[btimeline id=“10514″]
| Country | : | Sweden |
| City | : | Stockholm |
| Date | : | Saturday, 22 March, 1975, 20:00 CET |
| Venue & Location | St. Eriks Mässan Alvsjö, Stockholm, Sweden | |
| Broadcaster | SR  | |
| Host | : | Karin Falck |
| Executive Producer | Roland Eiworth | |
| Executive Supervisor | Frank Naef | |
| Multicamera Director | Bo Billtén | |
| Winner |  Teach-In from The Netherlands | |
| Interval Act | The World of John Bauer |
The Eurovision Song Contest 1975 was the 20th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Stockholm, Sweden, following ABBA’s win at the 1974 contest in Brighton, United Kingdom with the song „Waterloo“. It was the first time that the contest had taken place in Sweden. The contest was held at Stockholmsmässan on Saturday, 22 March 1975 and was hosted by Swedish television director Karin Falck.
Nineteen countries participated in the contest, beating the previous record of eighteen, that was first set in the 1965 edition. France and Malta returned after their one-year and two-year absences, respectively. Turkey made its debut, while Greece decided not to enter after its debut the year prior.
The winner of the contest was the Netherlands who won with the song „Ding-a-dong“, performed by Teach-In, written by Will Luikinga and Eddy Ouwens, and composed by Dick Bakker. The country would not win again until 2019.
Location
The contest took place in Stockholm, the capital and largest city of Sweden, which has long been one of the country’s cultural, media, political, and economic centres as well as the most populated urban area in Scandinavia.
The venue for the contest was Stockholmsmässan (or Stockholm International Fairs in English). The main building is in Älvsjö – a southern suburb of Stockholm Municipality for which the building got its nickname. It was constructed in 1971 and holds 4,000 people.
Format
To introduce each song, all the artists were recorded on videotape painting a portrait of themselves during the rehearsal period, incorporating their nation’s flag into the illustration. Some artists included their backing artists in the painting, others chose only to paint the lead singer.
This year a new scoring system was implemented. Each country would be represented by a jury of 11 members, at least half of whom had to be under the age of 26. Each jury member had to award every song a mark of between 1 and 5 points, but could not vote for their own nation’s entry. The votes were cast immediately after the song was performed and collected by the adjudicator straight away. After the last song was performed, the jury secretary added up all the votes cast and awarded 12 points to the song with the highest score, 10 to the second highest score, then 8 to the third, and so forth down to 1 point for the song ranked 10th. The 12–1 points system remained in use until 2015. The jury spokesperson then announced the ten scores in the order the songs were presented when called upon by the hostess. The hostess Karin Falck several times confused the new system with questions like „How much is seven in France?“
Unlike today, the points were not given in order (from 1 up to 12), but in the order the songs were performed. The current procedure of announcing the scores in ascending order, beginning with 1 point, was not established until 1980. This scoring system remained in use until 1996, although the number of jurors varied (it was 11 from 1975 to 1987, and 16 from 1988 to 1997) and the scores they awarded each song increased to 10 rather than 5. In from 1997, some juries were replaced by televotes and from 1998, all countries were encouraged to televote when possible.
In the 2009 final and the 2010 semi-finals, the juries were reintroduced to provide 50% of the scores. Despite these changes in how the points were decided, the ‚douze points‘ scoring system remained in place from 1975–2015. In 2016 it was altered to each country providing two separate sets of points, however, modelled after the former model.
Participating countries
Nineteen countries took part in the contest; As a result of Turkey competing in the competition for the very first time, Greece decided not to enter after its 1974 debut in protest at the turkish participation due to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus that had occurred the year before. Meanwhile, France and Malta returned to the contest after having been absent for one and two years, respectively .
The Portuguese entry „Madrugada“ was an unabashed celebration of the Carnation Revolution, during which the country’s 1974 Eurovision entry had played a pivotal practical role. According to author and historian John Kennedy O’Connor in his book The Eurovision Song Contest – The Official History, the Portuguese performer had to be dissuaded from wearing his Portuguese army uniform and carrying a gun onto the stage. Some competitors (notably Portugal and Yugoslavia) opted to perform their songs in English for the rehearsals heard by the judges, but in their native tongue at the final. Others, such as Belgium and Germany, opted for a mix of their own language and English.
Conductors
Each performance had a conductor who conducted the orchestra.
Netherlands – Harry van Hoof
Ireland – Colman Pearce
France – Jean Musy 
Germany – Rainer Pietsch 
Luxembourg – Phil Coulter
Norway – Carsten Klouman
Switzerland – Peter Jacques 
Yugoslavia – Mario Rijavec 
United Kingdom – Alyn Ainsworth
Malta – Vince Tempera
Belgium – Francis Bay
Israel – Eldad Shrim 
Turkey – Timur Selçuk
Monaco – André Popp
Finland – Ossi Runne
Portugal – Pedro vaz Osório 
Spain – Juan Carlos Calderón
Sweden – Lars Samuelson
Italy – Natale Massara
Returning artists
| Artist | Country | Previous year(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Ellen Nikolaysen | Norway | 1973 (as part of Bendik Singers) 1974 (as part of Bendik Singers) |
| John Farrar (as part of The Shadows) | United Kingdom | 1973 (as backing singer for Cliff Richard) |
The Participants
| # | Representing country | Performer(s) | Song title, writer(s) and composer(s) | Points | Place |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | The Netherlands NOS | Teach-In | Ding-A-Dong | 152 | 01 |
| 02 | Ireland RTÉ | The Swarbriggs | That’s What Friends Are For | 068 | 09 |
| 03 | France TF1 | Nicole Rieu | Et Bonjour à Toi L’artiste | 091 | 04 |
| 04 | Germany ARD | Joy Fleming | Ein Lied Kann Eine Brücke Sein | 015 | 17 |
| 05 | Luxembourg CLT | Géraldine | Toi | 084 | 05 |
| 06 | Norway NRK | Ellen Nikolaysen | You Touched My Life With Summer | 011 | 18 |
| 07 | Switzerland SSR SRG | Simone Drexel | Mikado | 077 | 06 |
| 08 | Yugoslavia JRT | Pepel In Kri | Dan Ljubezni | 022 | 13 |
| 09 | United Kingdom BBC | The Shadows | Let Me Be The One | 138 | 02 |
| 10 | Malta MTPBS | Renato | Singing This Song | 032 | 12 |
| 11 | Belgium BRT | Ann Christy | Gelukkig Zijn | 017 | 15 |
| 12 | Israel IBA | Shlomo Artzi | At Ve’ani | 040 | 11 |
| 13 | Turkey TRT | Semiha Yanki | Seninle Bir Dakika | 003 | 19 |
| 14 | Monaco TMC | Sophie | Une Chanson C’est Une Lettre | 022 | 13 |
| 15 | Finland YLE | Pihasoittajat | Old Man Fiddle | 074 | 07 |
| 16 | Portugal RTP | Duarte Mendes | Madrugada | 016 | 16 |
| 17 | Spain TVE | Sergio y Estíbaliz | Tú Volverás | 053 | 10 |
| 18 | Sweden SR | Lars Berghagen and the Dolls | Jennie, Jennie | 072 | 08 |
| 19 | Italy RAI | Wess and Dori Ghezzi | Era | 115 | 03 |
Scoreboard
| Countries | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Points | Place |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Netherlands | 3 | 10 | 5 | 8 | 8 | 12 | 1 | 10 | 12 | 10 | 12 | 7 | 12 | 12 | 6 | 4 | 12 | 8 | 152 | 1 | |
| Ireland | 12 | 1 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 10 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 68 | 9 | ||||||
| France | 2 | 12 | 7 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 12 | 8 | 8 | 3 | 8 | 1 | 8 | 91 | 4 | ||||||
| Germany | 8 | 3 | 4 | 15 | 17 | ||||||||||||||||
| Luxembourg | 5 | 3 | 10 | 6 | 10 | 5 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 12 | 5 | 3 | 7 | 84 | 5 | ||||||
| Norway | 7 | 2 | 2 | 11 | 18 | ||||||||||||||||
| Switzerland | 8 | 4 | 10 | 6 | 2 | 12 | 2 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 77 | 6 | |||||
| Yugoslavia | 5 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 7 | 3 | 22 | 13 | |||||||||||||
| United Kingdom | 10 | 7 | 12 | 10 | 3 | 10 | 3 | 12 | 8 | 12 | 7 | 5 | 10 | 5 | 8 | 4 | 12 | 138 | 2 | ||
| Malta | 7 | 8 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 32 | 12 | ||||||||||
| Belgium | 7 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 17 | 15 | |||||||||||||||
| Israel | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 2 | 10 | 6 | 1 | 40 | 11 | ||||||
| Turkey | 3 | 3 | 19 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Monaco | 2 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 22 | 13 | |||||||||||
| Finland | 12 | 5 | 8 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 1 | 3 | 12 | 4 | 5 | 74 | 7 | ||||||||
| Portugal | 2 | 2 | 12 | 16 | 16 | ||||||||||||||||
| Spain | 4 | 8 | 5 | 7 | 4 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 53 | 10 | ||||||||
| Sweden | 6 | 7 | 3 | 7 | 2 | 6 | 8 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 72 | 8 | ||||||
| Italy | 6 | 12 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 10 | 1 | 6 | 10 | 7 | 1 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 115 | 3 |
Notable incidents
Intelligence reports at the time pointed out the festival as a possible target for a terrorist attack by the Red Army Faction which forced the organizers to tighten security considerably. The attack struck the West German embassy in Stockholm instead about a month later.
The Swedish left movement protested against the contest and its commercial aspect. At first the criticism was directed towards SR for the huge amount of money they spent on the contest but soon the protests developed into a movement against commercial music overall. When the Eurovision Song Contest took place an alternative festival was organized in another part of Stockholm where anybody who wanted could perform a song. Sillstryparn’s entry „Doin‘ the omoralisk schlagerfestival“ (Doin‘ the immoral Eurovision festival) with lyrics criticizing the commercialised nature and lacking moral integrity of Eurovision, was the most popular song from the alternative event. In the autumn of 1975 SR informed that Sweden would not participate in the 1976 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest due to the high costs that came with hosting the show. The rules later changed so that the costs were split more equally between the participating broadcasters. In the end, SR did not broadcast the 1976 contest. A concert film starring Cornelis Vreeswijk aired in its place.
Swedish TV technicians refused to broadcast the festival to Chile, where Canal 13 (an associate member of the EBU) had plans to air it. The refusal was in protest to the military dictatorship that has been ruling the country since the 1973 Chilean coup d’etat led by Augusto Pinochet.
About the winner
The winning country, the Netherlands, was also the first entry to be performed in 1975. The group, Teach-In, performed Ding-A-Dong. It was the fourth, and to date, the last time, that the Netherlands won the Eurovision Song Contest.
Facts & figures
- The host of the 1975 Eurovision Song Contest, Karin Falck, charmingly presented the show but got confused during the voting at one point, when she exclaimed „How much is 7 in French?“.