International song competition
The Eurovision Song Contest 1996 was the 41st edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, held on 18 May 1996 at the in Oslo, Norway. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster (NRK) and presented by Ingvild Bryn and Morten Harket, the contest was held in Norway following the country's victory at the 1995 contest with the song "" by Secret Garden.
Thirty countries submitted entries to the contest, with a non-public, audio-only qualifying round held two months before the final to reduce the number of participants from 30 to 23. The entries from Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Macedonia, Romania, and Russia were subsequently eliminated, which resulted in Germany being absent from the contest for the first – and as of 2024 only – time.
The winner was Ireland with the song "The Voice", written by Brendan Graham and performed by Eimear Quinn. This gave the nation a record-extending seventh contest win, their fourth win in five years, with Graham also recording his second win as a songwriter in three years after having written the winning song at the 1994 contest. Norway, Sweden, Croatia, and Estonia took the remaining places in the top five, with Croatia, Estonia, and Portugal, which placed sixth, achieving their best results to date. This was the final contest where the results were determined solely by jury voting, with a trial use of televoting in the following year's event leading to widespread adoption from 1998 onwards.
Location.
The 1996 contest took place in Oslo, Norway, following the country's victory at the 1995 contest with the song "", performed by Secret Garden. It was the second time that Norway had hosted the contest, following the 1986 contest staged in Bergen. The chosen venue was the , an indoor arena opened in 1990 and located in the district of the city, which has hosted music concerts, ice hockey matches, and the annual Nobel Peace Prize Concert. Around 6,000 spectators were present in the venue during the contest.
Participating countries.
A total of thirty countries submitted entries for the 1996 contest, however per the rules of the event only twenty-three countries would be allowed to participate. Norway, by virtue of being the host country, was guaranteed a place, with all remaining countries competing in the qualifying round in order to gain a spot in the event. Initially broadcasters from thirty-three countries expressed an interest in participating, however planned entries from Bulgaria, Moldova, and Ukraine failed to materialise; these nations would eventually make their contest debuts in the 2000s.
Three representatives who had performed as lead artists in previous contests featured among the performers at this event. Marianna Efstratiou represented Greece for the second time, having previously competed in the 1989 contest, while Elisabeth Andreassen made her fourth contest appearance, having competed for Sweden in 1982 as a member of the band Chips, as well as representing Norway twice, winning the contest in 1985 as a member of Bobbysocks! and performing with Jan Werner Danielsen in 1994. Additionally, Georgina Abela, who had represented Malta at the 1991 contest with Paul Giordimaina, returned as a backing singer for the Maltese entrant Miriam Christine.
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Production.
The Eurovision Song Contest 1996 was produced by the Norwegian public broadcaster (NRK). Odd Arvid Strømstad served as executive producer, Pål Veiglum served as director, Bjarte Ulfstein served as designer, and Frode Thingnæs served as musical director, leading the Norwegian Radio Orchestra. A separate musical director could be nominated by each country to lead the orchestra during their performance, with the host musical director also available to conduct for those countries which did not nominate their own conductor. On behalf of the contest organisers, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the event was overseen by Christine Marchal-Ortiz as scrutineer.
The show was presented by the Norwegian journalist and television presenter Ingvild Bryn and the Norwegian singer Morten Harket, lead vocalist of the Norwegian band a-ha. The contest underwent a re-brand for this edition, as NRK set out to improve the image of the competition and broaden its audience appeal. The event was referred to by the hosts and through on-screen captions as "Eurosong '96", the only occasion in which this contraction was officially used to refer to the event.
Rehearsals in the contest venue for the competing acts began on 13 May 1996. Each country had two technical rehearsals in the week approaching the contest, with countries rehearsing in the order in which they would perform. The first rehearsals took place on 13 and 14 May, with each country allowed 40 minutes total on stage, followed by 20 minutes to review recordings with producers and to consult on suggested changes, and then a 20-minute press conference. Each country's second rehearsals took place on 15 and 16 May, with 30 minutes total on stage followed by another 20 minute press conference. A full technical rehearsal with all artists took place on the afternoon of 17 May, followed by two dress rehearsals with an audience on the evening of 17 May and the following afternoon. The competing delegations were invited to a welcome reception during the week in the build-up to the event, hosted by the Mayor of Oslo at Oslo City Hall on the evening of 13 May, as well as to events during the rehearsal week including a sailing trip on the Oslofjord and a trip to the in Bygdøy where a special Eurovision-themed exhibition had been installed.
NRK introduced visual effects to the contest for the first time. Computer-generated imagery (CGI) was featured as overlays during the broadcast of the competing entries, and the voting segment was conducted via chroma key technology built by Silicon Graphics; during this segment host Ingvild Bryn was situated in the "blue room", a special area to the side of the stage with a blue-coloured background, which allowed the contest scoreboard to be rendered virtually using CGI. The chroma key virtual display also included live footage of the artists in the green room backstage, as well as the video feeds of each country's spokespersons as they delivered their country's points.
Format.
Each participating broadcaster submitted one song, which was required to be no longer than three minutes in duration and performed in the language, or one of the languages, of the country which it represented. A maximum of six performers were allowed on stage during each country's performance, and all participants were required to have reached the age of 16 in the year of the contest. Each entry could utilise all or part of the live orchestra and could use instrumental-only backing tracks, however any backing tracks used could only include the sound of instruments featured on stage being mimed by the performers.
New qualification system.
In 1996, a trial qualification process replaced the relegation system used from 1993 to 1995, whereby the lowest-ranked countries in each final were eliminated from the following year's contest. Under the new procedure, an audio preselection was organised for all participating countries, apart from the host country Norway, which received an automatic right to compete in the final, to be joined by an additional 22 countries. National juries in all competing countries, including Norway, listened to the submitted entries on audio tape, with juries required to listen to all songs three times before voting. Each of the eight members on each country's jury awarded their favourite song twelve points, their second-favourite ten points, their third-favourite eight points, with subsequent points being awarded consecutively down to each juror's tenth-favourite song being awarded one point, with the points awarded by all jurors being totalled to determine each country's top ten songs which were awarded points in the same manner. Jury members who voted in the qualifying round were not allowed to sit on the jury for the final.
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) required all entries to be submitted by 20March 1996. Jury voting was held on 20 and 21 March, with the qualifying countries publicly revealed on 22 March, at the same time as the running order draw for the final was conducted. The full results of how individual juries had voted was not intended to be revealed publicly, but the full breakdown has since become available.
Voting procedure.
The results of the 1996 contest were determined using the scoring system introduced in 1975: each country awarded twelve points to its favourite entry, followed by ten points to its second favourite, and then awarded points in decreasing value from eight to one for the remaining songs which featured in the country's top ten, with countries unable to vote for their own entry. The points awarded by each country were determined by an assembled jury of sixteen individuals, which was required to be split evenly between members of the public and music professionals, between men and women, and by age. Each jury member voted in secret and awarded between one and ten votes to each participating song, excluding that from their own country and with no abstentions permitted. The votes of each member were collected following the country's performance and then tallied by the non-voting jury chairperson to determine the points to be awarded. In any cases where two or more songs in the top ten received the same number of votes, a show of hands by all jury members was used to determine the final placing. This was the last occasion that juries alone decided the result of the contest, as five nations introduced public televoting as a trial in 1997, and almost all other countries followed suit the next year.
Postcards.
The "postcards" were 70-second video introductions shown on television whilst the stage is being prepared for the next contestant to perform their entry; the postcards for each country at the 1996 contest was made up of three segments. In the first segment the participating country was highlighted geographically on a map of Europe, followed by video footage of that country's competing artist or artists in their home country during their day-to-day lives, which also featured each artist packing a branded backpack with important items which they would take with them to Oslo. The second segment featured footage of nature scenes in Norway as well as Norwegian people in everyday life, often accompanied by music from Norwegian electronic group Subgud. The final segment consisted of a pre-recorded good luck message from a representative of each respective country in the language of that country. The seniority of these figures varied between the different countries; among the contributors were then-President of Turkey Süleyman Demirel, who survived an assassination attempt on the day of the contest, and then-Prime Minister of Portugal António Guterres, who would later become the Secretary-General of the United Nations in 2017. The individuals who provided messages for each country are shown below, alongside the position which they held at the time of the contest and the language in which they provided their message.
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Contest overview.
Qualifying round.
The qualifying round took place on 20 and 21 March 1996, and the results were announced on 22 March. The table below outlines the participating countries, the order in which the juries listened to the entries, the competing artists and songs, and the results of the voting. Countries were ordered alphabetically by ISO two-letter country code.
The entries from Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Macedonia, Romania, and Russia were eliminated following the qualifying round. This marked the first time that Germany was absent from the contest and remains the only occasion to date where the nation has not participated in the contest final. Additionally Macedonia's first attempt to compete in the contest is not considered a debut entry by the EBU, with the nation eventually going on to make their official televised debut in 1998.
Hungary and Finland tied on the same score for the final qualification place, however Finland qualified for the contest due to them having received the highest individual score (8 points) compared to Hungary (7 points).
Final.
The contest took place on 18 May 1996 at 21:00 (CEST) and lasted 3 hours and 7 minutes. In addition to his role as host, Harket also performed the song "Heaven's Not for Saints" as the show's opening act. The interval act, entitled "" or "Beacon Burning", was created by Petter Skavlan. The act featured a film montage created by Nils Gaup which combined stev, jazz, and Norwegian folk music as part of a musical tour of Norway, followed by a dance