The Eurovision Song Contest 1974 was the 19th edition of the annual

Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...

. It took place in

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and was organized by the

European Broadcasting Union The European Broadcasting Union (EBU; french: Union européenne de radio-télévision, links=no, UER) is an alliance of Public broadcasting, public service media organisations whose countries are within the European Broadcasting Area or who ar ...

(EBU) and host broadcaster

British Broadcasting Corporation #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

(BBC), who agreed to host the event after , having won in both and , declined to host it for a second successive year on the grounds of expense. The contest was held at the Brighton Dome on 6 April 1974 and was hosted by

Katie Boyle Caterina Irene Elena Maria Boyle, Lady Saunders (née Imperiali dei Principi di Francavilla; 29 May 1926 – 20 March 2018), usually known as Katie Boyle, was an Italian-born British actress, writer, radio announcer, television personality, gam ...

for the fourth and final time (having hosted the 1960, 1963 and 1968 editions). Seventeen countries took part in the contest, with being absent and competing for the first time this year. The winner was with the song "

Waterloo Waterloo most commonly refers to: * Battle of Waterloo, a battle on 18 June 1815 in which Napoleon met his final defeat * Waterloo, Belgium, where the battle took place. Waterloo may also refer to: Other places Antarctica *King George Island (S ...

", performed by

ABBA ABBA ( , , formerly named Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid or Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Frida) are a Swedish supergroup formed in Stockholm in 1972 by Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. The group's ...

, who would later go on to become one of the best-selling acts in pop music history.

Location

The contest was held in the

seaside resort A seaside resort is a resort town, town, village, or hotel that serves as a Resort, vacation resort and is located on a coast. Sometimes the concept includes an aspect of official accreditation based on the satisfaction of certain requirements, suc ...

on the south coast of the

. At the time, Brighton was a separate town; it is now the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove (formed from the previous towns of Brighton,

Hove Hove is a seaside resort and one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove, along with Brighton in East Sussex, England. Originally a "small but ancient fishing village" surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th cen ...

Portslade Portslade is a western suburb of the city of Brighton and Hove, England. Portslade Village, the original settlement a mile inland to the north, was built up in the 16th century. The arrival of the railway from Brighton in 1840 encouraged rapid de ...

and several other villages) on the south coast of Great Britain. The venue which hosted the event was the Brighton Dome, an arts venue that contains the Concert Hall, the Corn Exchange and the Pavilion Theatre. All three venues are linked to the rest of the Royal Pavilion Estate by a tunnel to the Royal Pavilion in Pavilion Gardens and through shared corridors to Brighton Museum; the entire complex was built for the Prince Regent (later

George IV George IV (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from the death of his father, King George III, on 29 January 1820, until his own death ten y ...

) and completed in 1805.

Format

Each song was introduced by a 'postcard' featuring a montage of film material, beginning with library footage of the participating nation provided by the various national tourist organizations. This was then intercut with various clips of the artists in rehearsal, conducting their press conference with the media or posing for photographs in and around the Brighton Pavilion complex. It was the first time the contest had broadcast rehearsal footage or behind the scenes footage from the run-up to the grand final.

Participating countries

Seventeen nations took part in this year's contest.

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

made their début in the contest, while

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

withdrew during the week of the contest after the sudden death of French President Georges Pompidou.

Conductors

Each performance had a conductor who conducted the orchestra. * Ossi Runne * Nick Ingman * *

Frode Thingnæs Frode Thingnæs (20 March 1940 – 15 November 2012) was a Norwegian jazz composer, arranger, conductor and trombone player who formed the Frode Thingnæs Quintet in 1960. Career Thingnæs was introduced to music at eight years old, when he sta ...

* Giorgos Katsaros * Yoni Rechter * * Sven-Olof Walldoff * Charles Blackwell *

Raymond Donnez Raymond Donnez (September 9, 1942 – March 7, 2019), or Don Ray, was a French disco producer, arranger and performer. Early life A cult hero among fans of Eurodisco, Don Ray played keyboards on Cerrone's records "Love in C Minor", "IV", "VI" ...

* Pierre Chiffre * Harry van Hoof *

Colman Pearce Colman Pearce (born 22 September 1938) is an Irish pianist and conductor. Born in Dublin, Pearce was educated at University College Dublin and studied conducting in Hilversum and Vienna. He became a conductor for the RTÉ Concert Orchestra in ...

* * Pepe Ederer * José Calvário *

Jean-Claude Petit Jean-Claude Petit (born 14 November 1943) is a French composer and arranger, born in Vaires-sur-Marne. After accompanying jazzmen in his childhood, Petit went to the Conservatoire de Paris, where he studied harmony and counterpoint. He did the st ...

was scheduled to conduct the French entry prior to France's withdrawal.

Returning artists

Bold indicates a previous winner

Participants and results

Detailed voting results

Spokespersons

The two-person jury system used for the previous three contests was abandoned, with a resurrection of the 10-person jury system with one vote per juror, last used in 1970, returning. This was the final time it was used. Unusually, a separate draw was made for the order in which the participating countries would vote. In all previous contests either nations had voted in the same running order as the song presentation or in the reverse of that order. It was not until 2006 that the voting sequence was decided by draw again. Finland, Norway, Switzerland and Italy drew the same position in both draws. Listed below is the order in which votes were cast during the 1974 contest along with the spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country. # # TBC # # # Colin Ward-Lewis # Helga Vlahović # #

Brendan Balfe Brendan Balfe (born 19 September 1945 in Dublin) is an Irish radio personality, who was on-air consistently for more than 40 years on RTÉ. He retired in 2010. Comedy has been a feature of many of Balfe's programmes. He has won three Internati ...

# #

Henrique Mendes Henrique Mendes (January 2, 1931 – July 8, 2004) was a Portuguese television presenter and actor, he is best known for hosting several editions of Festival da Canção. Mendes joint Rádio Renascença in 1950 as a radio announcer and in 1958 he ...

# Dick van Bommel #

Sven Lindahl Sven Gustaf Lindahl (born 25 June 1937, in Stockholm) is a Swedish journalist, songwriter, radio and television presenter. As a teenager, he played in a boogie-woogie band. After leaving school, he worked briefly as a welding apprentice in Luton a ...

# Antolín García #

Sophie Hecquet Sophie Hecquet (born Arlette Hecquet, 9 October 1944 – 28 October 2012), often credited mononymously as Sophie, was a French pop singer and radio and television presenter. Biography She was born in Dax, Landes. Early in her career, as Jenn ...

# Michel Stocker # André Hagon #

Broadcasts

Each national broadcaster also sent a commentator to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language. The contest was broadcast live in all participating countries, except for Italy which took a deferred transmission. The contest was also broadcast live in Austria, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the Soviet Union, and was recorded for later broadcast in Algeria, Cyprus, France, Japan, Jordan, Iceland, Morocco, Poland, South Korea and Tunisia. In addition to the broadcast on television, the contest was also provided via radio in Belgium, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Incidents

French withdrawal

France had been drawn to sing at No. 14 (after Ireland and before Germany) with the song "La Vie à vingt-cinq ans" by Dani, but as a mark of respect following the death of the French President Georges Pompidou during Eurovision week, French broadcaster ORTF made the decision to withdraw the entry. Given that President Pompidou's memorial service (he had been buried in a private ceremony on 4 April), which was attended by numerous international dignitaries, was held on the same day as the contest, it was deemed inappropriate for the French to take part. Dani was seen by viewers in the audience at the point the French song should have been performed. For the same reason, the French singer

Anne-Marie David Anne-Marie David (born 23 May 1952) is a French singer. She has represented both Luxembourg and France at the Eurovision Song Contest, winning in 1973 and placing third in 1979. Career David was born and raised in Casablanca, French Protecto ...

, who had won the first place for Luxembourg in 1973, could not come to Brighton to hand the prize to the 1974 winner.O'Connor, John Kennedy ''The Eurovision Song Contest – The Official History'' Carlton Books, UK, 2007 In her absence, the Director General of the BBC and President of the EBU, Sir Charles Curran, presented the Grand Prix to the winners.

Italian broadcast

Italy did not broadcast the televised contest on the state television channel RAI because the contest coincided with the intense political campaigning for the 1974 Italian referendum on divorce, which was held a month later in May. RAI felt that Gigliola Cinquetti's song, which was entitled " Sì", and repeatedly featured the word "si" (yes), could risk the accusation of being a subliminal message and a form of

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...

to influence the Italian voting public to vote "yes" in the referendum. The song was not played on most Italian state TV and radio stations until the referendum had been held.

Notes

References

External links

* {{Portal bar, Music

1974 Major events in 1974 include the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis and the resignation of United States President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal. In the Middle East, the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War determined politics; f ...

Music festivals in the United Kingdom 1974 in music 1974 in the United Kingdom 20th century in East Sussex April 1974 events in Europe Music in Brighton and Hove Events in Brighton and Hove