters and commentators in non-participating countries

Country	Broadcaster(s)	Commentator(s)	Ref(s)
Australia	SBS TV	Unknown
Hungary	MTV2	István Vágó	[22]
Poland	TP1	Bogusław Brelik

See also

• Eurovision Young Dancers 1987

Notes

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Eurovision Song Contest 1987.

• Official website

На других языках

[ru] Евровидение-1987