News: Brotherhood of Man still most successful act

Lee, Sandra and Martin from Brotherhood of Man, the UK's 1976 Eurovision winning act

Norway's victory in Saturday's 2009 Eurovision Song Contest final has of course been making headlines right around the world - not least of all for the massive number of points that young Alexander Rybak managed to acquire courtesy of his song "Fairytale".

When voting came to a close, Norway had bagged an astonishing 387 points, out of a possible total of 492 (12 points multiplied by the other 41 countries eligible to vote). That works out as an incredibly impressive 78.65% of the possible total. Not bad at all, eh? It's even more impressive when you realise that the previous highest score ever achieved in Eurovision was a mere 292 points, scored by those monsters of rock Lordi of Finland back in 2006.

However, these statistics don't take into account the fact that nowadays far more countries take part in the Eurovision Song Contest, and as a result, there are more points available than in the past.

The United Kingdom's 1976 entry was Brotherhood of Man, who performed the legendary tune "Save Your Kisses for Me". Although they only scored 164 points in the final, that was out of a maximum possible total of 204 (17 other countries competing in addition to the UK). So when you work the percentage of points earned against total possible points available, Brotherhood of Man still just pips 2009's Alexander Rybak to the crown, with a huge 80.3% of the possible total.

So a massive round of applause from us to Nicky, Sandra, Martin and Lee of Brotherhood of Man, who are still performing together over 30 years since their Eurovision triumph.

Watch an interview we conducted last month with Brotherhood of Man.

Visit the Brotherhood of Man website.

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