🔴 1976 Eurovision Song Contest Full Show From The Hague (Without Foreign Language Commentary)

Date: 3 April 1976 - Host Venue: Nederlands Congresgebouw, The Hague, Netherlands
Presenters: Corry Brokken - Musical director: Jan Stulen - Directed by Theo Ordeman
Executive supervisor: Clifford Brown - Executive producer: Fred Oster
Host broadcaster: Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (NOS)
Interval act: The Dutch Swing College Band

For this edition of the ESC 1976 in The Hague you have the choice between 8 (!) commentary versions:

1. The ESC 1976 without any foreign language commentary under this link:

https://youtu.be/nSqg2fhbnLs

2. German commentary by Werner Veigel:

https://youtu.be/EaqMVwim4Ic

3. English commentary by Michael Aspel for the BBC:

https://youtu.be/JQ90RQGdRK8

4. English commentary by Mike Murphy for the Irish broadcaster RTÉ:

https://youtu.be/VzH6RIwvmcI

5. Spanish commentary by José Luis Uribarri:

https://youtu.be/nnqjzZC9aIo

6. Dutch commentary by Willem Duys:

https://youtu.be/h8q7y_2Vk88

7. Norwegian commentary by Erik Heyerdahl:

https://youtu.be/JujVQ1Qc4ZY

8. French commentary by Jean-Claude Massoulier:

https://youtu.be/Th_76B1OMWE

The Eurovision Song Contest 1976 was the 21st edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It was hosted by NOS and held in The Hague, Netherlands. The arena for the event was the Nederlands Congrescentrum. Teach-In's victory in Stockholm the previous year gave The Netherlands the right to host the contest for the third time. The Contest was won by Brotherhood of Man, who sang "Save Your Kisses for Me" in English, representing the United Kingdom.

The Hague is the seat of government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the capital city of the province of South Holland. It is also the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Located in the west of the Netherlands, The Hague is in the centre of the Haaglanden conurbation and lies at the southwest corner of the larger Randstad conurbation. The contest took place at the Congresgebouw (presently known as the World Forum). The venue was constructed in 1969.

The scoring system introduced in the previous year's competition returned in 1976. Each jury gave 12 points to the best song, 10 to the second best, then 8 to the third, and then 7 to 1 (from fourth to tenth best song, according to the jury). Unlike today, the points were not given in order (from 1 up to 12), but in the order the songs were performed. The current procedure was not established until 1980.

Sweden, Malta and Turkey did not enter after their participation the year prior, while Austria and Greece returned to the contest, making for eighteen participating countries.

Sweden did not enter in the contest, as broadcaster Sveriges Radio (SR) did not have enough money to host another contest if Sweden won again. A new rule was therefore introduced that in the future each broadcaster participating would have to pay a part of the cost of staging the contest. As the author and historian John Kennedy O'Connor notes in his book The Eurovision Song Contest – The Official History, there had been public demonstrations in Sweden against the contest, which also played a part in SR's decision not to take part. The same book also notes that the victorious song went on to become the biggest selling winning single in the history of the contest and won with 80.39% of the possible maximum score and an average of 9.65 of 12; a record under the voting system introduced in 1975.

Results:

Draw Country Artist Song Language Place Points
01 United Kingdom Brotherhood of Man "Save Your Kisses for Me" English 1 164
02 Switzerland Peter, Sue and Marc "Djambo, Djambo" English 4 91
03 Germany Les Humphries Singers "Sing Sang Song" German, English 15 12
04 Israel Chocolate, Menta, Mastik "Emor Shalom" (אמור שלום) Hebrew 6 77
05 Luxembourg Jürgen Marcus "Chansons pour ceux qui s'aiment" French 14 17
06 Belgium Pierre Rapsat "Judy et Cie" French 8 68
07 Ireland Red Hurley "When" English 10 54
08 Netherlands Sandra Reemer "The Party's Over" English 9 56
09 Norway Anne-Karine Strøm "Mata Hari" English 18 7
10 Greece Mariza Koch "Panagia mou, Panagia mou" (Παναγιά μου, Παναγιά μου) Greek 13 20
11 Finland Fredi & The Friends "Pump-Pump" English 11 44
12 Spain Braulio "Sobran las palabras" Spanish 16 11
13 Italy Al Bano & Romina Power "We'll Live It All Again" English, Italian 7 69
14 Austria Waterloo & Robinson "My Little World" English 5 80
15 Portugal Carlos do Carmo "Uma flor de verde pinho" Portuguese 12 24
16 Monaco Mary Christy "Toi, la musique et moi" French 3 93
17 France Catherine Ferry "Un, deux, trois" French 2 147
18 Yugoslavia Ambasadori "Ne mogu skriti svoju bol" Serbo-Croatian 17 10