Eurovision Song Contest Brighton 1974

💡 Did You Know?

After accusations of bribed juries in 1973 by some countries, the voting system was changed in 1974. The initial chosen system was the same as previous years (each jury member giving from 1 to 5 points to each and every song with no zeros allowed except to their own song), but unlike previous years where there were two jury members per country, all of them in the host country giving their votes in groups of three countries at a time with on-screen numbered cards they showed; instead of this, juries would consist of 10 members per country, and the votes would be given by a spokesperson by phone as it had been done up to 1970.

However, during rehearsals, the BBC, producers of the show, realized that voting this way was ridiculously slow, extending the show's length beyond an acceptable running time. As a last-resort measure, the BBC, with the authorization of the European Broadcasting Union, decided to return to the faster voting system used up to 1970, making each jury member give one single point to their favorite song except their own, for a total of 10 points per country to be distributed as they pleased. Many countries complained over this change that was done unilaterally without consulting the participants, returning to a system that had already been a cause of boycott by many countries in 1970 after the 4-way tie that had happened in 1969, but the EBU wouldn't turn back in this decision, as the intended voting system for 1974 was unusable and there was no time to create a new voting system that would satisfy everyone. There were no withdrawals, but protests reached the audience through some local commentators talking about what had happened.

The voting system would be revised in the following months, leading to the debut of the nowadays scoring system (1-8, 10 and 12 points) the following year 1975.