The Eurovision Song Contest 1972 was the 17th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, held on 25 March 1972 at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh, United Kingdom (UK), presented by Moira Shearer and organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) staged the event after (TMC), which had won the for , declined hosting responsibilities, citing the lack of a suitable venue, technical limitations, and related costs. The Spanish and German broadcasters, which had placed second and third in 1971 respectively, also declined the offer to host, so the BBC stepped in to stage the 1972 contest after no other offers were received. It was the first, and only, edition of the contest to take place in Scotland, as well as being the only time that a UK-hosted edition of the contest has been held outside England.
Broadcasters from a total of eighteen countriesthe same line-up as had competed the previous yearparticipated. The winner was , represented by the song "", composed by and Leo Leandros under the pseudonym Mario Panas, written by Leandros and , and performed by Leandros's daughter Vicky. It was Luxembourg's third contest victory, following wins in and . The , , the and rounded out the top five, with the UK achieving its record-extending eighth runner-up position and Germany placing third for the third year in succession. achieved its best result to date, with a seventh-place finish, while placed last for the second year in a row.
Location
The 1972 contest was held in Edinburgh, United Kingdom. It was the fourth time the UK had hosted the contest, following the , , and editions. It was the first UK contest staged outside of London, and the first, and only, contest held in Scotland, as well as the only contest held in the UK outside of England. The selected venue was the Usher Hall, a concert hall opened in 1914. Around 1,500 people were present in the audience during the contest.
Host selection The was won by , represented by (TMC), with the song "" performed by Séverine, which according to Eurovision tradition made TMC the presumptive host of the 1972 contest. This was the first contest Monaco had won. Afterwards the Monégasque broadcaster announced its intention to stage the event in 1972, which would have been the first contest staged in the principality. As Monaco had no suitable television studio or contest venue large enough, TMC proposed hosting the contest at an outdoor location in June 1972. An indoor venue was also reportedly already under construction, which TMC hoped to expedite.
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) held parallel discussions with other member broadcasters to determine suitable options in other countries. and had placed second and third in 1971, but their broadcasters told the EBU they were not interested, with (TVE) citing its staging of the contest , and ARD citing its broadcast responsibilities for the upcoming Olympic Games in Munich. The BBC had also suggested that France's (ORTF) could host, since it had lost out on staging the to the Netherlands in the draw between them and Dutch (NTS) following the .
The EBU subsequently declared the event had to be held in either March or April, precluding TMC's outdoor option. By July 1971, TMC declared they would be unable to host at all due to the lack of a suitable venue, as well as the costs and technical limitations. At this stage no firm alternate offers had been received by the EBU from other member broadcasters, leading the organisation to "call loudly" for volunteers. It looked quite possible that the contest could be cancelled. The BBC ultimately put in an offer, with Edinburgh and Blackpool considered as potential host cities, and in September 1971 Bill Cotton, the BBC's head of light entertainment, announced that the contest would be staged in the UK by the BBC if no other offers were received. The following month, Edinburgh's Usher Hall was confirmed as the venue, with 25 March as the date of the event. In his announcement, Cotton expressed a desire for the first time to host a UK-held contest outside of London, the host city on all three occasions that the event had been held in the UK.
Participants
The same eighteen countries which had participated in 1971 returned.
Several of the performing artists had participated in previous editions of the Eurovision Song Contest. Greek singer Vicky Leandros, representing , had previously represented the nation ; Carlos Mendes had represented ; the Family Four, who had represented , returned for a second consecutive year; and Tereza Kesovija, representing , had previously represented . Additionally, Claude Lombard, who had represented , returned as a backing singer for the Belgian entry at this year's event. was the first, and only, song in the contest's history to have been performed in the Irish language.
+ Eurovision Song Contest 1972 participants Country Broadcaster Artist Song Language Songwriter(s) Conductor ORF The Milestones "" German Erich Kleinschuster RTB "" French YLE Päivi Paunu and Kim Floor "" Finnish Ossi Runne ORTF Betty Mars "" French Frédéric Botton Franck Pourcel SFB Mary Roos "" German Paul Kuhn RTÉ Sandie Jones "" Irish Colman Pearce RAI Nicola Di Bari "" Italian Gian Franco Reverberi CLT Vicky Leandros "" French Klaus Munro MBA Helen and Joseph "" Maltese Charles Camilleri TMC and "" French Raymond Bernard NOS Sandra and Andres "" Dutch Harry van Hoof NRK Grethe Kausland and Benny Borg "" Norwegian Carsten Klouman RTP Carlos Mendes "" Portuguese Richard Hill TVE Jaime Morey "" Spanish Augusto Algueró SR The Family Four "" Swedish Mats Olsson SRG SSR Véronique Müller "" French Jean-Pierre Festi BBC The New Seekers "Beg, Steal or Borrow" English David Mackay JRT Tereza "" () Serbo-Croatian Nikica Kalogjera
Production and format
The Eurovision Song Contest 1972 was produced by the BBC. Cotton served as executive producer, Terry Hughes as producer and director, Brian Tregidden as designer, and Malcolm Lockyer as musical director, leading the 44-piece BBC Radio Orchestra. A separate musical director could be nominated by each participating delegation to lead the orchestra during its country's performance, with the host musical director also available to conduct for those countries which did not nominate their own conductor. On behalf of the EBU, the event was overseen by Clifford Brown as scrutineer. The contest was presented by the Scottish ballet dancer and actor Moira Shearer.
Each participating broadcaster submitted one song, no more than three minutes long, performed in the language, or one of the languages, of the country it represented. Up to six performers were allowed on stage during each country's performance. Following the confirmation of the eighteen participating countries, the draw to determine the running order (R/O) of the contest was held on 1 December 1971 in London, and announced by the BBC at the end of December 1971.
The voting system introduced at the previous year's contest returned: each participating broadcaster appointed two individualsone aged 16–25, the other 26–55, at least 10 years apartwho awarded each song 1–5 votes, except for the one from their own country. For this year's edition the jurors were kept in a separate location during the contest, in the Great Hall of Edinburgh Castle, where they followed the contest on television. After each country's performance they were required to record their votes, so that they could not be altered later. During the voting sequence they were shown on screen, with the scores announced by the jurors themselves in blocks of three countries. The voting sequence was projected in black-and-white onto an Eidophor screen in the Usher Hall for the benefit of the audience. This screen was also used during the contest itself to introduce the artists and song titles, the first time that video wall technology was used in the contest.
Rehearsals in the venue began on 21 March. The competing delegations took part in rehearsals beginning on 22 March, with each country taking part in two technical rehearsal sessions across the following days. Technical checks and rehearsals were also conducted with Shearer, and jurors and the scoreboard ahead of the live transmission.
Contest overview
The contest was held on 25 March, beginning at 21:30 (BST) and lasting 1 hour and 45 minutes.
Following an introductory prerecorded video montage of various Edinburgh locations, Shearer was played onto the stage by a fanfare composed by Lockyer, fanfare he had written as the opening title music of the film Dr. Who and the Daleks, which he had scored. The interval entertainment between the competing songs and the voting segment was a four-minute segment with footage taken from the 1968 Edinburgh Military Tattoo, featuring the massed pipes and drums of eight Scottish regiments marching to "The Inverness Gathering". The prize for the winning artist and songwriters was presented by the previous year's winning artist, Séverine. Before the Monégasque entry a planned camera cut showed Séverine sitting in the audience, a shot that became somewhat infamous after she was seen glancing down at her watch in apparent boredom.
The winner was , represented by the song "", composed by and Leo Leandros under the pseudonym Mario Panas, with lyrics by Leandros and , performed by Greek singer Vicky Leandros, Leo's daughter. It was Luxembourg's third contest victory, following wins in and . Dessca had also provided the lyrics to the previous year's winning song "" for Monaco and thus became the first person to win back-to-back contests and to win for multiple countries. Vicky Leandros had previously represented , where she had performed mononymously and placed fourth with the song "". The finished in second place for a record-extending eighth time, while placed third for the third straight year. Further down the scoreboard , in seventh, achieved its best-ever result up to that point, while finished in last place as it had the previous year.
Two separate disturbances occurred on the evening of the event. Before the contest began, a local headmaster began shouting towards the stage at a BBC producer who was welcoming the audience, complaining that local schoolchildren were unable to attend the event and that they would have appreciated it more than the largely invited audience members. Later on, during the Irish and Spanish songs, another man was seen scattering a substance among the audience close to the Irish delegation as a protest against the commercialisation of the music industry, which led to small explosions and a brief partial evacuation of the venue by police and the military.
+ Results of the Eurovision Song Contest 1972 Country Artist Song Votes Place 1 "" 107 3 2 "" 81 11 3 "" 72 15 4 "" 83 10 5 "Beg, Steal or Borrow" 114 2 6 and Benny Borg "" 73 14 7 "" 90 7 8 "" 88 8 9 Helen and Joseph "" 48 18 10 and Kim Floor "" 78 12 11 "" 100 5 12 "" 92 6 13 Tereza "" 87 9 14 "" 75 13 15 and Peter MacLane "" 65 16 16 "" 55 17 17 "" 128 1 18 Sandra and Andres "" 106 4
Detailed voting results
Jury voting was used to determine the votes awarded by all countries. The announcement of the results from each country's two jury members was conducted in the order in which their nation performed; the jurors were shown on camera when presenting their scores, with each juror using small boards in front of their desks with numbers 1 to 5 which they flipped up to reveal their votes for the country being awarded. The results of three countries at a time were totalled and presented as one score, with all eighteen countries receiving their scores before moving on to the next three countries to award their scores. The detailed breakdown of the votes awarded by each country is listed in the tables below, with voting countries listed in the order they presented their votes.