Eurovision Song Contest 1996

Oslo Spektrum, Oslo – host venue of the 1996 contest.

Oslo is the capital and the most populous city in Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. For the first time, the Norwegian capital hosted the contest. This was the second time the event was staged in Norway, after the 1986 contest in Bergen. Oslo Spektrum, a multi-purpose indoor arena, was chosen as the host venue. Opened in December 1990, it is primarily known for hosting major events such as the annual Nobel Peace Prize Concert and concerts by artists of national and international fame

The European Broadcasting Union continued to experiment in their efforts to find a broadly acceptable method of whittling down the large number of potential participating countries to a more realistic figure.[1] This year, they reverted to the pre-qualifying round that had been used for the 1993 contest, but this time with just one country exempt from the process – the host Norway. The audio-only pre-qualification round, which was never televised or broadcast on radio, was used by the EBU in order to shortlist the number of participating nations that would compete in the televised final.[1] With exception to the hosts Norway, audio entries from twenty-nine countries were played to national juries, of which only twenty-two proceeded to the televised final in Oslo.[1] Germany, Israel, Denmark, Hungary, Russia, Macedonia, and Romania all failed to qualify. As a result, Macedonia's submission was never classified as a debut entry by the EBU, the nation eventually went on to make their official televised debut in 1998.[1]

It rapidly became evident that this system was no more sustainable than any other the EBU had tried, as it meant that several countries had gone through their traditional full-blown national selection procedure to come up with an entry, only to suffer the anti-climax of having their challenge quietly extinguished without even having had the opportunity of presenting the song to an international audience. As a leading financial contributor to the contest, Germany were particularly aggrieved that their entry, the techno song "Planet of Blue" performed by Leon, was one of the seven cast aside. It was the only year in the history of the ESC in which Germany did not participate in the final.[1]

The 1996 contest also featured two novelties — which similarly failed to become a tradition — firstly a short 'good luck message' for each entry, recorded by a political leader or official from their country. The seniority of the figure who delivered the message varied wildly from country to country, ranging from Presidents and Prime Ministers on one end of the spectrum to junior ministers or ambassadors on the other, but a few very significant European political figures did appear, including long-serving Swedish premier Göran Persson, President Alija Izetbegović of Bosnia and Herzegovina and future UN Secretary-General António Guterres, then Prime Minister of Portugal. But of course the only good luck wish that was fully rewarded in the end was that of Irish Taoiseach John Bruton, who introduced the song that took his country to a fourth win in five years.[1]

Secondly, the voting section was conducted using "blue screen" virtual reality technology provided by Silicon Graphics. The host Ingvild Bryn introduced the viewers to the 'blue room', upon which a 3D scoreboard, views of the green room, the jury spokespersons and country graphics appeared. The only physical aspects were Ingvild herself and two podiums. For the first time in the Eurovision history, during the voting a spokesperson came to stage (exactly the blue room) down next to Ingvild: the Norwegian one, Ragnhild Sælthun Fjørtoft.[1]

Returning artists

Artist	Country	Previous Year(s)
Mariana Efstratiou	Greece	1987 (backing vocalist for Bang) 1989
Elisabeth Andreassen	Norway	1982 (for Sweden, part of Chips) 1985 (part of Bobbysocks!, winner) 1994 (in duet with Jan Werner Danielsen)

Countries listed below submitted entries for the audio-only pre-qualification round, which was never televised, and was used by the EBU in order to shortlist the number of participating nations that would compete in the televised final. Despite a submitted entry from Macedonia, it was never classified as an official debut entry, although the nation would eventually make their official televised debut in 1998.[1][2][3] Additionally, at least two sources claim that Bulgaria's name appeared, crossed-out, on the pre-qualifier jury ballots, indicating that they may have intended to submit a potential debut entry as well before they were taken off the ballot for unknown reasons. (They would eventually make their debut in 2005).[4][5]

Draw	Country	Artist	Song	Language[6][7]	Place[3]	Points[3]
01	Austria	George Nussbaumer	"Weil's dr guat got"	Vorarlbergish	6	80
02	Bosnia and Herzegovina	Amila Glamočak	"Za našu ljubav"	Bosnian	21	29
03	Belgium	Lisa del Bo	"Liefde is een kaartspel"	Dutch	12	45
04	Switzerland	Kathy Leander	"Mon cœur l'aime"	French	8	67
05	Cyprus	Constantinos	"Mono gia mas" (Μόνο για μας)	Greek	15	42
06	Germany	Leon	"Planet of Blue"	German	24	24
07	Denmark	Dorthe Andersen & Martin Loft	"Kun med dig"	Danish	25	22
08	Estonia	Maarja-Liis Ilus & Ivo Linna	"Kaelakee hääl"	Estonian	5	106
09	Spain	Antonio Carbonell	"¡Ay, qué deseo!"	Spanish	14	43
10	Finland	Jasmine	"Niin kaunis on taivas"	Finnish	22	26
11	France	Dan Ar Braz & l'Héritage des Celtes	"Diwanit Bugale"	Breton	11	55
12	United Kingdom	Gina G	"Ooh Aah... Just a Little Bit"	English	3	153
13	Greece	Marianna Efstratiou	"Emis forame to himona anixiatika" (Εμείς φοράμε το χειμώνα ανοιξιάτικα)	Greek	12	45
14	Croatia	Maja Blagdan	"Sveta ljubav"	Croatian	19	30
15	Hungary	Gjon Delhusa	"Fortuna"	Hungarian	23	26
16	Ireland	Eimear Quinn	"The Voice"	English	2	198
17	Israel	Galit Bell	"Shalom Olam" (שלום עולם)	Hebrew	28	12
18	Iceland	Anna Mjöll	"Sjúbídú"	Icelandic	10	59
19	Macedonia	Kaliopi	"Samo ti" (Само ти)	Macedonian	26	14
20	Malta	Miriam Christine	"In a Woman's Heart"	English	4	138
21	Netherlands	Maxine & Franklin Brown	"De eerste keer"	Dutch	9	63
22	Poland	Kasia Kowalska	"Chcę znać swój grzech..."	Polish	15	42
23	Portugal	Lúcia Moniz	"O meu coração não tem cor"	Portuguese	18	32
24	Romania	Monica Anghel & Sincron	"Rugă pentru pacea lumii"	Romanian	29	11
25	Russia	Andrey Kosinskiy	"Ya eto ya" (Я это я)	Russian	26	14
26	Sweden	One More Time	"Den vilda"	Swedish	1	227
27	Slovenia	Regina	"Dan najlepših sanj"	Slovene	19	30
28	Slovakia	Marcel Palonder	"Kým nás máš"	Slovak	17	38
29	Turkey	Şebnem Paker	"Beşinci Mevsim"	Turkish	7	69

Each country had a jury that awarded 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 point(s) for their top ten songs. One year later, televoting would be introduced in only some countries, such as Sweden and the United Kingdom. When Belén Fernández de Henestrosa, the Spanish spokesperson, announced the votes of the Spanish jury, she awarded two points to "Czechoslovakia" (while meaning 'Slovakia'). Furthermore, she awarded six points to "Holland" (the Netherlands), which host Ingvild Bryn misheard as "Poland." The official results table corrected this error, and the Netherlands' seventh-place result was restored at the expense of the United Kingdom, who ultimately finished eighth. Because originally Poland was awarded six points from Spain, Greece was placed 14th over Poland after the official results table corrected this error.[1] Norway's entry, "I evighet", is notable for being the only runner-up not to receive a single "12 points" score in a Eurovision final since the current voting method was introduced in 1975.

In addition to the host country of the 1997 contest, Ireland, the 23 countries with the highest average scores between 1993 and 1996 were allowed to take part in the Eurovision Song Contest 1997.

Key:
  Automatic qualifier
  Qualifier
  Replacement qualifier
  Withdrew

Rank	Country	Average	Score
			1993	1994	1995	1996
–	Ireland	154.75	187	226	44	162
1	Norway	114.50	120	76	148	114
2	United Kingdom	95.00	164	63	76	77
3	Sweden	84.25	89	48	100	100
4	Malta	77.50	69	97	76	68
5	France	76.75	121	74	94	18
6	Poland	70.67		166	15	31
7	Hungary	62.50		122	3	NQ
8	Croatia	61.75	31	27	91	98
9	Switzerland	61.67	148	15		22
10	Netherlands	58.00	92	4		78
11	Portugal	57.50	60	73	5	92
12	Cyprus	54.75	17	51	79	72
13	Greece	53.00	64	44	68	36
14	Spain	52.75	58	17	119	17
15	Denmark	50.50	9		92	NQ
16	Germany	49.00	18	128	1	NQ
17	Estonia	48.00		2		94
18	Austria	46.50	32	19	67	68
19	Russia	43.50		70	17	NQ
20	Iceland	43.25	42	49	31	51
21	Israel[lower-alpha 1]	42.50	4		81	NQ
22	Slovenia	36.33	9		84	16
23	Turkey	29.33	10		21	57
24	Bosnia and Herzegovina[lower-alpha 1]	23.25	27	39	14	13
25	Slovakia	17.00		15		19
26	Romania	14.00		14		NQ
27	Finland	13.33	20	11		9
28	Belgium	11.00	3		8	22
29	Macedonia	0.00				NQ

In 1996 all contestants were wished good luck by a politician from their own country in their own language. Those wishes were shown right before their performance. This was the only year in Eurovision with such wishes. These are the people who wished their country's participant good luck (language in parentheses):

•  Turkey – Süleyman Demirel, President of Turkey (Turkish)
•  United Kingdom – Virginia Bottomley, UK Secretary of State for National Heritage (English)
•  Spain – Don Alberto Escudero Claramunt, Spanish ambassador (Spanish)
•  Portugal – António Guterres, Prime Minister of Portugal (Portuguese)
•  Cyprus – Glafkos Klerides, President of Cyprus (Greek)
•  Malta – Edward Fenech Adami, Prime Minister of Malta (Maltese)
•  Croatia – Zlatko Mateša, Prime Minister of Croatia (Croatian)
•  Austria – Elisabeth Gehrer, Federal Minister of Education, Science and Culture of Austria (German)
•   Switzerland – Michel Coquoz, Swiss Chargé d'affaires (French)
•  Greece – Caterína Dimaki, Greek Chargé d'affaires (Greek)
•  Estonia – Tiit Vähi, Prime Minister of Estonia (Estonian)
•  Norway – Gro Harlem Brundtland, Prime Minister of Norway (Norwegian)
•  France – Philippe Douste-Blazy, Minister of Culture of France (French)
•  Slovenia – Milan Kučan, President of Slovenia (Slovene)
•  Netherlands – Aad Nuis, State Secretary of Education, Culture and Science of the Netherlands (Dutch)
•  Belgium – Luc Van den Brande, Prime Minister of Flanders (Dutch)
•  Ireland – John Bruton, Taoiseach (Prime Minister of Ireland) (English)
•  Finland – Riitta Uosukainen, Speaker of Parliament of Finland (Finnish)
•  Iceland – Davíð Oddsson, Prime Minister of Iceland (Icelandic)
•  Poland – Aleksander Kwaśniewski, President of Poland (Polish)
•  Bosnia and Herzegovina – Alija Izetbegović, Chairmen of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnian)
•  Slovakia – Vladimír Mečiar, Prime Minister of Slovakia (Slovak)
•  Sweden – Göran Persson, Prime Minister of Sweden (Swedish)

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