VENUE St Eriks Massan Alvsjoe, Stockholm		ENTRIES 19
HOST Karin Falck		DEBUTS Turkey

1975 saw some more big changes. A noticeably bigger arena than usual greeted Eurovisions largest field to date, as (despite Greece sitting it out after their debut) France and Malta returned and Turkey debuted to make nineteen nations in the Swedish capital. Presenter Karin Falck promised us 'a certain amount of light entertainment with music' in an evening peppered with classic quotes. 

This was also the first year of the current scoring system, that has served Eurovision well now for thirty-five years.  Each country has a jury of individuals who cast a vote from one to ten for each song. Then the votes are collated and the top scoring song gets twelve points, the second ten, the third eight and so down to the tenth favourite getting one point.  Thus in the current voting era, for a song to score nul points it has to be outside the top ten favourites of every other country.  Nowadays the votes are announced in ascending order but for the first few years they weren't so there was plenty of scope for problems. 

The strengths of this voting system are that even mediocre songs will tend to pick up a few points here and there (to maintain their dignity) and also that no one jury can exert disproportionate influence by awarding a higher top vote than other juries. The Netherlands became the first country to win Eurovision with the song that opened the contest, although we wouldn't have to wait too long for the second one. We would have to wait much longer for a Dutch song to replicate their victory as the Netherlands Eurovision fortunes took a brutal nosedive after this contest. Bruce Welch of the Shadows fluffed his lines on the UK entry 'Let Me Be The One' but the UK still eased to a familiar second place. After a two year break, Malta returned singing in English this time and did noticeably better than before. 

WINNER: Netherlands

DING-A-DONG by Teach-In

voting

IN THE NEWS THIS WEEK:

King Faisal of Saudi Arabia is assassinated by his nephew.

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