Eurovision Song Contest 1994



The Eurovision Song Contest 1994 was the 39th Eurovision Song Contest and was held on 30 April 1994 in the Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland. As of 2017, it was the last time the contest was held in April. The presenters were Cynthia Ní Mhurchú and Gerry Ryan. The pair hosted the evening in French, English and Irish. Once again Ireland won the contest for the third time in a row, when Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan were the winners with a song written by Brendan Graham, "Rock 'N' Roll Kids". This was a record sixth victory for Ireland, giving it the outright record number of victories at the Eurovision Song Contest, and also the second time Ireland won on home soil. It was also the first time &mdash; and to date the only time &mdash; that the contest had been won by the same country in three consecutive years.

The contest opened with a brief film of stars floating in water, fireworks and caricatures dancing around, drinking coffee and biking. The cameras then went live to the venue itself, where dancers dressed in white and wearing caricatured heads of well-known Irish figures, arrived on stage carrying European countries’ flags. The presenters entered the stage spectacularly from a bridge which descended from the roof of the theatre. This year’s video postcards had a literary theme, showing contestants reading, fishing and doing other activities around Ireland. The stage, by Paula Farrell, was four times larger than the Millstreet stage, and its design which included a city scene of skyscrapers and video screens plus a backdrop of an ever-changing night sky was based upon the concept of what a futuristic Dublin might look like with one remaining constant being the river Liffey. The floor was painted with a dark blue reflective paint to give a watery effect.

To cope with the increasing number of countries wishing to participate in the contest, for 1994 the European Broadcasting Union ruled that the seven lowest-placed countries from the preceding year's contest would not participate. Because Italy and Luxembourg withdrew voluntarily, the bottom 5 of the 1993 Contest were relegated. This meant that Belgium, Denmark, Israel, Slovenia and Turkey did not participate this year opening spaces for the new countries. This contest also saw Luxembourg withdraw from Eurovision indefinitely.

Poland took part for the first time and caused a scandal when Edyta Górniak broke the rules by singing her song in English during the dress rehearsal (which is shown to the juries who selected the winner until 1997). Only six countries demanded that Poland should be disqualified, though the rules required 13 countries to complain before Poland could be removed from the competition. The proposed removal did not occur and Poland went on to come 2nd in the contest, the highest placing that any country's debut song had ever achieved until 2007. (the winner in 1956 was Switzerland's second song of the night).

For the first time in Eurovision history, voting was done via satellite instead of by telephone, and as a result, viewers could see the spokespersons onscreen.

When the voting started, Hungary took the lead from the first six juries and was well ahead of all the other countries. However, Ireland powered their way through the score board ending up the winners with a 60-point lead over second-placed Poland.

The interval act was the first ever performance of the Irish dancing spectacular Riverdance, featuring Michael Flatley and Jean Butler.

Results
Notes
 * 1. Contains some words in English.

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.

With advances in technology, this was the first contest in which the spokesperson for each national jury appeared on-screen, live from their own countries.

In the early stages of the voting it looked as if Hungary was surging to victory in its first-ever Eurovision appearance, winning the maximum twelve points from the first three juries. However, this turned out to be completely deceptive, as from that point on it was virtually one-way traffic for Ireland, which became the first country to win the contest for a third year in succession.

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

Other involved countries

 * FR Yugoslavia: After the breakup of Yugoslavia, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was last participated in 1992. Third channel of Radio Television of Serbia broadcast the show, although Yugoslavia did not participate.

Television

 * - Pekka Heino (SVT, Kanal1)
 * - Erkki Pohjanheimo and Kirsi-Maria Niemi (YLE TV1),
 * - Pat Kenny (RTÉ1)
 * - Evi Papamichail (RIK 1)
 * - Jakob Frímann Magnússon (Sjónvarpið)
 * - Terry Wogan (BBC1)
 * - Aleksandar "Aco" Kostadinov (HRT 1)
 * - Eládio Clímaco (Canal 1)
 * - Bernard Thurnheer (SF DRS), Jean-Marc Richard (TSR), Wilma Gilardi (TSI)
 * - Vello Rand (Eesti Televisioon)
 * - Gabriela Cristea (TVR1)
 * - Charles Arrigo (TVM)
 * - Willem van Beusekom (Nederland 3)
 * - Jan Hofer (Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen)
 * - Martin Sarvaš (STV2)
 * - Darius Užkuraitis (LTV)
 * - Jostein Pedersen (NRK)
 * - Ismeta Dervoz-Krvavac (TVBiH)
 * - Dafni Bokota (ET1)
 * - Ernst Grissemann (ORF1)
 * - José Luis Uribarri (TVE1)
 * - István Vágó (MTV2)
 * - Vadim Dolgachev (RTR)
 * - Artur Orzech (TVP1)
 * - Patrice Laffont (France 2)
 * (non participating country) - André Vermeulen (BRTN TV2), Jean-Pierre Hautier (RTBF La Une)
 * (non participating country) - Jørgen de Mylius (DR TV)
 * (non participating country) - No commentator
 * (non participating country) - Damjana Golavšek (SLO1)
 * (non participating country) - Bülend Özveren (TRT 1)
 * (non participating country) - Mladen Popović (RTS 3K)
 * (non participating country) - Milanka Rašik (MTV 2)

Radio
Some participating countries didn't provide radio broadcasts for the event, the ones who did are listed below.


 * - Claes-Johan Larsson and Lisa Syrén (SR P3)
 * - Aki Sirkesalo and Kati Bergman (YLE Radiomafia)
 * - Larry Gogan (RTÉ Radio 1)
 * - Pavlos Pavlou (CyBC Radio 2)
 * - Ken Bruce (BBC Radio 2)
 * - Draginja Balaš (HR 2)
 * - Marko Reikop (Raadio 2)
 * - Cornald Maas (Radio 2)
 * - Roger Horné (Deutschlandfunk/hr3)
 * - Špela Močnik (Rádio FM)
 * - Giorgos Mitropoulos (ERA ERT1)
 * - Martin Blumenau (Hitradio Ö3)
 * - TBC (Rádió Kossuth)
 * - TBC (Voice of Russia)
 * - Dorota Wellman (Polskie Radio Program I)
 * (non participating country) - Julien Put (BRTN Radio 2), Patrick Duhamel (RTBF La Première)
 * (non participating country) - Ole Jacobsen (DR P3)

Spokespersons

 * - Marianne Anderberg
 * - Solveig Herlin
 * - Eileen Dunne
 * - Anna Partelidou
 * - Sigríður Arnardóttir
 * - Colin Berry
 * - Helga Vlahović (co-presenter of the 1990 Eurovision Song Contest)
 * - Isabel Bahia
 * - Sandra Studer (Swiss representative in 1991)
 * - Urve Tiidus
 * - Cristina Topescu
 * - John Demanuele
 * - Joop van Os
 * - Carmen Nebel
 * - Juraj Čurný
 * - Gitana
 * - Sverre Christophersen
 * - Diana Grković-Foretić
 * - Fotini Giannoulatou
 * - Tilia Herold
 * - María Ángeles Balañac
 * - Iván Bradányi
 * - Irina
 * - Jan Chojnacki
 * - Laurent Romejko

National jury members

 * – Ismeta Krvavac
 * – Ksenija Urličić
 * 🇬🇷 Greece – Evangelos Alexandropoulos, Nikolaos Tsolakis, Giorgos Vrouvas, Giorgos Kleftogiorgos, Kosmas Athousis, Maria Alefanti, Eleftherios Apostolopoulos, Christos Venetidis, Georgia Giannopoulou, Anna Gliati, Rozy Kasparian, Evgenia Koutsoulieri, Ekaterini Lygoni, Stamatis Panagiotaras, Ourania Papakonstantopoulou, Archontia Harismidou
 * – Silvia Rigová, Zlatica Bírová, Martina Lišková, Iveta Lábska, Gabriela Husková, Augustín Rebro, Ján Pavúr, Tibor Horniak, Jozef Martiš, Dagmar Martišová, Daniela Mintálová, Štefan Ondek, Pavol Zelenay, Mária Slováková, Ivan Popelár, Július Ebers
 * 🇪🇸 Spain – Belén Casla (economist), Daniel Santos (Eurovision Network delegate), Purificación Blanco (journalist at El Semanal TV), Àlex Sisteré (actor), Susana García (actress), Andrés Vázquez (bullfighter), Alejandra Botto (actress), Serafín Zubiri (singer, Spanish entrant at Eurovision Song Contest 1992), Elena Benarroch (fashion designer), Francisco (singer), Dora Dora (TV hostess), Francisco Herrera (director of Cadena Dial), Victoria Rodríguez (student), Manuel Liétor (businessman), Sofía Balseiro (bank branch manager), Javier de la Vega (student)