Friday 5 October 2012

Eurovision Song Contest 1996

Eimear Quinn
Date: May 18, 1996
Venue: Oslo Spektum, Oslo, Norway
Presenters: Ingvild Bryn, Morten Harket
Orchestra: NRK orchestra
Conductor: Frode Thingnæs
Director: Pal Veiglum
Scruteneer: Christine Marchal-Ortiz
Host broadcaster: NRK
Price presenter: Rolf Løvland, Fionualla Sherry, Petter Skavlan
Interval act: Beacon Burning: video and dance act
Duration: 3 hours
Number of entries: 23
Debuting countries: -
Returning countries: Estonia, Finland, The Netherlands, Slovakia, Switzerland
Withdrawing countries: Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Russia
Winning Song: The Voice - Eimear Quinn, Ireland
Voting system: Each country awarded 12, 10, 8-1 points to their 10 favourite songs

Entries

01. Turkey: Şebnem Paker - Beşinci Mevsim (12th place, 57 points)
02. UK: Gina G - Ooh aah... just a little bit (8th place, 77 points)
03. Spain: Antonio Carbonell - ¡Ay, qué deseo! (20th place, 17 points)
04. Portugal: Lúcia Moniz - O meu coração não tem cor (6th place, 92 points)
05. Cyprus: Constantinos - Mono yia mas (9th place, 72 points)
06. Malta: Miriam Christine - In a woman's heart (10th place, 68 points)
07. Croatia: Maja Blagdan - Sveta ljubav (4th place, 98 points)
08. Austria: George Nussbaumer - Weil's dr guat got (10th place, 68 points)
09. Switzerland: Kathy Leander - Mon coeur l'aime (16th place, 22 points)
10. Greece: Mariana Efstratiou - Emeis Forame to Himona Anixiatika (14th points, 36 points)
11. Estonia: Maarja-Liis Ilus & Ivo Linna - Kaelakee hääl (5th place, 94 points)
12. Norway: Elisabeth Andreassen - I evighet (2nd, 114 points)
13. France: Dan Ar Braz & L'Héritage des Celtes - Diwanit bugale (19th place, 18 points)
14. Slovenia: Regina - Dan najlepših sanj (21st place, 16 points)
15. The Netherlands: Maxine & Franklin Brown - De eerste keer (7th place, 78 points)
16. Belgium: Lisa Del Bo - Liefde is een kaartspel (16th place, 22 points)
17. Ireland: Eimear Quinn - The voice (1st place, 162 points)
18. Finland: Jasmine - Niin kaunis on taivas (23rd place, 9 points)
19. Iceland: Anna Mjöll - Sjúbídú (13th place, 51 points)
20. Poland: Kasia Kowalska - Chcę znać swój grzech... (15th place, 31 points)
21. Bosnia & Herzegovina: Amila Glamočak - Za našu ljubav (22nd place, 13 points)
22. Slovakia: Marcel Palonder - Kým nás máš (18th place, 19 points)
23. Sweden: One More Time - Den vilda (3rd place, 100 points)

Franklin Brown & Maxine

The Eurovision Song Contest 1996 was the 41st Eurovision Song Contest and was held on May 18 1996 in Oslo Spektrum in Oslo, Norway. The presenters were Ingvild Bryn and Morten Harket. Morten Harket, lead singer of A-ha, opened the show with a performance of his single Heaven's Not For Saints. Eimear Quinn of Ireland was the winner of this Eurovision with the song, The Voice. The song was written by Brendan Graham, who also composed the 1994 winner Rock 'n' Roll Kids. It was also a record seventh win for Ireland.

Format

The European Broadcasting Union continued to experiment in their efforts to find a broadly acceptable method of whittling down the large number of potential participating countries to a more realistic figure. This year, they reverted to the pre-qualifying round that had been used for the 1993 contest, but this time with just one country exempt from the process - the host Norway. The pre-qualifier was an oddity in that it was not broadcast in any form, and did not even entail any live performance of the entries. Instead, the traditional set of national juries simply listened to the studio recordings of the 29 participating songs, through audio tapes, and awarded points accordingly. All that was subsequently revealed of their deliberations was which countries had qualified, with the precise scores and placings remaining under wraps (although they were leaked some time later). The 22 best scoring countries went on to participate at the ESC in Oslo.

Maja Blagdan

It rapidly became evident that this system was no more sustainable than any other the EBU had tried, as it meant that several countries had gone through their traditional full-blown national selection procedure to come up with an entry, only to suffer the anti-climax of having their challenge quietly extinguished without even having had the opportunity of presenting the song to an international audience. As a leading financial contributor to the contest, Germany were particularly aggrieved that their entry, the techno song Planet of Blue performed by Leon, was one of the seven cast aside. It was the only year in the history of the ESC in which Germany did not participate in the final.

The 1996 contest also featured two novelties — which similarly failed to become a tradition — firstly a short 'good luck message' for each entry, recorded by a political leader or official from their country. The seniority of the figure who delivered the message varied wildly from country to country, ranging from Presidents and Prime Ministers on one end of the spectrum to junior ministers or ambassadors on the other, but a few very significant European political figures did appear, including long-serving Swedish premier Göran Persson and President Alija Izetbegović of Bosnia and Herzegovina. But of course the only good luck wish that was fully rewarded in the end was that of Irish Taoiseach John Bruton, who introduced the song that took his country to a fourth win in five years.

Secondly, the voting section was conducted using blue screen virtual reality technology provided by Silicon Graphics. The host Ingvild Bryn introduced the viewers to the 'blue room', upon which a 3D scoreboard, views of the green room, the jury spokespersons and country graphics appeared. The only physical aspects were Ingvild herself and two podiums.

Maarja-Liis Ilus & Ivo Linna

It seems that a national final was held in 1996 for Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which was won by Maja Odzaklijevska. Maja Odzaklijevska won the Festival MESAM 1996 with the song Rastanak but this festival existed since 1983 and the only common point with Beovizij (Serbian national final) is that the festival used to be organised in the Sava Centar (the biggest congress hall in Belgrade). However RTS considered Maja to be their Eurovision Representative. But, due to ongoing sanctions, the country was unable to enter. Bulgaria, at some stage, wanted to participate as well but they withdrew eventually.

Voting

When Belén Fernández de Henestrosa, the Spanish spokesperson, announced the votes of the Spanish jury, she awarded six points to Holland (the Netherlands), which host Ingvild Byrn misheard as Poland. The official results table corrected this error, and the Netherlands' seventh place result was restored at the expense of the United Kingdom, who ultimately finished eighth. Norway's entry, I evighet, is notable for being the only runner-up not to receive a single 12 points score in a Eurovision final since the current voting method was introduced in 1975.

Returning artists

Two artists returned to the contest this year. Mariana Efstratiou represented Greece in 1987 as a backing vocalist, and in 1989. Elisabeth Andressen represented Sweden in 1982 and Norway in 1985 and 1994.

Lúcia Moniz

Pre-qualifying round

Date: March, 20/21 1996
Location: all participating countries
Participating countries: 29

01. Austria: George Nussbaumer - Weil'n dr guat got (6th place, 80 points)
02. Belgium: Lisa Del Bo - Liefde is een kaartspel (12th place, 45 points)
03. Bosnia & Herzegovina: Amila Glamočak - Za našu ljubav (21st place, 29 points)
04. Croatia: Maja Blagdan - Sveta ljubav (19th place, 30 points)
05. Cyprus: Constantinos - Mono yia mas (15th place, 42 points)
06. Denmark: Dorthe Andersen & Martin Loft - Kun med dig (25th place, 22 points)
07. Estonia: Maarja-Liis Ilus & Ivo Linna - Kaelakee hääl (5th place, 106 points)
08. Finland: Jasmine - Niin kaunis on taivas (22nd place, 28 points)
09. France: Dan Ar Braz & L'Héritage des Celtes - Diwanit bugale (11th place, 55 points)
10. Germany: Leon - Planet of blue (24th place, 24 points)
11. Greece: Mariana Efrstratiou - Emeis Forame to Himona Anixiatika (12th place, 45 points)
12. Hungary: Gjon Delhusa - Fortuna (23rd place, 26 points)
13. Iceland: Anna Mjöll - Sjúbídú (10th place, 59 points)
14. Ireland: Eimear Quinn - The voice (2nd place, 198 points)
15. Israel: Galit Bell - Shalom olam (28th place, 12 points)
16. F.Y.R. Macedonia: Kalipi - Samo ti (26th place, 14 points)
17. Malta: Miriam Christine - In a woman's heart (4th place, 138 points)
18. The Netherlands: Maxine & Franklin Brown - De eerste keer (9th place, 63 points)
19. Poland: Kasia Kowalska - Chcę znać swój grzech... (15th place, 42 points)
20. Portugal: Lúcia Moniz - O meu coração não tem cor (18th place, 32 points)
21. Romania: Monica Anghel & Sincron - Rugă pentru pacea lumii (29th place, 11 points)
22. Russia: Andrej Kosinskij - Ja eto ja (26th place, 14 points)
23. Slovakia: Marcel Palonder - Kým nás máš (17th place, 36 points)
24. Slovenia: Regina - Dan najlepših sanj (19th place, 30 points)
25. Spain: Antonio Carbonell - ¡Ay, qué deseo! (14th place, 43 points)
26. Sweden: One More Time - Den vilda (1st place, 227 points)
27. Switzerland: Kathy Leander - Mon coeur l'aime (8th place, 67 points)
28. Turkey: Şebnem Paker - Beşinci Mevsim (7th place, 69 points)
29. UK: Gina G - Ooh aah... just a little bit (3rd place, 153 points)

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