Eurovision Song Contest 1993

Eurovision Song Contest 1993
Dates
Final	15 May 1993
Host
Venue	Green Glens Arena Millstreet, Cork, Ireland
Presenter(s)	Fionnuala Sweeney
Conductor	Noel Kelehan
Executive supervisor	Christian Clausen
Host broadcaster	Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ)
Opening act	The story of Eochaid and Étaín in Celtic mythology, transitioning into a video of rural Ireland today.
Interval act	Linda Martin, Johnny Logan,
Participants
Number of entries	25
Debuting countries	Bosnia and Herzegovina  Croatia  Slovenia
Returning countries	None
Withdrawing countries	Yugoslavia
Participation map      Participating countries     Did not qualify from the semi final     Countries that participated in the past but not in 1993
Vote
Voting system	Each country awarded 12, 10, 8–1 point(s) to their 10 favourite songs
Nul points	None
Winning song	Ireland "In Your Eyes"
Eurovision Song Contest
◄1992 • 1993 • 1994►

The Eurovision Song Contest 1993 was the 38th Eurovision Song Contest and was held on 15 May 1993 in Millstreet, County Cork, Ireland. The presenter was Fionnuala Sweeney. Niamh Kavanagh was the winner of this Eurovision for Ireland with the song, "In Your Eyes". This was Ireland's fifth victory, and equalled the tally of five Eurovision victories achieved by France in 1977 and Luxembourg in 1983.

The location for this year's edition of the contest was unique, in that Millstreet, with a population at the time of just 1,500 people, was the smallest host town ever chosen for Eurovision, and indeed was the most remote. However, the venue, a large indoor well- equipped equestrian centre was deemed more than suitable as the location by RTÉ. With huge support from local and national authorities, plus several businesses in the region, the town's infrastructure was greatly enhanced in order to accommodate an event of this scale. It was also the largest outside broadcast ever attempted by state broadcaster RTÉ and was deemed a technical triumph for all involved. The stage was created by Alan Farquharson, who was also chief production designer two years later in Dublin.

BBC newsreader Nicholas Witchell caused controversy by remarking on the air, shortly before the contest, that it would be held "in a cowshed in Ireland."^[1] He subsequently apologized.

The top two countries of this contest were the same as the top two countries in the previous year's contest, being Ireland and the United Kingdom.

Pre-qualifying round

In the run-up to this contest, the European Broadcasting Union finally started to grapple with the explosion in the number of potential participating countries, caused by the dissolution of the Eastern bloc, and also by the disintegration of Yugoslavia, which had traditionally been the only communist country to take part in the contest. For the first time, then, a pre-qualifying round was introduced, but only for countries that had either never participated in the contest at all, or in the case of former republics of Yugoslavia, had not previously competed as nations in their own right. This was, however, merely a 'sticking-plaster' measure that was plainly not a sustainable solution for future years, as it would not be seen as remotely equitable. But in the meantime, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania and Estonia were left to battle it out in a special competition called Kvalifikacija za Millstreet in Ljubljana on 3 April for the mere three places available at the grand final in Millstreet. After some extremely tight voting, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia edged through.

Voting structure

Each country had a jury who awarded 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 point(s) for their top ten songs. The voting required a jury to deliberate in the midst of the ongoing war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Warm applause rang round the hall as a voice on a crackling phone line was heard to deliver the familiar greeting, "Hello Millstreet, Sarajevo calling". During the announcement of the scores by the Dutch jury, Sweeney got carried away with the audience's cheers and declared Ireland 12 points (which were going to Portugal) when they had only been awarded 10 – which was promptly corrected. By the final few juries it became clear that either Ireland or the United Kingdom were going to win. After the penultimate jury had voted, it looked to be a lost cause for second-placed Sonia of the UK as she was eleven points behind Niamh Kavanagh.

Ostensibly due to earlier technical difficulties, the final jury to announce their results was the Maltese jury. An expectant Irish crowd waited to hear Malta award anything between one and ten points to either the UK or Ireland – the result of which would have made it arithmetically impossible for Ireland to be caught. However, the name of neither country came up (the ten points instead surprisingly being awarded to Luxembourg). This of course meant that either the UK or Ireland must have failed to pick up any points from the final jury, and if it was Sonia that received the maximum twelve points, the seemingly impossible would have happened and the UK would snatch a single-point victory at the death. Instead it was Ireland that were awarded the final points of the evening, finishing with what looked in retrospect a comfortable twenty-three-point victory. Interestingly, given the way the votes were cast, having Malta's vote announced last was the only way for the contest for victory to go down to the final jury. 1993 was the last year that the points were announced by telephone.

Returning artists

Artist	Country	Previous Year(s)
Tony Wegas	Austria	1992
Katri Helena	Finland	1979
Tommy Seebach	Denmark	1979, 1981

Results

Draw	Country	Artist	Song	Language[2]	Place	Points
01	Italy	Enrico Ruggeri	"Sole d'Europa"	Italian	12	45
02	Turkey	Burak Aydos	"Esmer Yarim"	Turkish	21	10
03	Germany	Münchener Freiheit	"Viel zu weit"	German	18	18
04	Switzerland	Annie Cotton	"Moi, tout simplement"	French	3	148
05	Denmark	Tommy Seebach Band	"Under stjernerne på himlen"	Danish	22	9
06	Greece	Katerina Garbi	"Ellada, hora tou fotos" (Ελλάδα, χώρα του φωτός)	Greek	9	64
07	Belgium	Barbara Dex	"Iemand als jij"	Dutch	25	3
08	Malta	William Mangion	"This Time"	English	8	69
09	Iceland	Inga	"Þá veistu svarið"	Icelandic	13	42
10	Austria	Tony Wegas	"Maria Magdalena"	German	14	32
11	Portugal	Anabela	"A cidade (até ser dia)"	Portuguese	10	60
12	France	Patrick Fiori	"Mama Corsica"	French, Corsican	4	121
13	Sweden	Arvingarna	"Eloise"	Swedish	7	89
14	Ireland	Niamh Kavanagh	"In Your Eyes"	English	1	187
15	Luxembourg	Modern Times	"Donne-moi une chance"	French, Luxembourgish	20	11
16	Slovenia	1X Band	"Tih deževen dan"	Slovene	22	9
17	Finland	Katri Helena	"Tule luo"	Finnish	17	20
18	Bosnia and Herzegovina	Fazla	"Sva bol svijeta"	Bosnian	16	27
19	United Kingdom	Sonia	"Better the Devil You Know"	English	2	164
20	Netherlands	Ruth Jacott	"Vrede"	Dutch	6	92
21	Croatia	Put	"Don't Ever Cry"	Croatian, English	15	31
22	Spain	Eva Santamaría	"Hombres"	Spanish	11	58
23	Cyprus	Zimboulakis & Van Beke	"Mi stamatas" (Μη σταματάς)	Greek	19	17
24	Israel	Lahakat Shiru	"Shiru" (שירו)	Hebrew, English	24	4
25	Norway	Silje Vige	"Alle mine tankar"	Norwegian	5	120

Score sheet

		Results
	Italy	45				1				7			10	5			10		8			2		2
	Turkey	10									1									2			1	6
	Germany	18	8			2	3									4						1
	Switzerland	148	10		12		10	7	8	5	4	6	1	12	6	7	12	8	4		10	8	2	3	6	4	3
	Denmark	9													1		3			5
	Greece	64	2	2	2					6				7					6			5		8	12	7	7
	Belgium	3			3
	Malta	69	7	5	4	7	5	5				4	2	2	4	2				4	6		4	4	1	3
	Iceland	42					4	4				1			7	1		5			2	7	5		2	2	2
	Austria	32		4				1	3					3		6				12	3
	Portugal	60			1		1	2			2	5		8	2		4		2		1	12		12	3		5
	France	121		7		4	12	3			8	7	12		8	10	6	4	1		4	3	8		10	8	6
	Sweden	89			8	8	7		10		7	10	4				5	6	7		7					10
	Ireland	187	12	1	5	12	6	6	2	12	3	8	6	10	12		7	12	3	8	12	10	6	10	7	5	12
	Luxembourg	11								10								1
	Slovenia	9	4							1					3					1
	Finland	20		3				8		2	5						2
	Bosnia and Herzegovina	27	3	12					1	4				4		3
	United Kingdom	164	1	8	6	5	8		12		12	12	7	6	10	8	8	10	5	3		4	10	5	4	12	8
	Netherlands	92	6	6	7				7	3	6	3			5	12		7		10			3	7			10
	Croatia	31				3			4				5								8			1		6	4
	Spain	58	5			6			5	8		2						2	10	6			7		5	1	1
	Cyprus	17					2	10													5
	Israel	4											3	1
	Norway	120		10	10	10		12	6		10		8			5	1	3	12	7		6	12		8
The table is ordered by appearance Due to technical difficulties Malta was the last country to vote.

12 points

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

International broadcasts and voting

Voting and spokespersons

Commentators

National jury members

•  Bosnia and Herzegovina – Ismeta Krvavac
•  Croatia – Ksenija Urličić, Maja Blagdan
•  Greece – Vangelis Alexandropoulos, Bessy Argyraki, Dina Vasilakou, Dimitris Iatropoulos, Grigoris Lambrianidis, Paschalis, Giorgos Kleftogiorgos, Andreas Hatziapostolou, Anastasios Alatzas, Maria Alexandrou, Alexandros Varouxis, Giorgos Kanellos, Evgenia Koutsoulieri, Giorgos Logothetis, Maria Sotiropoulou, Elena Hounta
•  Israel – Noel Dunsky
•  Netherlands – Angelina van Dijk, Lisa Boray
•  Portugal – Jorge do Carmo
•  Spain – Cristina Pons (student), Juan Ribera (doctor), Arantxa de Benito (TV hostess), Sergio Blanco (singer, Spanish entrant at Eurovision Song Contest 1975), Estíbaliz Uranga (singer, Spanish entrant at Eurovision Song Contest 1975), Manuel Quinto (writer and film critic), Rosita Ferrer (actress), Antonio Rebollo (sportsman), Concha Márquez Piquer (singer), René Dechamps (student), Rosi Nsue (dancer), Francesc Martínez de Foix (president of Special Olympics Spain), María Luisa San José (actress), Bernardo Bonezzi (composer), Anabel Aramburu (TV and radio scriptwriter), Miguel Ángel Bermejo (film and advertising producer)^[29]

Notes and references

Footnotes

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Eurovision Song Contest 1993.

• Official website