The Eurovision Song Contest 1974 was the 19th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, held on 6 April 1974 at the Brighton Dome in Brighton, United Kingdom, and presented by Katie Boyle. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), who staged the event after (CLT), which had won the for , declined hosting responsibilities as it had staged the competition in 1973. The BBC took over as host after (TVE), which had finished second for , declined the offer when approached, with the EBU ultimately choosing the BBC over bids from the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) and the BBC's commercial rival ITV. This was the fourth time that the BBC had staged the contest after another broadcaster declinedfollowing the , and contestsand the fifth time overall including .
Entries representing eighteen countries were submitted for the contest, with making its first appearance. However, ultimately did not participate as the contest coincided with the death of French president Georges Pompidou, and with a national day of mourning scheduled for the date of the contest the French broadcaster, (ORTF), deemed participating in the event to be inappropriate. The voting system used between and 1973 was scrapped, and was replaced by the system last used in , with ten people in each country awarding one vote to their favourite song.
The winner was , with the song "Waterloo", composed by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, written by Stig Anderson and performed by ABBA. and the finishing second and third respectively, followed by a three-way tie for fourth place between Luxembourg, and the United Kingdom. It was Sweden's first contest win. After previous success within European markets with "Ring Ring", with which ABBA had attempted to represent , "Waterloo" gave the group their first global hit, and their Eurovision win was a launching point for ABBA to become one of the world's best-selling music artists. Olivia Newton-John, who represented the United Kingdom at this event, would also go on to achieve worldwide success in the years following the contest.
Location
The 1974 contest was held in Brighton, United Kingdom. It was the fifth time that the United Kingdom had hosted the contest, having previously done so in , , , and . The selected venue was the Dome, completed in 1805 and originally built for the Prince Regent as stables and a riding school for his personal use. Sold by Queen Victoria in 1850, the stables were converted into a concert hall and assembly rooms in 1867, and the riding school into a market for corn merchants in 1868. The concert hall could normally seat up to 2,102 people, but for the contest some seating was removed for the commentator booths and technical equipment, leaving space for an audience of just over 1,000 people.
Among the other venues considered to stage the event by the BBC were the Royal Opera House and Royal Albert Hall in London, the latter of which had previously staged the 1968 contest. Both venues proved to be unavailable however, with the broadcaster then looking outside of the capital for potential venues. The Dome was then ultimately selected, and this choice was announced publicly by the BBC and EBU in July 1973.
Host selection The was won by , represented by (CLT), with the song "" performed by Anne-Marie David, which according to Eurovision tradition made CLT the presumptive host of the 1974 contest. The broadcaster had staged the event on three previous occasions, in , , and 1973, each time in Luxembourg City. As CLT had hosted the event the previous year, it declined the opportunity to stage the event for a second consecutive year due to the financial strain such an undertaking would entail. , which had come second in 1973, was also considered as a potential host for the event, however (TVE) also turned down the opportunity to stage the 1974 contest; TVE had previously hosted the event in .
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) originally asked the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), as the participating broadcaster which came third the previous year, not to make an offer at this initial stage in order to determine if other participating broadcasters were willing to stage the event. Of the four previous events held by the BBC three of these had been staged in place of the previous year's winning broadcaster, specifically the 1960, 1963, and 1972 events. Two offers were subsequently made, from the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) and from the BBC's commercial rival ITV. Concerns were raised about the prospect of hosting the event in Israel; they had just joined the contest in 1973 and it was felt some countries would not be prepared to accept an Israeli-held contest. Israel was also some distance geographically from the core of Western European nations which participated in the event at this time, and IBA still lagged behind many European broadcasters from a technological perspective. A successful ITV bid would have effectively barred the BBC from participating, as only one entry from a given country can participate in the event, resulting in the BBC submitting a counter-offer which the EBU accepted on 7 June 1973.
Participants
Broadcasters from a total of eighteen countries submitted entries to compete in this edition of the contest, comprising all seventeen countries which had participated in 1973, and , which was making its first appearance in the contest. Turkish broadcaster, the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT), had also expressed an interest in competing but it had been too late in submitting its request to the EBU and was subsequently informed that, as the scoreboard with space for eighteen countries had already been constructed, its planned entry would not have been possible. Ultimately, however, only seventeen participating entries were performed at the contest, as French broadcaster, (ORTF), made the decision to withdraw from the event due to the death of French president Georges Pompidou on 2 April. With the state memorial service and a national day of mourning scheduled to be held on the same day as the contest, it was deemed by ORTF that competing in and broadcasting the contest would be inappropriate. France would have been represented by the song "", written by Christine Fontaine and to have been performed by Dani, with Jean-Claude Petit scheduled to conduct the orchestra during the performance.
Among the participating artists were a number of acts which had competed in the Eurovision Song Contest in previous years: 's Gigliola Cinquetti had previously won the contest for with the song ""; Romuald, representing , had previously represented both and ; and 's Bendik Singers, supporting Anne-Karine Strøm at this event, had represented , with Strøm having also been a member of the group in that contest.
+ Eurovision Song Contest 1974 participants Country Broadcaster Artist Song Language Songwriter(s) Conductor RTB Jacques Hustin "" French Pierre Chiffre YLE Carita "Keep Me Warm" English Ossi Runne HR Cindy and Bert "" German Werner Scharfenberger EIRT Marinella ""() Greek Giorgos Katsaros RTÉ Tina Reynolds "Cross Your Heart" English Paul Lyttle Colman Pearce IBA Poogy "" () Hebrew Yonatan Rechter RAI Gigliola Cinquetti "" Italian CLT Ireen Sheer "Bye Bye I Love You" French Charles Blackwell TMC Romuald "" French Raymond Donnez NOS Mouth and MacNeal "I See a Star" English Harry van Hoof NRK Anne-Karine and the Bendik Singers "The First Day of Love" English Frode Thingnæs RTP Paulo de Carvalho "" Portuguese José Calvário TVE Peret "" Spanish Pedro Pubill Calaf Rafael Ibarbia SR ABBA "Waterloo" English Sven-Olof Walldoff SRG SSR Piera Martell "" German Pepe Ederer Pepe Ederer BBC Olivia Newton-John "Long Live Love" English Nick Ingman JRT " '42" ( '42) Serbo-Croatian Kornelije Kovač
Production and format The Eurovision Song Contest 1974 was produced by the BBC. Bill Cotton served as executive producer, Michael Hurll served as producer and director, John Burrowes served as designer, and Ronnie Hazlehurst served as musical director, leading the BBC Concert Orchestra. A separate musical director could be appointed by each participating delegation to lead the orchestra during its country's performance, with the host musical director also available to conduct for those which did not appoint their own conductor. On behalf of the EBU, the event was overseen by Clifford Brown as scrutineer.
Each participating broadcaster submitted one song, which was required to be no longer than three minutes in duration. As with the previous year's event, artists were able to perform in any language, and not necessarily that of the country they represented. A maximum of six performers were allowed on stage during each country's performance. 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.
Rehearsals in the contest venue began on Tuesday 2 April, involving technical rehearsals with the production team, the orchestra, and tests of the voting system and scoreboard. This was followed by rehearsals with the competing acts over subsequent days. The first rehearsals for all countries were held over two days on 3 and 4 April, with each participating act having a 50-minute slot on stage to perform through their entry with the orchestra without stage costumes. A second round of rehearsals, this time in costume, was held for all acts on 5 April, with each country given 20 minutes on stage, followed that evening by a complete run-through of the whole show, including dummy voting. Further technical rehearsals were held on the morning of 6 April, and a second full dress rehearsal was held that afternoon; this rehearsal was also recorded for use as a back-up in case technical failure meant the contest could not go ahead as planned.
Security in Brighton was tight in the lead-up to, and during, the contest, due to the threat of actions by Irish republican militants. There was an increased police presence, and tanks could be seen in the streets of Brighton during the week of the contest. The contest presenter Katie Boyle also recalled being ferried in bulletproof coaches between the hotel and the contest venue, each time taking a different route.
Voting procedure
Due in part to the closeness of the voting in the previous year's contest, a new voting system was planned to be introduced for this event, which incorporated elements from the two previous voting systems used in the contest: each participating broadcaster would assemble a jury comprising ten members, which would be based in their own country, with each member awarding between one and five votes for each song, with no abstentions allowed and without the option to vote for their own country's entry. This would have resulted in each country potentially awarding a maximum of 50 votes and a minimum of 10 votes to any other country's song; with eighteen planned participating countries, this would have meant that the highest possible score any country could have received was 850, and the lowest possible score was 170. In case of a tie between two or more countries for first place, these acts would have performed again and each country not involved in the tie would have had one vote each to determine the winner. A lottery element to the voting, in order to add greater suspense, was also devised: the order of the voting would have been determined on stage during the voting segment, with cards being drawn at random to decide the order in which countries would vote.