| Eurovision Song Contest 1983 | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Date and venue | |
| Final |
|
| Venue | Rudi-Sedlmayer-Halle Munich, West Germany |
| Organisation | |
| Organiser | European Broadcasting Union (EBU) |
| Scrutineer | Frank Naef |
| Production | |
| Host broadcaster | ARD[a] –Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) |
| Director | Rainer Bertram |
| Executive producers |
|
| Musical director | Dieter Reith |
| Presenter | Marlene Charell |
| Participants | |
| Number of entries | 20 |
| Returning countries | |
| Non-returning countries |  Ireland |
| |
| Vote | |
| Voting system | Each country awarded 12, 10, 8-1 point(s) to their 10 favourite songs |
| Winning song |  Luxembourg"Si la vie est cadeau" |
| 1982 ← Eurovision Song Contest →1984 Event page at eurovision.tv  | |
TheEurovision Song Contest 1983 was the 28th edition of theEurovision Song Contest, held on 23 April 1983 at theRudi-Sedlmayer-Halle inMunich,West Germany, and presented byMarlene Charell. It was organised by theEuropean Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcasterBayerischer Rundfunk (BR) on behalf ofARD,[a] who staged the event after winning the1982 contest forGermany with the song "Ein bißchen Frieden" byNicole. Despite being that their first win at the contest, it was actually the second time that ARD had hosted the competition, having previously done so in1957 inFrankfurt.
Broadcasters from twenty countries participated in the contest, withFrance,Greece, andItaly all returning this year.Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ) decided not to participate citing industrial action, making thisIreland's first absence since its debut in 1965.
The winner wasLuxembourg with the song "Si la vie est cadeau" byCorinne Hermes, which equalled the record of five victories set byFrance in 1977. This record would in turn be beaten byIreland in 1994. It was also the second year in a row where the winning entry was performed last on the night and the second year in a row in whichIsrael won 2nd place. For the third year in a row, at least one country ended up withnul points, and in this case, it happened to be two countries,Spain andTurkey, neither of whom were able to get off the mark.
The 1983 contest was the first to be televised in Australia, viaChannel 0/28 (now SBS) inSydney andMelbourne. The contest went on to become popular in Australia, leading totheir eventual debut at the60th anniversary contest in 2015.
Munich is a German city and capital of theBavarian state. Due to this, Munich houses the parliament and state government.Rudi-Sedlmayer-Halle was chosen to host the contest.[1] It was initially named after the president of the Bavarian State Sport Association.[1] The hall opened in 1972 to hostbasketball events for the1972 Summer Olympics.[1] Due to staging and production necessities, the 5,500 seats of the arena had to be reduced to 3,200 for the night of the final and until the1985 contest, this was the largest arena to host the event.[2][1] From this number, 2,000 seats were reserved for the delegations and journalists, and 1,200 tickets were on sale for the general public.[3] The ticket prices ranged from 20 to 50DM.[4]
 | This section contains numerous links to pages onforeign language Wikipedias. They are shown asred links with the language codes in [small blue letters] in brackets. Click on the language code to see the page in that language. |
| Eurovision Song Contest 1983 – Participation summaries by country | |
|---|---|
Twenty countries took part in the contest, withFrance,Greece, andItaly returning to the competition. On the other hand,Ireland was absent this year for the first time since its debut in 1965 because of the financial difficulties of the national broadcaster,Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ).[5]
Several of the performing artists had previously competed as lead artists representing the same country in past editions:Guy Bonnet had representedFrance in 1970; andJahn Teigen had representedNorway in 1978, andin 1982 alongAnita Skorgan. In addition,Sandra Reemer, who had represented theNetherlands in 1972 along withAndres Holten,in 1976, andin 1979; Anita Skorgan who representedNorway in 1977,in 1979, in 1982 along Jahn Teigen, and provided backing vocalsin 1981; andIzolda Barudžija, who representedYugoslavia in 1982 as part ofAska; provided backing vocals for the same country in this contest.
The local production of the contest started in June 1982.[3] The final was produced byBayerischer Rundfunk (BR) on behalf ofARD,[a] with production costs of 1.2 millionDM, further 1.5 million DM for the organisation and broadcaster, making a total of 2.7 million DM.[1][9] With the help of donations and other contributions, Bayerischer Rundfunk was able to reduce the costs at its own expense to about 1 million DM.[10] The city of Munich had to contribute 60,000 DM to a reception for the participating delegations.[11]
The contest was directed byRainer Bertram [de].[12]Dieter Reith served as the general musical director of the 60-piece orchestra.[10] Christian Hayer and Günther Lebram served as the executive producers.[13] Other leading figures in the production includedWolf Mittler, Sylvia de Bruycker, Christof Schmid and Joachim Krausz.[14] Rehearsals started on 18 April 1983.[12]
The stage was designed byHans Gailling [de].[3] The set was an arc-shaped stage surrounding the orchestra section and had a size of 4 by 34 metres (13 ft × 112 ft).[2] A 26 metres (85 ft) large and 7 metres (23 ft) high steel construction with frames resembling giant electric heaters was used as the background.[1][15][3] The 33 frames were equipped with three light panels each, at which hundreds of light bulbs were suspended.[3] In total, 63,000 light bulbs, which could be controlled manually or by sound frequency, lit up and flashed in different sequences and combinations depending on the nature and rhythm of the songs.[1][3]
Various receptions and events were organised in the week leading up to the final. On 19 April 1983, a cruise onLake Starnberg with several participants was held by theGerman National Tourist Board as a press event for 250 journalists.[16][17][18] The Tourist Board also organised a bus tour for several participants toLinderhof Palace andGarmisch-Partenkirchen on 20 April 1983.[19][18] On 19 April 1983, a reception for the participants was held at theAntiquarium in theMunich Residenz, on behalf ofFranz Josef Strauss,minister-president of the state ofBavaria.[1][20][21] Parties and receptions for the artists were also organised by the record labelsAriola,Polydor andDeutsche Grammophon.[18]Ralph Siegel, composer of the winning entry forGermany in 1982, and his own record labelJupiter Records [de], held a party for 1,000 guests, including many artists, on 21 April 1983.[18][22][23]
A press centre with television monitors, typewriters, telephones and paper notebooks was installed for the 600 journalists covering the event.[24][25]
GermanBundespost installed a post office from 18 to 23 April at theRudi-Sedlmayr-Halle and stamped letters from there with a special Eurovision Song Contest postmark.[26]
Instead of pre-filmed "postcards", the production team for this edition chose not to produce the postcards for technical reasons. During the change of the stage elements, the name of the next country was shown on screen accompanied by music from the orchestra, followed by a presentation of the upcoming entry by Marlene Charell.[13]
After the first rehearsals, the Austrian and British commentators complained that, since there were no postcards, they felt that there was not enough time to introduce the upcoming entry to their viewers, and subsequently threatened to withdraw from the contest.[27] As a reaction, for the live show and latter rehearsals, the name of the upcoming country was shown on screen for a certain time so that commentators had enough time.[4]
For the introduction of each entry, Charell stood in front of individual flower arrangements with flowers in the colours of the corresponding entry’s national flag.[1] The floral arrangements were provided by theInternational Garden Expo 83 organization, as the event was also scheduled to start five days after the contest.[3] Hostess Marlene Charell made all of her announcements in German before translating a repetition in both French and English.[14] In all three languages, Charell named the country, song title, performing artist, author, composer and conductor. The decision not to use postcards apparently left Marlene lost during the event, as she would have to use three languages to introduce each of the participants.
Due to host Charell's use of three languages, the voting went on for nearly an hour, stretching the Eurovision contest past three hours for the second time ever, the first after 1979.[28] In addition, Charell made 13 language mistakes throughout the night,[28] some as innocuous as mixing up the words for "points" between the three languages, some as major as nearly awarding points to "Schweden" (Sweden) that were meant for "Schweiz" (Switzerland).
The language problems also occurred during the contest introductions, as Charell mispronounced the Finnish singerAmi Aspelund's surname as "Aspesund", Spanish singerRemedios Amaya's name as "Ramedios" and Portuguese singerArmando Gama's name as "Armendo". Furthermore, she introduced the Norwegian conductorSigurd Jansen as "...Johannes...Skorgan...", and Yugoslavian conductor Radovan Papović as "Rodovan Popović"[29] having been forced to make up a name on the spot after forgetting the conductor's name.
The contest took place on 23 April 1983, beginning at 21:00CEST (19:00UTC).[30] At the start of the broadcast, a 7-minutes-long film with views of various sights of Germany and of the host cityMunich was shown.[31][32] As part of the introduction, aparade of nations was called by the presenter Marlene Charell.[13] The interval act was a dance number set to a medley of German songs which had become internationally famous, including "Strangers in the Night". The host Marlene Charell was the lead dancer accompanied by her ballet with 20 dancers from her company.[33]
Considered the big favourite of the night by the press, the Luxembourgish entry did not enjoy the same prestige among the local public who considered it a bad joke, and this was reflected in a series of hostilities from the public in Munich, to the point that the show directorRainer Bertram [de] and Roger Kreischer, their counterpart at the Luxembourgish broadcaster RTL, openly criticized the mocking tone of the local media and the public present at the venue towards the Luxembourgish entry.[27][34] It was famously seen during the broadcast that a good part of the public present at the contest site voluntarily left during the performance of Corinne Hermès, which according to the draw was the last of the 20 participating songs. Other embarrassing reactions towards the Luxembourgish participant were recorded during the voting. Each time the name Luxembourg was announced by the jury spokespeople from each country, laughters and some joking words were heard and when high scores appeared, boos and another low slangs ensued.[27] WhenCorinne Hermès performed her reprise, a great part of the audience was already leaving.[27][35]
After the show, a reception for 1,600 guests on behalf of the city of Munich took place in a tent of theInternational Garden Expo 83.[34][36]
| R/O | Country | Artist | Song | Points | Place |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  France | Guy Bonnet | "Vivre" | 56 | 8 |
| 2 |  Norway | Jahn Teigen | "Do Re Mi" | 53 | 9 |
| 3 |  United Kingdom | Sweet Dreams | "I'm Never Giving Up" | 79 | 6 |
| 4 |  Sweden | Carola Häggkvist | "Främling" | 126 | 3 |
| 5 |  Italy | Riccardo Fogli | "Per Lucia" | 41 | 11 |
| 6 |  Turkey | Çetin Alp and the Short Wave | "Opera" | 0 | 19 |
| 7 |  Spain | Remedios Amaya | "Quién maneja mi barca" | 0 | 19 |
| 8 |  Switzerland | Mariella Farré | "Io così non ci sto" | 28 | 15 |
| 9 |  Finland | Ami Aspelund | "Fantasiaa" | 41 | 11 |
| 10 |  Greece | Christie | "Mou les" | 32 | 14 |
| 11 |  Netherlands | Bernadette | "Sing Me a Song" | 66 | 7 |
| 12 |  Yugoslavia | Daniel | "Džuli" | 125 | 4 |
| 13 |  Cyprus | Stavros and Constantina | "I agapi akoma zi" | 26 | 16 |
| 14 |  Germany | Hoffmann and Hoffmann | "Rücksicht" | 94 | 5 |
| 15 |  Denmark | Gry Johansen | "Kloden drejer" | 16 | 17 |
| 16 |  Israel | Ofra Haza | "Chai" | 136 | 2 |
| 17 |  Portugal | Armando Gama | "Esta balada que te dou" | 33 | 13 |
| 18 |  Austria | Westend | "Hurricane" | 53 | 9 |
| 19 |  Belgium | Pas de Deux | "Rendez-vous" | 13 | 18 |
| 20 | Luxembourg | Corinne Hermès | "Si la vie est cadeau" | 142 | 1 |
Each participating broadcaster appointed a spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for its respective country via telephone. Known spokespersons at the 1983 contest are listed below.
Denmark – Bent Evold[38] Finland – Solveig Herlin[39] Netherlands – Flip van der Schalie[40] Spain – Rosa Campano[41] Sweden – Agneta Bolme Börjefors[42] United Kingdom – Colin Berry[7]Each participating broadcaster assembled a jury consisting of 11 non-professional jurors who awarded 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 point(s) to their top ten songs.[43]
Total score | France | Norway | United Kingdom | Sweden | Italy | Turkey | Spain | Switzerland | Finland | Greece | Netherlands | Yugoslavia | Cyprus | Germany | Denmark | Israel | Portugal | Austria | Belgium | Luxembourg | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Contestants | France | 56 | 3 | 10 | 10 | 6 | 7 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 3 | ||||||||
| Norway | 53 | 5 | 3 | 6 | 8 | 1 | 8 | 4 | 6 | 3 | 7 | 2 | ||||||||||
| United Kingdom | 79 | 5 | 5 | 12 | 2 | 5 | 8 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 10 | 6 | |||||||
| Sweden | 126 | 6 | 12 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 2 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 3 | 1 | 7 | 12 | 10 | 8 | 4 | 8 | 5 | |||
| Italy | 41 | 7 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 8 | 1 | 6 | 7 | |||||||||||
| Turkey | 0 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Spain | 0 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Switzerland | 28 | 1 | 7 | 1 | 7 | 6 | 1 | 5 | ||||||||||||||
| Finland | 41 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 2 | 1 | |||||||||||
| Greece | 32 | 3 | 12 | 5 | 12 | |||||||||||||||||
| Netherlands | 66 | 2 | 7 | 1 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 12 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 4 | |||||
| Yugoslavia | 125 | 8 | 12 | 1 | 12 | 10 | 12 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 6 | 12 | 10 | 1 | 12 | 8 | ||||||
| Cyprus | 26 | 4 | 1 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 4 | ||||||||||||||
| Germany | 94 | 10 | 10 | 7 | 8 | 6 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 10 | 3 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 12 | |||||||
| Denmark | 16 | 2 | 7 | 1 | 4 | 2 | ||||||||||||||||
| Israel | 136 | 8 | 6 | 10 | 5 | 3 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 3 | 12 | 10 | 10 | 7 | 10 | 12 | 10 | 10 | ||||
| Portugal | 33 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 2 | 6 | 2 | 7 | |||||||||||||
| Austria | 53 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 10 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 5 | 3 | |||||||||
| Belgium | 13 | 4 | 8 | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Luxembourg | 142 | 12 | 10 | 12 | 8 | 7 | 3 | 8 | 12 | 1 | 12 | 10 | 8 | 2 | 12 | 12 | 5 | 8 | ||||
Below is a summary of all 12 points in the final:
| N. | Contestant | Nation(s) giving 12 points |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | Luxembourg | France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Portugal, Yugoslavia |
| 5 | Yugoslavia | Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Turkey, United Kingdom |
| 2 | Greece | Cyprus, Spain |
| Israel | Austria, Netherlands | |
| Sweden | Germany, Norway | |
| 1 | Germany | Luxembourg |
| Netherlands | Switzerland | |
| United Kingdom | Sweden |
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.[46] Host broadcaster BR provided 30 commentator boxes for this purpose.[3]
The contest was reportedly broadcast in 30 countries, including theEastern Bloc countries, Jordan and Hong Kong.[47][48] No official accounts of the global viewing figures are known to exist, with estimates given in the press at the time ranging from 300 to 600 million viewers.[1][49][50] Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.
| Country | Broadcaster | Channel(s) | Commentator(s) | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Australia | SBS | Channel 0/28[g] | Terry Wogan | [7][87] |
 Czechoslovakia | ČST | II. program [cs][h] | [88] | |
 Faroe Islands | SvF[i] | [89] | ||
| Greenland | KNR | KNR[j] | [90] | |
 Iceland | RÚV | Sjónvarpið | [91] | |
| Ireland | RTÉ | RTÉ 1 | Terry Wogan | [92] |
| RTÉ Radio 1 | Brendan Balfe | [93] | ||
 Poland | TP | TP1[k] | [94] | |
 Romania | TVR | Programul 1[l] | [95] | |
 South Africa | SABC | Radio 5 | [96] | |
Ireland will not be represented at the Eurovision Song Contest in Munich next April, because RTÉ is broke and cannot afford to hold a National Song Contest and send a team to Europe.
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