Eurovision Song Contest 1972

The Eurovision Song Contest 1972 was the 17th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, held on 25 March 1972 at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh, United Kingdom, and presented by Moira Shearer. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), who staged the event after (TMC), which had won the for , declined hosting responsibilities, citing the lack of a suitable venue, technical limitations, and related costs. As the Spanish and German broadcasters, which had placed second and third in 1971 respectively, also declined the offer to host, the BBC stepped in to stage the 1972 contest after no other offers were received. It was the first, and only, edition of the contest to take place in Scotland, as well as being the only time that a UK-hosted edition of the contest has been held outside England.

Broadcasters from a total of eighteen countriesthe same line-up as had competed the previous yearparticipated.

The winner was , represented by the song "", composed by and Leo Leandros under the pseudonym Mario Panas, written by Leandros and , and performed by Vicky Leandros. It was Luxembourg's third contest victory, following wins in and . The , , the and rounded out the top five, with the United Kingdom achieving its record-extending eighth runner-up position and Germany placing third for the third year in succession. achieved its best result to date, with a seventh-place finish, while placed last for the second year in a row.

Location

thumb|220px|left|alt=A modern photo of the exterior of the Usher Hall on a bright sunny day|The [[Usher Hall, Edinburgh – host venue of the 1972 contest]]

The 1972 contest was held in Edinburgh, United Kingdom. It was the fourth time that the contest was hosted in the UK, following the , , and editions. It was the first contest held in the UK to be staged outside of London, and the first, and only, contest to be held in Scotland, as well as the only contest held in the UK to be staged outside of England. The selected venue was the Usher Hall, a concert hall opened in 1914 and named after Andrew Usher, a whisky distiller who donated to the city specifically to fund a new concert venue. Around 1,500 people were present in the audience during the contest.

Host selection

The was won by , represented by (TMC), with the song "" performed by Séverine, which according to Eurovision tradition made TMC the presumptive host of the 1972 contest. This was the first time that Monaco had won the contest and following its win the Monégasque broadcaster initially announced its intention to stage the event in 1972, which would have been the first time the contest was staged in the principality. As Monaco had no suitable television studio or contest venue large enough to stage the event, TMC proposed hosting the contest at an outdoor location in June 1972; an indoor venue was also reportedly already under construction, which TMC had hoped to get accelerated in time to host the contest. The BBC had also suggested that France's (ORTF) could take on the contest, given the French had lost out on staging the to the Netherlands following a draw between them and Dutch (NTS) following the . The EBU subsequently declared that the contest had to be held in either March or April, precluding TMC's outdoor option, and by July 1971 citing the lack of a suitable venue, as well as technical limitations at the broadcaster and the costs of staging the event, TMC declared they would be unable to stage the event. On 19 October the Usher Hall in Edinburgh was confirmed publicly as the contest venue, with 25 March solidified as the date of the event; in his announcement, Cotton expressed a desire for the first time to bring a UK-held contest outside of London, which had been the host city on all three occasions that the event had been held in the UK.

Participants

thumb|upright=1|alt=A black-and-white photograph of the 1972 line-up of the New Seekers performing on a television studio set|[[The New Seekers, the first group to represent the , had previously achieved massive worldwide success, including with the song "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)".]]

The same eighteen countries which had participated in 1971 returned for the 1972 contest. Additionally, Claude Lombard, who had represented , returned as a backing singer for the Belgian entry at this year's event.

! scope="col" | Country

! scope="col" | Broadcaster

! scope="col" | Artist

! scope="col" | Song

! scope="col" | Language

! scope="col" | Songwriter(s)

! scope="col" | Conductor

! scope="row" |

| ORF

| The Milestones

| ""

| German

| Erich Kleinschuster

! scope="row" |

| RTB

| ""

| French

! scope="row" |

| YLE

| Päivi Paunu and Kim Floor

| ""

| Finnish

| Ossi Runne

! scope="row" |

| ORTF

| Betty Mars

| ""

| French

| Frédéric Botton

| Franck Pourcel

! scope="row" |

| SFB

| Mary Roos

| ""

| German

| Paul Kuhn

! scope="row" |

| RTÉ

| Sandie Jones

| ""

| Irish

| Colman Pearce

! scope="row" |

| RAI

| Nicola Di Bari

| ""

| Italian

| Gian Franco Reverberi

! scope="row" |

| CLT

| Vicky Leandros

| ""

| French

| Klaus Munro

! scope="row" |

| MBA

| Helen and Joseph

| ""

| Maltese

| Charles Camilleri

! scope="row" |

| TMC

| and

| ""

| French

| Raymond Bernard

! scope="row" |

| NOS

| Sandra and Andres

| ""

| Dutch

| Harry van Hoof

! scope="row" |

| NRK

| Grethe Kausland and Benny Borg

| ""

| Norwegian

| Carsten Klouman

! scope="row" |

| RTP

| Carlos Mendes

| ""

| Portuguese

| Richard Hill

! scope="row" |

| TVE

| Jaime Morey

| ""

| Spanish

| Augusto Algueró

! scope="row" |

| SR

| The Family Four

| ""

| Swedish

| Mats Olsson

! scope="row" |

| SRG SSR

| Véronique Müller

| ""

| French

| Jean-Pierre Festi

! scope="row" |

| BBC

| The New Seekers

| "Beg, Steal or Borrow"

| English

| David Mackay

! scope="row" |

| JRT

| Tereza

| "" <small>()</small>

| Serbo-Croatian

| Nikica Kalogjera

Production and format

The Eurovision Song Contest 1972 was produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The contest was presented by the Scottish ballet dancer and actor Moira Shearer. A maximum of six performers were allowed on stage during each country's performance.

The voting system introduced at the previous year's contest returned: each participating broadcaster appointed two individualsone aged between 16 and 25, the other between 26 and 55, and with at least 10 years between their ageswho awarded each song a score between one and five votes, except for the song from their own country. For this year's edition the jurors were kept in a separate location during the contest, and were based within the Great Hall of Edinburgh Castle where they followed the contest on television. After each country had performed they were required to record their votes, so that they could not be altered later, and during the voting sequence were shown on screen, with the scores being announced by the jurors themselves in blocks of three countries. The voting sequence was projected in black-and-white onto an Eidophor screen in the Usher Hall for the benefit of the audience;

Following an introduction pre-recorded video montage of various Edinburgh locations, Moira Shearer was played onto the stage by a fanfare composed by the contest's musical director Malcolm Lockyer; this same fanfare had previously been used in the opening title music of the film Dr. Who and the Daleks, for which Lockyer had provided the score. It was Luxembourg's third contest victory, following wins in and . Dessca had also provided the lyrics to the previous year's winning song "" for Monaco and thus became the first person to win back-to-back contests and to win for multiple countries. Vicky Leandros had previously represented , where she had performed mononymously and placed fourth with the song ""; this song went on to become a massive global hit after the contest, particularly following the release of an instrumental version by Paul Mauriat released as "Love Is Blue" which topped the US Billboard Hot 100 in 1968. The finished in second place for a record-extending eighth time, while placed third for the third year in succession. Further down the scoreboard in seventh achieved its best-ever result up to that point, while finished in last place for the second year in a row.

Two separate disturbances were reported to have occurred on the evening of the event. Before the contest began, a local headmaster began shouting towards the stage at a BBC producer who was welcoming the audience, complaining that local schoolchildren were unable to attend the event and that they would have appreciated it more than the largely invited audience members. Later on, during the Irish and Spanish songs, another man was seen scattering a substance among the audience close to the Irish delegation, which led to small explosions; this was reported to have been a protest against the commercialisation of the music industry, and led to a partial evacuation of the venue by police and military for a short time.

{| class="sortable wikitable plainrowheaders sticky-header"

|+ Results of the Eurovision Song Contest 1972

! scope="col" |

! scope="col" | Country

! scope="col" | Artist

! scope="col" | Song

! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Votes

! scope="col" | Place

! scope="row" style="text-align:center;" | 1

| ""

| 107

| 3

! scope="row" style="text-align:center;" | 2

| ""

| 81

| 11

! scope="row" style="text-align:center;" | 3

| ""

| 72

| 15

! scope="row" style="text-align:center;" | 4

| ""

| 83

| 10

! scope="row" style="text-align:center;" | 5

| "Beg, Steal or Borrow"

| 114

| 2

! scope="row" style="text-align:center;" | 6

| and Benny Borg

| ""

| 73

| 14

! scope="row" style="text-align:center;" | 7

| ""

| 90

| 7

! scope="row" style="text-align:center;" | 8

| ""

| 88

| 8

! scope="row" style="text-align:center;" | 9

| Helen and Joseph

| ""

| 48

| 18

! scope="row" style="text-align:center;" | 10

| and Kim Floor

| ""

| 78

| 12

! scope="row" style="text-align:center;" | 11

| ""

| 100

| 5

! scope="row" style="text-align:center;" | 12

| ""

| 92

| 6

! scope="row" style="text-align:center;" | 13

| Tereza

| ""

| 87

| 9

! scope="row" style="text-align:center;" | 14

| ""

| 75

| 13

! scope="row" style="text-align:center;" | 15

| and Peter MacLane

| ""

| 65

| 16

! scope="row" style="text-align:center;" | 16

| ""

| 55

| 17

|- style="font-weight:bold; background:gold;"

! scope="row" style="text-align:center;" | 17

| ""

| 128

| 1

! scope="row" style="text-align:center;" | 18

| Sandra and Andres

| ""

| 106

| 4

Detailed voting results<span class="anchor" id="Scoreboard"></span>

Jury voting was used to determine the votes awarded by all countries. The announcement of the results from each country's two jury members was conducted in the order in which their nation performed; the jurors were shown on camera when presenting their scores, with each juror using small boards in front of their desks with numbers 1 to 5 which they flipped up to reveal their votes for the country being awarded. The results of three countries at a time were totalled and presented as one score, with all eighteen countries receiving their scores before moving on to the next three countries to award their scores: e.g. in the first round of voting the scores of the German, French and Irish juries were revealed together, which were announced as 14 votes for Germany, 10 votes for France, and so on until the Netherlands received the final scores from these three countries, with 20 votes; this was then followed by the votes from the Spanish, UK and Norwegian jurors, which awarded their scores starting again for Germany and ending with the Netherlands, with further countries voting in groups of three in the same manner.

! colspan="2" |

! scope="col"

! rowspan="18"

! scope="row" style="text-align:left; background:#f2f2f2;" | Germany

| style="text-align:right; background:#f2f2f2;" | 107 || style="text-align:left; background:#aaa;"| || 8 || 6 || 9 || 5 || 6 || 6 || 5 || 4 || 5 || 5 || 7 || 5 || 8 || 8 || 7 || 7 || 6

! scope="row" style="text-align:left; background:#f2f2f2;" | France

| style="text-align:right; background:#f2f2f2;" | 81 || 5 || style="text-align:left; background:#aaa;"| || 5 || 2 || 9 || 7 || 2 || 3 || 5 || 4 || 2 || 3 || 5 || 2 || 6 || 7 || 8 || 6

! scope="row" style="text-align:left; background:#f2f2f2;" | Ireland

| style="text-align:right; background:#f2f2f2;" | 72 || 4 || 3 || style="text-align:left; background:#aaa;"| || 4 || 4 || 6 || 4 || 3 || 6 || 3 || 4 || 3 || 3 || 5 || 5 || 4 || 6 || 5

! scope="row" style="text-align:left; background:#f2f2f2;" | Spain

| style="text-align:right; background:#f2f2f2;" | 83 || 7 || 5 || 5 || style="text-align:left; background:#aaa;"| || 3 || 8 || 6 || 3 || 4 || 4 || 5 || 3 || 2 || 7 || 8 || 3 || 5 || 5

! scope="row" style="text-align:left; background:#f2f2f2;" | United Kingdom

| style="text-align:right; background:#f2f2f2;" | 114 || 8 || 9 || 6 || 2 || style="text-align:left; background:#aaa;"| || 10 || 4 || 8 || 2 || 7 || 7 || 7 || 9 || 6 || 9 || 4 || 8 || 8

! scope="row" style="text-align:left; background:#f2f2f2;" | Norway

| style="text-align:right; background:#f2f2f2;" | 73 || 4 || 3 || 6 || 5 || 4 || style="text-align:left; background:#aaa;"| || 5 || 2 || 5 || 7 || 3 || 2 || 5 || 4 || 4 || 4 || 6 || 4

! scope="row" style="text-align:left; background:#f2f2f2;" | Portugal

| style="text-align:right; background:#f2f2f2;" | 90 || 3 || 4 || 7 || 7 || 4 || 2 || style="text-align:left; background:#aaa;"| || 6 || 5 || 2 || 4 || 9 || 4 || 7 || 4 || 7 || 10 || 5

! scope="row" style="text-align:left; background:#f2f2f2;" | Switzerland

| style="text-align:right; background:#f2f2f2;" | 88 || 4 || 5 || 6 || 5 || 4 || 7 || 2 || style="text-align:left; background:#aaa;"| || 4 || 7 || 8 || 5 || 5 || 4 || 6 || 4 || 7 || 5

! scope="row" style="text-align:left; background:#f2f2f2;" | Malta

| style="text-align:right; background:#f2f2f2;" | 48 || 3 || 2 || 4 || 2 || 6 || 2 || 2 || 2 || style="text-align:left; background:#aaa;"| || 5 || 2 || 2 || 2 || 3 || 3 || 2 || 2 || 4

! scope="row" style="text-align:left; background:#f2f2f2;" | Finland

| style="text-align:right; background:#f2f2f2;" | 78 || 4 || 3 || 3 || 6 || 5 || 6 || 4 || 3 || 3 || style="text-align:left; background:#aaa;"| || 3 || 3 || 4 || 4 || 5 || 8 || 6 || 8

! scope="row" style="text-align:left; background:#f2f2f2;" | Austria

| style="text-align:right; background:#f2f2f2;" | 100 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 3 || 5 || 5 || 7 || 5 || 4 || style="text-align:left; background:#aaa;"| || 6 || 8 || 10 || 5 || 4 || 5 || 9

! scope="row" style="text-align:left; background:#f2f2f2;" | Italy

| style="text-align:right; background:#f2f2f2;" | 92 || 4 || 5 || 3 || 2 || 3 || 6 || 7 || 9 || 6 || 6 || 6 || style="text-align:left; background:#aaa;"| || 4 || 8 || 6 || 6 || 6 || 5

! scope="row" style="text-align:left; background:#f2f2f2;" | Yugoslavia

| style="text-align:right; background:#f2f2f2;" | 87 || 7 || 4 || 5 || 8 || 5 || 4 || 5 || 2 || 4 || 3 || 3 || 2 || style="text-align:left; background:#aaa;"| || 4 || 9 || 8 || 8 || 6

! scope="row" style="text-align:left; background:#f2f2f2;" | Sweden

| style="text-align:right; background:#f2f2f2;" | 75 || 5 || 3 || 5 || 3 || 3 || 5 || 4 || 2 || 4 || 5 || 4 || 3 || 7 || style="text-align:left; background:#aaa;"| || 5 || 7 || 5 || 5

! scope="row" style="text-align:left; background:#f2f2f2;" | Monaco

| style="text-align:right; background:#f2f2f2;" | 65 || 4 || 3 || 4 || 3 || 5 || 6 || 2 || 2 || 5 || 5 || 3 || 3 || 4 || 3 || style="text-align:left; background:#aaa;"| || 4 || 4 || 5

! scope="row" style="text-align:left; background:#f2f2f2;" | Belgium

| style="text-align:right; background:#f2f2f2;" | 55 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 2 || 5 || 2 || 3 || 3 || 5 || 4 || 2 || 3 || 2 || 2 || 4 || style="text-align:left; background:#aaa;"| || 6 || 3

|- style="background:gold;"

! scope="row" style="text-align:left; font-weight:bold; background:gold;" | Luxembourg

| style="text-align:right; font-weight:bold;" | 128 || 9 || 8 || 9 || 2 || 10 || 8 || 7 || 6 || 4 || 6 || 8 || 9 || 10 || 8 || 7 || 8 || style="text-align:left; background:#aaa;"| || 9

! scope="row" style="text-align:left; background:#f2f2f2;" | Netherlands

| style="text-align:right; background:#f2f2f2;" | 106 || 6 || 6 || 8 || 8 || 9 || 8 || 5 || 6 || 3 || 9 || 6 || 3 || 9 || 6 || 5 || 2 || 7 || style="text-align:left; background:#aaa;"|

10 votes

The below table summarises where the potential maximum of 10 votes were awarded from one country to another. The winning country is shown in bold. Luxembourg received the maximum score of 10 votes from two of the voting countries, and Austria, Portugal and the United Kingdom received one set of 10 votes each. Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders sticky-header"

|+ Broadcasters and commentators in participating countries

! scope="col" | Country

! scope="col" | Broadcaster

! scope="col" | Channel(s)

! scope="col" | Commentator(s)

! scope="col" |

! scope="row" |

| ORF

| FS2

| Ernst Grissemann

| style="text-align:center" |

! scope="rowgroup" rowspan="3" |

| rowspan="2" | RTB

| RTB

| Paule Herreman

| style="text-align:center" rowspan="3" |

| RTB 1

| BRT

! scope="rowgroup" rowspan="3" |

| rowspan="3" | YLE

| style="text-align:center" rowspan="3" |

! scope="row" |

| ORTF

| Pierre Tchernia

| style="text-align:center" |

! scope="row" |

| ARD

| style="text-align:center" |

! scope="rowgroup" rowspan="2" |

| rowspan="2" | RTÉ

| RTÉ

| Mike Murphy

| style="text-align:center" rowspan="2" |

| RTÉ Radio

| Liam Devally and Kevin Roche

! scope="row" |

| RAI

| ,

| style="text-align:center" |

! scope="row" |

| CLT

| Jacques Navadic

| style="text-align:center" |

! scope="row" |

| MBA

| MTS, National Network

| Norman Hamilton

| style="text-align:center" |

! scope="row" |

| NOS

| Pim Jacobs

| style="text-align:center" |

! scope="row" |

| NRK

| , NRK