International song competition
The Eurovision Song Contest 1972 was the 17th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom and was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), who agreed to stage the event after the Monégasque broadcaster Télé Monte Carlo (TMC), who won in 1971, was unable to meet the demands of hosting the event and could not find a suitable venue. The contest was held at the Usher Hall on 25 March 1972 and was hosted by Scottish ballet dancer Moira Shearer. Eighteen countries took part in the contest, the same number as the previous year.
The contest marked the first time that Scotland had hosted the contest. Prior to 1972, when the United Kingdom hosted the contest in 1960, 1963 and 1968, the BBC had always chosen a venue in London. However, for the 1972 Eurovision Song Contest, the BBC broke this trend and chose the Scottish capital to host the competition, marking the first time that London had not been chosen by the BBC. The 1972 Eurovision Song Contest also marked the first time that the event was broadcast live to the Asian continent, with viewers in Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Hong Kong and Thailand able to watch the show on television for the first time. The 1972 contest also marked the first time that a video wall was used to present song titles and artists prior to their performance.
The winner was Luxembourg with the song ", performed by Vicky Leandros, with lyrics by Yves Dessca, and music composed by Mario Panas (which was the writing pseudonym of Vicky's father Leo Leandros). " became the winner with the lowest percentage of the total vote, winning with just 8.30% of the points available. Yves Dessca also wrote "" that had won the previous edition, and became the second person to win the contest twice, the first person to win for two different countries and the first person to win two years in a row. Germany finished in third place for the third consecutive year, equalling their highest placement from the previous two editions.
Location.
Following Monaco's win at the 1971 contest in Dublin, with the song "" performed by Séverine, the winning broadcaster Télé Monte Carlo (TMC) planned to organise the 1972 contest as an open-air event, setting the date in June rather than early spring. However, due to a lack of funding, TMC sought help from the French public broadcaster, (ORTF), which accepted to organise the contest. Because TMC wanted the contest to be held in Monaco while ORTF wanted it in France, negotiations never came through. In July 1971, TMC informed the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) that it was unable to organise the 1972 contest. The EBU asked Spain's Televisión Española (TVE) and Germany's ARD, which respectively finished second and third at the 1971 contest, but both broadcasters declined to host the 1972 contest.
The event was eventually organised by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in Edinburgh, making it the first of five times that the BBC had chosen a venue outside London with the 1974, 1982, 1998, and 2023 contests held in Brighton, Harrogate, Birmingham, and Liverpool respectively. It is also the only time that the contest has been held in Scotland. It is the only UK hosted Eurovision Song Contest to have been held outside England.
The Usher Hall, the venue for the 1972 contest, is a concert hall, situated on Lothian Road, in the west end of the city. It has hosted concerts and events since its construction in 1914 and can hold approximately 2,900 people in its recently restored auditorium, which is well loved by performers due to its acoustics. The Hall is flanked by The Royal Lyceum Theatre on the right and The Traverse Theatre on the left. Historic Scotland has registered the Hall with Category A listed building status.
Participating countries.
The same countries that participated in the 1971 contest were present this year.
Detailed voting results.
Each country had two jury members, one aged between 16 and 25 and one aged between 26 and 55. They each awarded 1 to 5 points for each song, other than the song of their own country. They cast their votes immediately after each song was performed and the votes were then collected and counted. For the public voting sequence after the interval act, the jury members were shown on the stage's screen with each lifting a signboard with the number between 1 and 5 for each song, as a visual verification of the scores they had awarded earlier.
10 points.
Below is a summary of all perfect 10 scores that were given during the voting.
Broadcasts.
Each participating broadcaster was required to relay the contest via its networks. Non-participating EBU member broadcasters were also able to relay the contest as "passive participants". Broadcasters were able to send commentators to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language and to relay information about the artists and songs to their television viewers.
In addition to the participating countries, the contest was also reportedly broadcast in Iceland, Israel, Morocco and Tunisia, in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania via Intervision, and in Brazil, Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Zaire, with an estimated global audience of 400 million viewers. Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.
References.
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