Eurovision Song Contest 1997

The Point Theatre, Dublin – host venue of the 1997 contest.

Having to host so many contests (sometimes in succession) put great financial pressure on host broadcaster RTÉ. There were early rumours stating that the Irish broadcaster was to team up with the BBC in Northern Ireland (BBC had previously offered to do this for the 1995 contest), however RTÉ eventually decided to host the event alone.[4]

Ireland hosted the contest for the fourth time in five years after winning the 1996 contest in Oslo. Dublin was again chosen to be the host city, making it the sixth time that the Eurovision Song Contest was staged in the Irish capital. The venue for the contest was the Point Theatre located on the North Wall Quay of the River Liffey, amongst the Dublin Docklands. The theatre previously hosted the 1994 and 1995 contests. The Point Theatre remains the only venue to have hosted the contest three times.[1]

After the controversy over the 1996 pre-qualifying round, the European Broadcasting Union introduced a new system for 1997: countries with the lowest average scores over the previous four years would be excluded from the 1997 contest, and those with the lowest averages over the previous five years would be excluded from future contests (save that every country so excluded for one year would automatically be allowed to participate the following year), with so many countries being omitted as would reduce the number of participants each year to 25.[1] The running order was determined by a draw on 28 November 1996.[5]

Israel declined to participate, as the contest was held on its Holocaust Remembrance Day, granting a reprieve to Bosnia and Herzegovina, which would otherwise have been excluded owing to its low point average over the previous four years.[1] RTÉ once again produced a highly spectacular show, with a stage that had a smaller performance space for the artists than in previous years. This was the third Eurovision set to be designed by Paula Farrell, who had previously been involved with the 1988 and 1994 contests.[1]

There was a wide array of different styles this year. Denmark brought a rap song, Croatia came with their version of the Spice Girls and Sweden brought a mid-1980s style boy band. The music was in general more modern than before, and for the first time in six years, an up-tempo song won (the last time this happened was in Rome 1991, with Carola's song, Fångad av en stormvind).[1]

This year, televoting was tested in five countries: Austria, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The results of the televoting countries were, in some cases, different from those that used a jury. Iceland received 16 of its 18 points from these five countries.[1]

Also, for the first time in Eurovision history, there was a country where not one, but two spokespeople gave votes – France. Television reporter Frédéric Ferrer and 1977 Eurovision winner Marie Myriam each took turns at giving results from that country. Long-time Irish conductor Noel Kelehan was not the host conductor this year due to illness, the duty being fulfilled by Frank McNamara.

Each country had a jury that awarded 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points for their top ten songs, or a televote, where the top ten most voted for songs were awarded the 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points. Iceland got most of its 18 points from the 5 countries that used televoting (Sweden awarded 8 points, United Kingdom awarded 6 points, Austria awarded 2 points, Germany and Switzerland failed to award Iceland any points). Ireland was ostensibly the best scoring country across the televoting countries, except they were able to score points from all 5 televoting countries. The United Kingdom was only eligible to receive points from 4 of them, since they couldn't vote for themselves. In fact, the UK received 12 points from all the other televoting countries except Germany, from whom they received 10 points: in other words, the UK earned 46 of 48 (95.83%) possible televote points that year; Ireland earned 47 of 60 (78.33%) possible televote points including their only 12 from the UK.[12] Bosnia and Herzegovina also received points from four countries, who used the televoting, with only United Kingdom failing to give any points.

During the voting the United Kingdom received at least five points from every voting country, bar Malta who only gave the United Kingdom one point.

12 points

Below is a summary of all 12-point in the final:[12]

N.	Contestant	Nation(s) giving 12 points
10	United Kingdom	Austria,  Croatia,  Denmark,  France,  Hungary,  Ireland,  Netherlands,  Russia,  Sweden,   Switzerland
3	France	Estonia,  Norway,  Poland
	Turkey	Bosnia and Herzegovina,  Germany,  Spain
2	Cyprus	Greece,  Iceland
1	Estonia	Italy
	Greece	Cyprus
	Ireland	United Kingdom
	Italy	Portugal
	Malta	Turkey
	Russia	Slovenia
	Spain	Malta

Most countries sent commentators to Dublin or commented from their own country, in order to add insight to the participants and, if necessary, the provision of voting information.

Broadcasters and commentators in participating countries

Country	Broadcaster(s)	Commentator(s)	Ref(s)
Austria	ORF 1	Ernst Grissemann	[21]
	FM4	Stermann & Grissemann	[22]
Bosnia and Herzegovina	BHT	Diana Grković-Foretić
Croatia	HRT 1	Aleksandar "Aco" Kostadinov	[23]
	HR2	Draginja Balaš
Cyprus	RIK 1	Evi Papamichail	[14]
	RIK Deftero	Pavlos Pavlou
Denmark	DR1	Jørgen de Mylius	[24]
	DR P3	Ole Jacobsen
Estonia	ETV	Jüri Pihel
	Raadio 2	Marko Reikop
France	France 2	Olivier Minne	[25]
	France Inter	Frédéric Taddeï
Germany	Das Erste	Peter Urban	[26]
	Deutschlandfunk/NDR Radio 2	Thomas Mohr	[27]
Greece	ET1	Dafni Bokota	[28]
	ERA 1	Giorgos Mitropoulos
Hungary	MTV 1	István Vágó
Iceland	Sjónvarpið	Jakob Frímann Magnússon	[29]
Ireland	RTÉ One	Pat Kenny
	RTÉ Radio 1	Larry Gogan
Italy	Rai Uno	Ettore Andenna
	Rai Radio 2	Antonio De Robertis	[30]
Malta	TVM	Gino Cauchi
Netherlands	TV2	Willem van Beusekom	[31]
	Radio 2	Daniël Dekker and Hijlco Span
Norway	NRK1	Jostein Pedersen	[32]
	NRK P1	Kristian Lindeman	[33]
Poland	TVP1	Jan Wilkans
	Polskie Radio Program I	Artur Orzech
Portugal	RTP1	Carlos Ribiero	[16]
Russia	ORT 1	Philipp Kirkorov and Sergei Antipov
	Voice of Russia	Vadim Dolgachev
Slovenia	SLO1	Miša Molk
Spain	La Primera	José Luis Uribarri	[34]
Sweden	SVT2	Janne Jingryd	[17]
	SR P3	Claes-Johan Larsson and Susan Seidemar
Switzerland	SF DRS	German: Sandra Studer	[35]
	TSR	French: Pierre Grandjean	[36]
	TSI	Italian: Jonathan Tedesco
Turkey	TRT 1	Bülend Özveren
	TRT Radyo 3	Fatih Orbay
United Kingdom	BBC1	Terry Wogan	[6]
	BBC Radio 2	Ken Bruce	[6]

Broadcasters and commentators in non-participating countries

Country	Broadcaster(s)	Commentator(s)	Ref(s)
Australia	SBS TV	Terry Wogan	[37]
Belgium	BRTN TV1	Dutch: André Vermeulen	[38]
	RTBF La Une	French: Jean-Pierre Hautier	[25]
	BRTN Radio 2	Dutch: Guy De Pré
	RTBF La Première	French: Alain Gerlache and Adrien Joveneau
Finland	YLE TV1	Aki Sirkesalo and Olli Ahvenlahti	[39]
	YLE Radio Suomi	Iris Mattila and Sanna Kojo
Israel	Channel 1	No commentator
Macedonia	MTV 1	Dragan Kostik
Romania	TVR1	Doina Caramzulescu and Costin Grigore
Slovakia	STV2	Juraj Čurný
Yugoslavia	RTS2	Nikola Nešković	[40]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Eurovision Song Contest 1997.

• Official website
• Eurovision Song Contest 1997's channel on YouTube