The Eurovision Song Contest 1987 was the 32nd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, held on 9 May 1987 at the Centenary Palace in Brussels, Belgium, and presented by Viktor Lazlo. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster (RTBF), who staged the event after winning the for with the song "J'aime la vie" by Sandra Kim.

Broadcasters from twenty-two countries participated in the contest with and returning to the competition after their absences the previous year. This set the record for the highest number of competing countries up until that point.

The winner was with the song "Hold Me Now" by Johnny Logan, who had also won the contest. He became the first performer to have won the Eurovision Song Contest twice. , , , and rounded out the top five. finished in last place, earning nul points for the second time, after .

Location

The contest took place at the Brussels Exhibition Centre (Brussels Expo) in Brussels, Belgium. These are a set of exhibition halls built from 1930 on the Heysel/Heizel Plateau (Heysel Park) in Laeken (northern part of the City of Brussels) to celebrate the centenary of Belgian Independence. The Centenary Palace (, ), where the main stage was located, is one of the remaining buildings of the Brussels International Exposition of 1935. Currently, it is still being used for trade fairs, as well as concerts, usually for bigger acts and artists.

Host city selection process

As part of the selection process of the host city and venue, a joint committee including members from the two Belgian broadcasters, Walloon (RTBF) and Flemish (BRT), was formed, which proposed to hold the contest in the Bourla Theatre as both locations proposed by RTBF, namely the Centenary Palace in Brussels and the in Liège, would have required heavy renovation works to meet the proposed technical specifications for the contest. Nevertheless, RTBF demanded the event be held in Brussels due to its symbolism as the perceived capital of the European Union, and on 6 October 1986 it announced that the contest would be held at the Centenary Palace without consulting it with BRT. The Flemish newspaper reported that BRT proposed to instead host the contest at the Cirque Royal, adding that it would withdraw from co-organising the contest if its counteroffer was not chosen. Despite this, RTBF moved forward with its plans and confirmed that the Centenary Palace as the host venue, with BRT committing to its decision of abandoning the hosting project but keeping the duties of competing in the contest representing Belgium.

Participants

The Eurovision Song Contest 1987 was the biggest contest to date, and it was also the first in which 22 countries competed. Only , and failed to compete out of all the countries which had entered the contest in the past. To date, this was the largest number of countries participating in the contest, with the maximum number up until then being 20. As this had never happened, the EBU was forced to review the rules and production calendar after this edition, and fearing that the number would increase again, it was decided that from this edition onwards, the maximum number of participants would also be 22. This was a problematic question over the next six years as new and returning nations indicated an interest in participating, but they could not be accommodated.

Several of the performing artists had previously competed as lead artists in past editions for the same country. Gary Lux had represented as part of Westend, and as a soloist; and he had additionally provided backing vocals . Alexia had represented as part of Island. Wind had represented . Johnny Logan had won the contest for .

+ Eurovision Song Contest 1987 participants Country Broadcaster Artist Song Language Songwriter(s) Conductor ORF Gary Lux "" German Richard Oesterreicher BRT Liliane Saint-Pierre "Soldiers of Love" Dutch CyBC Alexia "" () Greek DR with "" Danish YLE Vicky Rosti "" Finnish Ossi Runne "" French Jean-Claude Petit BR Wind "" German Laszlo Bencker ERT Bang "Stop" () Greek Giorgos Niarchos RÚV "" Icelandic Hjálmar H. Ragnarsson RTÉ Johnny Logan "Hold Me Now" English Seán Sherrard Noel Kelehan IBA and Kushnir "" () Hebrew Zohar Laskov Kobi Oshrat RAI Umberto Tozzi and Raf "" Italian CLT Plastic Bertrand "" French Alec Mansion NOS Marcha "" Dutch Peter Koelewijn Rogier van Otterloo NRK Kate Gulbrandsen "" Norwegian Terje Fjærn RTP "" Portuguese Jaime Oliveira TVE Patricia Kraus "" Spanish SVT Lotta Engberg "Boogaloo" Swedish Curt-Eric Holmquist SRG SSR Carol Rich "" French Jean-Jacques Egli TRT Seyyal Taner and "" Turkish Olcayto Ahmet Tuğsuz Garo Mafyan BBC "Only the Light" English Richard Peebles Ronnie Hazlehurst JRT "" () Serbo-Croatian

Production and format Host broadcaster rule By 1986, had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 30 times since making its debut at the first contest in along six other countries. Belgium was the only one of the seven founding countries to have never won the contest and had only finished in the top five four times (with "" by Tonia in placing fourth, "" by Jean Vallée in placing second, "" by Stella in placing fourth, and " " by Jacques Zegers in placing fifth).

Their Eurovision victory in , with by Sandra Kim, occurred amidst a complex political situation in Belgium. The country was undergoing massive constitutional reforms in which the Belgian state was transitioning from a centralized to a federal system. This was due to rising tensions between the two major linguistic regions of Belgium, Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia. Both regions had had independent broadcasters since 1960 (BRT in Flanders and RTBF in Wallonia) but had still agreed to jointly host the contest in the event of a Belgian victory. While the triumph of "" in 1986an entry sent by French-speaking RTBFreignited a sense of national union across all Belgian regions, the two regional broadcasters weren't able to overcome their disagreements and joint host the competition. During the production of the event, BRT eventually withdrew from the project and RTBF organised the contest alone as host broadcaster. As a consequence, the host country images in Eurovision 1987 mostly showed footage of Wallonia. BRT still remained in charge of the participation in the contest competing for Belgium.

Budget Holding the contest in Belgium caused several legal changes in the country's system and forced the implementation of most of the modern rules and regulations on the monetization of public television. This led to the authorization of advertising, sponsorships, and marketing actions in the two public channels in the country. As a consequence, the RTBF was also allowed to sell sponsorship quotas for the event, setting a new precedent for the Eurovision Song Contest.

For RTBF, this decision was a relief as the event was almost entirely privately funded. This opened the doors to the commercial potential of the event itself, starting a period of modernization and increased interest for the event.HAUTIER Jean-Pierre, La folie de l’Eurovision, Bruxelles, Éditions de l’Arbre, 2010, p. 65. Apart from the latent tensions, after the end of the contest the then-president of the BRT Cas Goossens praised RTBF for their "perfect organization" while at the same time regretting that the two broadcasters were not able to collaborate. He added that the cost of hosting the Eurovision Song Contest would have been difficult to justify to the Flemish taxpayers.

Rehearsals Dress rehearsals began on 24–25 April.

Contest overview

+ Results of the Eurovision Song Contest 1987 Country Artist Song Points Place 1 "" 65 9 2 Datner and Kushnir "" 73 8 3 "" 8 20 4 Halla Margrét "" 28 16 5 "Soldiers of Love" 56 11 6 "Boogaloo" 50 12 7 and Raf "" 103 3 8 Nevada "" 15 18 9 "" 10 19 10 and Grup Lokomotif "" 0 22 11 Bang "Stop" 64 10 12 Marcha "" 83 5 13 Plastic Bertrand "" 4 21 14 Rikki "Only the Light" 47 13 15 "" 44 14 16 Wind "" 141 2 17 Alexia "" 80 7 18 "" 32 15 19 Bandjo with Anne-Cathrine Herdorf "" 83 5 20 "Hold Me Now" 172 1 21 "" 92 4 22 "" 26 17

Spokespersons Each participating broadcaster appointed a spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for its respective country via telephone. Known spokespersons at the 1987 contest are listed below.

An Ploegaerts Solveig Herlin Guðrún Skúladóttir Ralph Inbar

Colin Berry Ljiljana Tipsarević

Detailed voting results

+ Detailed voting results scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" rowspan="22" Norway 65 4 7 10 7 3 4 4 7 3 5 3 2 6 Israel 73 2 1 5 6 4 10 3 4 10 8 7 5 8 Austria 8 1 7 Iceland 28 4 4 4 6 10 Belgium 56 5 2 3 6 7 4 5 8 4 5 3 4 Sweden 50 12 8 1 3 7 2 3 7 7 Italy 103 3 6 3 5 1 12 12 8 4 1 12 1 4 12 12 7 Portugal 15 8 5 2 Spain 10 10 Turkey 0 Greece 64 1 2 6 8 5 7 5 7 12 6 5 Netherlands 83 5 2 10 5 7 3 8 3 12 2 2 6 8 10 Luxembourg 4 2 2 United Kingdom 47 10 5 3 5 3 3 1 2 1 4 3 2 5 France 44 1 4 5 4 1 12 5 10 2 Germany 141 3 8 10 12 10 7 4 5 1 6 10 6 10 6 6 10 12 7 7 1 Cyprus 80 6 6 2 12 2 6 5 3 6 10 8 10 4 Finland 32 10 3 4 2 1 8 2 1 1 Denmark 83 7 6 7 7 8 2 1 1 8 6 7 8 8 4 3 Ireland 172 8 4 12 12 12 12 8 10 10 12 10 12 1 6 8 12 5 6 12 Yugoslavia 92 12 7 8 10 8 6 6 12 2 2 10 8 1 Switzerland 26 1 2 5 7 3 4 1 3

12 points Below is a summary of all 12 points in the final:

N. Contestant Nation(s) giving 12 points 8 , , , , , , , 5 , , , , 2 , , 1

Broadcasts

Each participating broadcaster was required to relay the contest via its networks. Non-participating EBU member broadcasters were also able to relay the contest as "passive participants". Broadcasters were able to send commentators to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language and to relay information about the artists and songs to their television viewers.

It was reported that 500 million viewers in 25 countries would see the contest. Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.

+ Broadcasters and commentators in participating countries Country Broadcaster Channel(s) Commentator(s) ORF FS1 Ernst Grissemann BRT TV1 Luc Appermont BRT 2 RTBF RTBF1 Claude Delacroix CyBC RIK, DR DR TV Jørgen de Mylius YLE TV1, Erkki Toivanen Patrick Simpson-Jones ARD and ERT ERT RÚV , Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir RTÉ RTÉ 1 Marty Whelan RTÉ FM3 Larry Gogan IBA Israeli Television RAI Rosanna Vaudetti CLT Frédérique Ries RTL plus NOS Willem van Beusekom NRK , NRK P2 John Andreassen RTP RTP1 TVE TVE 2 SVT TV1 Fredrik Belfrage SR P3 Jacob Dahlin SRG SSR TRT TV1 BBC BBC1 Terry Wogan BBC Radio 2 Ray Moore JRT , TV Zagreb 1, TV Novi Sad, TV Sarajevo 1, TV Titograd 1 Ksenija Urličić TV Koper-Capodistria TV Ljubljana 1 Vesna Pfeifer TV Prishtina TV Skopje 1

+ Broadcasters and commentators in non-participating countries Country Broadcaster Channel(s) Commentator(s) SBS SBS TV BT BT 1 ČST SvF KNR KNR MTV MTV2 István Vágó JRTV JTV2 TP TP1 KBS 1TV 2FM CT USSR Programme One ETV

See also Eurovision Young Dancers 1987

Notes

References

External links