Eurovision Song Contest 1975

Infobox Eurovision
name = Eurovision Song Contest 1975


final = 22 March 1975
presenters = Karin Falck
conductor = Lars Samuelson
director =
host = flagicon|Sweden SR ("Today known as" SVT)
venue = Stockholm Exhibition & Convention Centre, Stockholm, Sweden
winner = flag|Netherlands
"Ding-A-Dong"
vote = Each country awarded 12, 10, 8-1 points to their 10 favourite songs
entries = 19
debut = flag|Turkey
return = flag|France
flag|Malta
withdraw = flag|Greece|old
null = None
interval = The World of John Bauer
opening =
con = Eurovision Song Contest
pre = ◄1974
nex = 1976►

The Eurovision Song Contest 1975 was the 20th edition of the contest hosted by SR Sveriges Radio ("Swedish radio") and held in Stockholm, capital of Sweden. The arena for the event was the newly built Stockholmsmässan 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.

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 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. [O'Connor, John Kennedy. The Eurovision Song Contest - The Official History. Carlton Books, UK. 2007 ISBN 978-1-84442-994-3] . 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.

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.

This year a new scoring system was implemented, one which is still used today. Each jury would now give 12 points to the best song, 10 to the second best, then 8 to the third, 7 to the fourth, 6 to the fifth and so forth until the tenth best song (in the jury's opinion) received a single point. The host 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. First in 1980, this changed.

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 19 countries took part. Spain's entrants, Sergio Blanco and Estibaliz Uranga, were part of the sextet that took second place in the 1973 Contest with the song "Eres Tú." However, their placing here would be a more disappointing tenth.

The Netherlands' victory was their fourth. To date, they have not managed to take any more.

Results

core sheet

		Results
	Netherlands		8	5	8	10	12	6	8	12	12	3	12	4	10	10	7	12	12	1
	Ireland	6		6	0	0	4	7	1	6	4	12	0	0	0	1	4	3	10	4
	France	8	12		0	0	0	3	0	8	7	2	7	1	7	0	12	8	8	8
	Germany	0	0	0		8	0	0	0	0	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	4	0	0
	Luxembourg	12	10	3	0		0	0	7	3	5	0	6	5	0	5	8	6	4	10
	Norway	2	0	0	0	0		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	7
	Switzerland	7	2	10	6	2	1		0	5	6	8	0	7	5	4	2	0	0	12
	Yugoslavia	3	4	0	2	0	0	0		0	0	5	0	0	0	0	1	0	7	0
	United Kingdom	4	3	12	10	12	7	8	12		8	10	10	0	12	7	5	10	5	3
	Malta	1	0	8	0	5	2	4	2	0		7	1	2	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Belgium	5	0	0	7	0	0	0	3	0	0		0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0
	Israel	10	1	1	1	1	5	2	0	1	0	1		6	0	3	0	0	6	2
	Turkey	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0		3	0	0	0	0	0
	Monaco	0	0	0	3	4	0	0	0	2	1	0	2	0		2	3	0	0	5
	Finland	0	5	0	12	6	10	12	5	4	0	0	8	0	8		0	1	3	0
	Portugal	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	12	0	0		2	0	0
	Spain	0	7	0	5	0	3	5	4	0	0	4	4	3	4	8	0		0	6
	Sweden	0	0	7	0	7	8	1	6	7	2	0	3	8	6	6	6	5		0
	Italy	0	6	4	4	3	6	10	10	10	10	6	5	10	1	12	10	7	1
THE TABLE IS ORDERED BY APPEARANCE

Map

References