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The Eurovision Song Contest 1980 was the 25th Eurovision Song Contest and was held on 19 April 1980 in The Hague. The presenter was Marlous Fluitsma, although each song was introduced by a presenter from the participating nation. In some cases, this was the same person providing the commentary. The contest was won by Johnny Logan, representing Ireland with a song called "What's Another Year".

Israel, winners in 1979, declined to host the show for the second time in a row, as the IBA could not fund another international production, and the Israeli government turned down a request to extend the IBA budget. Moreover, the date that was eventually set for the 1980 contest by the European Broadcasting Union coincided with Israel's Day of Remembrance for their casualties of war, so Israel was forced to withdraw. After Spain, the 2nd-place winner of 1979, and reportedly the UK, refused to host, the Netherlands finally agreed to host the show in a small-scale production. According to Yair Lapid, son of Tommy Lapid who was then the IBA director general, Lapid called his counterpart at NOS and convinced him to take the "undesired honour", when he realised that the extra cost could paralyse the regular work of the IBA.[1]

The same venue in The Hague used in 1976 - the Congresgebouw - was chosen, with parts of the opening film from 1976 being reused in the introduction and the same set designer (Roland de Groot) taking charge of the design. As with the recent 1977 and 1978 contests, there were no pre-filmed postcards between the songs, with a guest presenter from each nation introducing the entries. NOS spent just US$725,000 on the project.

Morocco joined the Eurovision family for the first (and so far only) time.Monaco withdrew, and would not return until the 2004 semi final.

Australian-born Johnny Logan representing Ireland was the winner of this Eurovision with the song, "What's Another Year". This was Ireland's second time winning the competition, having won in 1970 with "All Kinds of Everything", which was also held on Dutch soil.

Germany were runners-up this year. They would finish in second place again the following year, finally winning it in 1982. Germany would go on to finish second again in 1985 and 1987, making the 1980s their most successful decade. United Kingdom returned to form by coming third.

Contents[]

 [hide*1Location

Location[]

For more details on the host city, see The Hague.[1]The HagueLocation of the host city.[2]Nederlands Congresgebouw - host venue of the 1980 contest.

The Hague is the seat of government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the capital city of the province of South Holland. It is also the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Located in the west of the Netherlands, The Hague is in the centre of the Haaglanden conurbation and lies at the southwest corner of the largerRandstad conurbation.

Format[]

The scoring system implemented in 1975 remained the same; each country had a jury who awarded 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 point(s) for their top ten songs. However this year for the first time, countries were required to cast their votes in ascending order, 1,2,3 etc. This change made for the added excitement of waiting for each country to award their highest 12 points at the end of each voting round.

Conductors[]

For each nation's performance, the orchestra was conducted by the following:

Results[edit][]

Draw Country Language[2] Artist Song English translation Place Points
01 Austria German Blue Danube "Du bist Musik" You are music 8 64
02 Turkey Turkish Ajda Pekkan "Petrol" Petroleum 15 23
03 Greece Greek Anna Vissi and the Epikouri "Autostop" (Ωτοστόπ) Hitch-hiking 13 30
04 Luxembourg French Sophie & Magaly "Papa pingouin" Papa penguin 9 56
05 Morocco Arabic Samira Bensaïd "Bitaqat Khub" (بطاقة حب) Love card 18 7
06 Italy Italian Alan Sorrenti "Non so che darei" I don't know what I would give 6 87
07 Denmark Danish Bamses Venner "Tænker altid på dig" Thinking always on you 14 25
08 Sweden Swedish Tomas Ledin "Just nu!" Right now! 10 47
09   Switzerland French Paola "Cinéma" Cinema 4 104
10 Finland Finnish Vesa-Matti Loiri "Huilumies" Flute man 19 6
11 Norway Norwegian Sverre KjelsbergMattis Hætta "Sámiid Ædnan"1 Lapland 16 15
12 Germany German Katja Ebstein "Theater" Theatre 2 128
13 United Kingdom English Prima Donna "Love Enough for Two" 3 106
14 Portugal Portuguese José Cid "Um grande, grande amor" A great, great love 7 71
15 Netherlands Dutch Maggie MacNeal "Amsterdam" 5 93
16 France French Profil "Hé, hé, m'sieurs dames" Hey, hey, ladies and gentlemen 11 45
17  Ireland English Johnny Logan "What's Another Year" 1 143
18 Spain Spanish Trigo Limpio "Quédate esta noche" Stay tonight 12 38
19 Belgium French Telex "Euro-Vision" 17 14

Score sheet[]

[3]Johnny Logan performing his winning song "What's Another Year"

The Netherlands gained a strong lead early on, getting the maximum 'douze points' from three of the first four voting countries. This was not to last, however, as Germany and eventually Ireland overtook them.

Results
[4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23]
[24] Austria 64 1 3 4 5 1 4 5 6 4 6 3 3 4 10 4 1
Turkey 23 3 12 8
Greece 30 5 1 2 2 4 3 1 8 4
Luxembourg 56 1 1 4 6 3 7 8 7 8 3 8
Morocco 7 7
Italy 87 2 6 2 3 10 8 6 2 7 4 12 1 2 2 10 10
Denmark 25 4 2 6 7 1 5
Sweden 47 8 10 10 6 5 5 2 1
Switzerland 104 6 2 5 7 3 8 2 12 10 10 7 6 10 12 2 2
Finland 6 5 1
Norway 15 4 6 2 3
Germany 128 8 10 3 10 12 7 5 7 2 10 8 12 10 5 12 7
United Kingdom 106 7 5 8 8 10 12 10 4 3 7 7 5 6 8 6
Portugal 71 4 5 4 10 6 8 2 1 8 1 5 6 7 4
Netherlands 93 12 12 6 12 3 3 10 8 2 4 12 1 5 3
France 45 3 7 2 1 1 4 1 3 5 4 3 6 5
Ireland 143 10 12 7 1 12 7 12 8 12 12 12 5 6 8 7 12
Spain 38 4 7 8 6 5 6 2
Belgium 14 3 1 10
The table is ordered by appearance

12 points[]

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

N. Contestant Voting nation
7 Ireland Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Norway, Switzerland, United Kingdom
4 Netherlands Austria, France, Luxembourg, Turkey
3 Germany Italy, Netherlands, Spain
2 Switzerland Finland, Ireland
1 Italy Portugal
Turkey Morocco
United Kingdom Sweden

Returning artists[]

[25]Katja Ebstein during rehearsals[26]Maggie MacNeal during rehearsals

Artist Country Previous year(s)
Katja Ebstein Germany 19701971
Maggie MacNeal Netherlands 1974 (part of Mouth & MacNeal)
Paola Del Medico   Switzerland 1969

Song Presenters[]

Each song was introduced by a presenter from the national country.

^All the introductions were made in the language in which the song was performed, with the exception of Ireland. Thelma Mansfield introduced the song in Irish, whereas the song was performed in English.

Commentators[]

Spokespersons[]

National jury members[]

  •  Spain – José María Reíllo (tailor), Carmen Miranda (student), Emilio Machado (painter), María José Nieto (actress), Rafael Lozano (discothèque chain director), Nieves Aguado (student), Ana Menéndez (secretary), Rafael Gómez (businessman), Isabel Ortiz (figure skater), Pedro Olivares (engineer), Mari Luz Blanco (housewife)

Notes and references[]

Notes[]

  1. ^ The song was performed in Norwegian, but the title of the song is in the North Sami dialect of the Sami languages, translating as "Sami Earth" or "Sami Soil".

References[]

  1. Jump up^ Yair Lapid, "Memoires After my Death", Keter Books, Jerusalem 2010 (ISBN 978-965-07-1792-6), p. 239 (in Hebrew)
  2. Jump up^ "Eurovision Song Contest 1980". The Diggiloo Thrush. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
  3. Jump up^ Dellanoi, Dietmar (OGAE Austria)
  4. Jump up to:a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p "Eurovision Song Contest 1980" at the Internet Movie Database
  5. Jump up^ Baumann, Peter Ramón (OGAE Switzerland)
  6. Jump up^ "Selostajat ja taustalaulajat läpi vuosien? • Viisukuppila". Viisukuppila.fi. Retrieved 2012-08-10.
  7. Jump up^ Dyrseth, Seppo (OGAE Norway)
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