Twenty-two countries took part in the contest with Greece and Italy returning to the competition after their absences the previous year. This set the record for the highest number of competing countries up until that point.
The winner was Ireland with the song "Hold Me Now" by Johnny Logan, who had also won the 1980 contest. He became the first performer to have won the Eurovision Song Contest twice.
The contest took place at the Brussels Exhibition Centre (Brussels Expo) in Brussels, Belgium. These are a set of exhibition halls built from 1930 on the Heysel/Heizel Plateau (Heysel Park) in Laeken (northern part of the City of Brussels) to celebrate the centenary of Belgian Independence. The Centenary Palace (French: Palais du Centenaire, Dutch: Eeuwfeestpaleis), where the main stage was located, is one of the remaining buildings of the Brussels International Exposition of 1935. Currently, it is still being used for trade fairs, as well as concerts, usually for bigger acts and artists.
Locations of the considered venues: the chosen venue is marked in blue, while the eliminated locations are marked in red.
During the selection process of the host city and venue, a joint committee from the two Belgian broadcasters was created by the EBU. The committee also decided that a potential place for the contest was the Royal Theatre of Antwerp, as both locations proposed by RTBF (the Palais du Centenaire in Brussels and the Patinoire de Coronmeuse [fr] in Liege), but they would have required heavy renovation works to meet the proposed technical specifications for the contest. Nevertheless, RTBF demanded the event to be held in Brussels with the argument that the city symbolized more than the Belgium capital itself, in addition to its federal functions as the capital of the country (but almost all governing bodies of the European Union also located there). On 6 October 1986, seven months ahead of the contest, RTBF surprisingly and one-sidedly announced that the Palais du Centenaire was chosen as the host venue for the Eurovision Song Contest 1987. The Flemish newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws, published that BRT proposed instead to host the contest at the Cirque Royal, near the Royal Palace of Brussels, adding that RTBF would be solely in charge of organizing the contest if BRT's counteroffer was not chosen. However, RTBF moved forward alone with its plans and confirmed that the Palais du Centenaire was the official contest's host venue.[1] BRT was offended by the choice of Brussels as the host city, and withdrew from the organization, but kept the duties to choose the host's country contestant.
The 1987 Eurovision was the biggest contest to date, and it was also the first in which 22 countries competed. Only Malta, Monaco and Morocco failed to compete out of all the countries which had entered the contest in the past. To date, this was the largest number of countries participating in the contest, with the maximum number up until then being 20. As this had never happened, the EBU was forced to review the rules and production calendar after this edition, and fearing that the number would increase again, it was decided that from this edition onwards, the maximum number of participants would also be 22. This was a problematic question over the next six years as new and returning nations indicated an interest in participating, but they could not be accommodated.[2]
By 1986, Belgium had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 30 times since making its debut at the first contest in 1956 along 6 other countries. Before Sandra Kim's win, Belgium was the only one of the 7 founding countries to have never won the contest and had only finished in the top five four times (with Tonia's fourth place in 1966, Jean Vallée's second place in 1978, Stella's fourth place in 1982 and Jacques Zegers's fifth place in 1984).
Sandra Kim's Eurovision victory in 1986 occurred amidst a complex political situation in Belgium. The country was undergoing massive constitutional reforms in which the Belgian state was transitioning from a centralized to a federal system. This was due to rising tensions between the two major linguistic regions of Belgium, Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia. Both regions had had independent broadcasters since 1960 (BRT in Flanders and RTBF in Wallonia) but had still agreed to jointly host the contest in the event of a Belgian victory. While the triumph of "J'aime la vie" in 1986 – an entry sent by French-speaking RTBF – reignited a sense of national union across all Belgian regions, the two regional broadcasters weren't able to overcome their disagreements and joint host the competition.[1] During the production of the event, BRT eventually withdrew from the project and RTBF organised the contest alone as host broadcaster.[6] As a consequence, the host country images in Eurovision 1987 mostly showed footage of Wallonia. BRT still remained in charge of the selection of the Belgian entry for the contest.[7]
Budget
Holding the contest in Belgium caused several legal changes in the country's system and forced the implementation of most of the modern rules and regulations on the monetization of public television. This led to the authorization of advertising, sponsorships and marketing actions in the two public channels in the country. As a consequence, the RTBF was also allowed to sell sponsorship quotas for the event, setting a new precedent for the Eurovision Song Contest.
For RTBF, this decision was a relief as the event was almost entirely funded with private funds. This opened the doors to the commercial potential of the event itself, starting a period of modernization and increased interest for the event.[8] Apart from the latent tensions, after the end of the contest the then-president of the BRT Cas Goossens praised RTBF for their "perfect organization" while at the same time regretting that the two broadcasters weren't able to collaborate. He added that the cost of hosting Eurovision would have been difficult to justify to the Flemish taxpayers.[1]
Each country nominated a spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country via telephone. Known spokespersons at the 1987 contest are listed below.
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.[17]
It was reported that 500 million viewers in 25 countries would see the contest.[18] Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.
Broadcasters and commentators in participating countries
^ abRoxburgh, Gordon (2017). Songs For Europe - The United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest. Volume Three: The 1980s. UK: Telos Publishing. pp. 302–313. ISBN978-1-84583-118-9.
^Thorsson, Leif; Verhage, Martin (2006). Melodifestivalen genom tiderna : de svenska uttagningarna och internationella finalerna (in Swedish). Stockholm: Premium Publishing. pp. 194–195. ISBN91-89136-29-2.
^"Radio programma's weekeinde" [Radio programme's weekend]. Leidse Courant (in Dutch). Leiden, Netherlands. 8 May 1987. p. 22. Archived from the original on 15 January 2023. Retrieved 15 January 2023 – via Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken.
^"P2 – Kjøreplan lørdag 9. mai 1987" [P2 - Schedule for Saturday 9 May 1987] (in Norwegian). NRK. 9 May 1987. p. 4. Archived from the original on 15 January 2023. Retrieved 15 January 2023 – via National Library of Norway. (subscription may be required or content may be available in libraries)
^"Televisão" [Television]. Diário de Lisboa (in Portuguese). Lisbon, Portugal. 9 May 1987. p. 23. Archived from the original on 15 January 2023. Retrieved 15 January 2023 – via Casa Comum.
^"Samedi TV – 9 mai" [Saturday TV – 9 May]. Radio TV8 (in French). No. 19. Lausanne, Switzerland. 30 April 1987. pp. 68–70. Retrieved 15 January 2023 – via Scriptorium.
^"Radio". Neue Zürcher Zeitung (in German). Zürich, Switzerland. 9 May 1987. p. 46. Retrieved 28 October 2024 – via E-newspaperarchives.ch.
^"Televizyon" [Television]. Cumhuriyet (in Turkish). Istanbul, Turkey. 9 May 1987. p. 4. Archived from the original on 15 January 2023. Retrieved 15 January 2023.
^"Televizió" [Television]. Magyar Szó (in Hungarian). Novi Sad, SAP Vojvodina, Yugoslavia. 9 May 1987. p. 24. Retrieved 18 June 2024 – via Vajdasági Magyar Digitális Adattár.
^ ab"sobota 6.6. /2/" [Saturday 6.6. /2/]. Rozhlas [cs] (in Czech). Vol. 65, no. 23. Prague, Czech Socialist Republic, Czechoslovakia. 25 May 1987. p. 15. Archived from the original on 19 May 2024. Retrieved 19 May 2024 – via Kramerius [cs].
^ ab"N. 4. VI" [T. 4. June]. Televisioon (in Estonian). No. 23. Tallinn, Estonian SSR, Soviet Union. 1–7 June 1987. pp. 5–6. Retrieved 21 June 2024 – via DIGAR [et].
^ ab"Телевидение, программа на неделю" [Television, weekly program] (PDF). Pravda (in Russian). Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union. 29 May 1987. p. 6. Archived(PDF) from the original on 15 January 2023. Retrieved 15 January 2023.
^ ab"Vasárnap május 10" [Sunday May 10]. Rádió- és Televízió-újság (in Hungarian). Vol. 17, no. 14. Budapest, Hungary. 4 May 1987. p. 19. Archived from the original on 23 July 2022. Retrieved 15 January 2023 – via MTVA Archívum.
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