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Eurovision Song Contest 1997
Final	3 May 1997
Presenter(s)	Carrie Crowley Ronan Keating
Conductor	Frank McNamara
Host broadcaster	RTÉ
Venue	Point Theatre Dublin, Ireland
Winning song	United Kingdom "Love Shine a Light"
Voting system
Each country awarded 12, 10, 8-1 points to their 10 favourite songs
Number of entries	25
Debuting countries	None
Returning countries	Denmark  Germany  Hungary  Italy  Russia
Withdrawing countries	Belgium  Finland  Israel  Romania  Slovakia
Nul points	Norway  Portugal
Interval act	Ronan Keating, Boyzone
Participation Map      Participating participants     Countries who have participated in the past but did not this year
Eurovision Song Contest
◄1996        1998►

The Eurovision Song Contest 1997, the 42nd in the series, was held in Dublin, Ireland, on 3 May 1997. The presenters were Ronan Keating and Carrie Crowley.

Katrina and the Waves, representing the United Kingdom, were the winners of the contest with the song "Love Shine a Light" and Marc Roberts from Ireland came second with "Mysterious Woman". The winning song scored an unprecedented 227 points; it received points from all participating countries, including five sets of 10 points and a record-breaking ten sets of the maximum 12 points. "Love Shine a Light" is still regarded as one of the most successful Eurovision winners ever,^[1] and was the closing song in the medleys that opened the 50th anniversary show "Congratulations" in Copenhagen in 2005, and ESC 2006 semi-final in Athens.

After the controversy over the pre-selection in 1996, the European Broadcasting Union introduced a new system for 1997: the countries with the lowest average scores over the previous four years would be excluded from the 1997 contest, and those with the lowest averages over the previous five years would be excluded from future contests (save that every country so excluded for one year would automatically be allowed to participate the following year), with so many countries being omitted as would reduce the number of participants each year to 25.

Israel declined to participate as the Contest was held on its Holocaust Remembrance Day, granting a reprieve to Bosnia and Herzegovina which would otherwise have been excluded due to its low point average over the last four years.

RTÉ once again produced a highly spectacular show with a stage which had a smaller performance space for the artists than in previous years. This was the third Eurovision set to be designed by Paula Farrell, who had previously been involved with the 1988 and 1994 contests.

There was a wide array of different styles this year. Denmark brought a rap song, Croatia came with their version of the Spice Girls and Sweden brought a mid '1980s style boy band. The music was in general more modern than before, and for the first time in six years, an up-tempo song won.

This year, televoting was tested in five countries: Austria, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The results of the televoting countries were in some cases pretty different from those which used a jury. Iceland received 16 of its 18 points from these five countries.

Long-time Irish conductor Noel Kelehan was not the host conductor this year, the duty being fulfilled by Frank McNamara. However, from this year entrants were allowed to use playback, and in 1999, the orchestra was completely abolished.

Individual Entries

Results

Draw	Country	Language	Artist	Song	English translation	Place	Points
01	Cyprus	Greek	Hara & Andreas Konstantinou	"Mana Mou" (Μάνα μου)	Motherland	5	98
02	Turkey	Turkish	Şebnem Paker & Grup Etnic	"Dinle"	Listen	3	121
03	Norway	Norwegian	Tor Endresen	"San Francisco"	–	24	0
04	Austria	German	Bettina Soriat	"One Step"	–	21	12
05	Ireland	English	Marc Roberts	"Mysterious Woman"	–	2	157
06	Slovenia	Slovene	Tanja Ribič	"Zbudi se"	Wake up	10	60
07	Switzerland	Italian	Barbara Berta	"Dentro di me"	Inside of me	22	5
08	Netherlands	Dutch	Mrs. Einstein	"Niemand heeft nog tijd"	No one has time anymore	22	5
09	Italy	Italian	Jalisse	"Fiumi di parole"	Rivers of words	4	114
10	Spain	Spanish	Marcos Llunas	"Sin rencor"	Without grudge	6	96
11	Germany	German	Bianca Shomburg	"Zeit"	Time	18	22
12	Poland	Polish	Anna Maria Jopek	"Ale jestem"	But I am	11	54
13	Estonia	Estonian	Maarja-Liis Ilus	"Keelatud maa"	Forbidden land	8	82
14	Bosnia and Herzegovina	Bosnian	Alma Čardžić	"Goodbye"	–	18	22
15	Portugal	Portuguese	Célia Lawson	"Antes do adeus"	Before goodbye	24	0
16	Sweden	Swedish	Blond	"Bara hon älskar mig"	If only she loves me	14	36
17	Greece	Greek	Marianna Zorba	"Horepse" (Χόρεψε)	Dance	12	39
18	Malta	English	Debbie Scerri	"Let Me Fly"	–	9	66
19	Hungary	Hungarian	V.I.P.	"Miért kell, hogy elmenj?"	Why do you have to go?	12	39
20	Russia	Russian	Alla Pugacheva	"Primadonna" (Примадонна)	–	15	33
21	Denmark	Danish	Kølig Kaj	"Stemmen i mit liv"	The voice in my life	16	25
22	France	French	Fanny	"Sentiments songes"	Dream feelings	7	95
23	Croatia	Croatian	E.N.I.	"Probudi me"	Awaken me	17	24
24	United Kingdom	English	Katrina & The Waves	"Love Shine a Light"	–	1	227
25	Iceland	Icelandic	Paul Oscar	"Minn hinsti dans"	My final dance	20	18

Voting structure

Each country had a jury that awarded 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points for their top ten songs, or a televote, where the top ten most voted for songs were awarded the 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points.

Iceland got most of its 18 points from the 5 countries that used televoting. Ireland was ostensibly the best scoring country across the televoting countries, except they were able to score points from all 5 televoting countries. The United Kingdom was only eligible to receive points from 4 of them, since they couldn't vote for themselves. In fact, the UK received 12 points from all the other televoting countries except Germany, from whom they received 10 points: in other words, the UK earned 46 of 48 possible televote points that year; Ireland earned 47 of 60 possible televote points—including their only 12 from the UK.

Score sheet

Voting procedure used: Red: Televote. Blue: Jury.		Voters
	Cyprus	98		0	2	0	3	4	4	10	4	10	5	0	1	0	3	0	12	7	0	1	7	4	4	5	12
	Turkey	121	0		0	7	2	0	6	2	7	12	12	0	6	12	5	6	7	10	6	4	0	6	0	4	7
	Norway	0	0	0		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Austria	12	0	0	0		0	0	0	3	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	5	3	0	0	0	0	0
	Ireland	157	8	6	3	10		1	7	4	10	6	8	7	8	8	10	10	0	0	8	5	10	10	6	12	0
	Slovenia	60	2	10	0	0	0		0	0	0	0	0	2	4	7	4	0	3	5	0	10	0	7	3	0	3
	Switzerland	5	0	0	0	0	0	0		0	2	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Netherlands	5	0	1	0	0	0	0	0		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Italy	112	6	5	0	1	1	10	10	7		8	4	8	0	6	12	3	5	0	3	7	4	0	10	3	1
	Spain	96	10	4	0	0	6	5	8	6	3		2	4	0	0	8	0	6	12	10	8	2	2	0	0	0
	Germany	24	0	0	0	3	0	0	5	0	5	0		0	0	0	0	0	0	3	1	0	0	0	5	0	0
	Poland	54	0	0	4	8	0	7	0	1	1	2	6		3	4	2	0	1	0	7	0	5	3	0	0	0
	Estonia	82	1	0	0	6	8	3	0	0	12	4	7	6		1	1	1	0	0	4	0	8	8	0	10	2
	Bosnia and Herzegovina	22	0	8	0	4	0	0	2	0	0	0	3	0	0		0	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0
	Portugal	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Sweden	36	0	0	8	0	5	6	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0		0	0	0	0	6	0	0	7	4
	Greece	39	12	0	5	0	0	0	0	0	0	7	0	0	0	0	0	0		6	0	2	0	0	7	0	0
	Malta	66	5	12	10	0	7	0	0	0	6	1	0	0	0	5	0	0	8		0	0	3	1	8	0	0
	Hungary	39	0	3	0	0	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	5	5	0	0	0	0	2		0	0	5	2	8	5
	Russia	33	0	0	1	5	0	12	0	8	0	0	0	0	7	0	0	0	0	0	0		0	0	0	0	0
	Denmark	25	0	0	7	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	7	2	0	0	0		0	0	2	6
	France	95	3	2	12	0	10	2	3	5	0	0	0	12	12	3	6	2	4	0	2	6	1		0	0	10
	Croatia	24	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	3	0	2	0	5	0	8	0	0	0	0		1	0
	United Kingdom	227	7	7	6	12	12	8	12	12	8	5	10	10	10	10	7	12	10	1	12	12	12	12	12		8
	Iceland	18	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	8	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	6

12 points

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

Returning artists

Artist	Country	Previous Year(s)
Şebnem Paker	Turkey	1996
Maarja-Liis Ilus	Estonia	1996
Alma Čardžić	Bosnia and Herzegovina	1994

Commentators

• Cyprus - Evi Papamichail
• Turkey - Bülent Özveren
• Norway - Jostein Pedersen
• Austria - Ernst Grissemann
• Ireland - Pat Kenny
• Slovenia - Miša Molk
• Switzerland - TBC (SRG), TBC (SSR), TBC (TSI)
• Netherlands - Willem van Beusekom
• Italy - Ettore Andenna
• Spain - José Luis Uribarri
• Germany - Peter Urban
• Poland - Artur Orzech
• Estonia - Marko Reikop
• Bosnia & Herzegovina - Ismeta Dervoz
• Portugal - Carlos Ribeiro
• Sweden - Jan Jingryd
• Greece - Dafni Bokota
• Malta - Charles Saliba
• Hungary - Gábor Gundel Takács
• Russia - Philip Kirkorov
• Denmark - Jørgen de Mylius
• France - Olivier Minne
• Croatia - Aleksandar Kostadinov
• United Kingdom - Terry Wogan (BBC TV), Ken Bruce (BBC Radio 2)
• Iceland - Jakob Frímann Magnússon

Spokespersons

• Cyprus - Marios Skordis
• Turkey - Ömer Önder
• Norway - Ragnhild Sælthun Fjørtoft
• Austria - Adriana Zartl
• Ireland - Eileen Dunne
• Slovenia - Mojca Mavec
• Switzerland - Sandy Altermatt
• Netherlands - Corry Brokken (Dutch representative in 1957 and 1958)
• Italy - Peppi Franzelin
• Spain - Belén Fernández de Henestrosa
• Germany - Christina Mänz
• Poland - Jan Chojnacki
• Estonia - Helene Tedre
• Bosnia and Herzegovina - Segmedina Srna
• Portugal - Maria Cristina Antunes
• Sweden - Gösta Hanson
• Greece - Niki Venegga
• Malta - Anna Bonanno
• Hungary - Györgyi Albert
• Russia - Arina Sharapova
• Denmark - Bent Henius
• France - Frédéric Ferrer & Marie Myriam
• Croatia - Davor Mestrovic
• United Kingdom - Colin Berry
• Iceland - Svanhildur Konráðsdóttir

References