HISTORY OF THE ESC. Part 15: 1991. Continues: tomorrow.

THE HISTORY OF THE

EUROVISION

SONG CONTEST

Caffé Latté  looks back on the key moments of Europe’s annual competition.

1991

Eurovision returned to Italy in 1991 as a result of Toto Cotugno's Italian winning song "Insieme: 1992" about a unified Europe. Although San Remo was first mooted as host city, the ESC was moved to Rome amid tensions in the Balkans. 

The scoreboard almost caused a repeat of the unsatisfactory result of the 1969 contest. That year, 4 countries finished with an identical score. In 1991, 2 nations shared the lead by the end of the juries announcing their votes. Both Sweden and France had amassed 146 points each. 

A new tie-break procedure implemented in 1989 was used to determine which country would be declared the victor. France was represented by Amina and the entry "La Dernier Qui A Parlé Qui A Raison". Sweden's song was "Fångad Av En Stormvind", performed by Carola. The latter had represented Sweden in 1983 and finished 3rd with "Främling". 

The 1989 rule to break ties was to give the win to the song that had received the most 12 points. As both countries had received the identical number of 12 points, the number of 10 point allocations was checked. As Sweden had received more 10 points than France, Carola was finally announced as the winner.