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The Eurovision Song Contest 1980 was the 25th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in The Hague, Netherlands, and was organised by host broadcaster Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (NOS) – which agreed to stage the event after Israel, having won in both 1978 and 1979, declined to host it for a second successive year – and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). The contest was held at the Nederlands Congresgebouw on 19 April 1980 and was hosted by Dutch actress 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).

Quick Facts Dates, Final ...
Eurovision Song Contest 1980
Dates
Final19 April 1980
Host
VenueNederlands Congresgebouw
The Hague, Netherlands
Presenter(s)
Musical directorRogier van Otterloo
DirectorTheo Ordeman
EBU scrutineerFrank Naef
Executive producerFred Oster
Host broadcasterNederlandse Omroep Stichting (NOS)
Websiteeurovision.tv/event/the-hague-1980 Edit this at Wikidata
Participants
Number of entries19
Debuting countries Morocco
Returning countries Turkey
Non-returning countries
  • A coloured map of the countries of Europe
         Competing countries     Countries that participated in the past but not in 1980
Vote
Voting systemEach country awarded 12, 10, 8-1 point(s) to their 10 favourite songs
Winning song Ireland
"What's Another Year"
1979 Eurovision Song Contest 1981
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Nineteen countries took part this year, with Monaco and the previous year's winner Israel deciding not to participate, and Turkey returning. Morocco, notably, made its only appearance in the contest.

The winner was Ireland with the song "What's Another Year", sung by Johnny Logan and written by Shay Healy.[1][2]

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Location

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Nederlands Congresgebouw, host venue of the 1980 contest

Israel, the winner of the 1979 contest, declined to host it for the second time in a row, as the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) could not fund another international production without extra resources, and the Israeli government turned down a request to extend the IBA budget. The EBU also scheduled the broadcast for the same day as the Yom HaZikaron memorial day, which meant that Israel could not even participate at all, marking the first time that the previous year's winning country did not compete the following year. After Spain – the second-placed country of 1979 – and (reportedly) the United Kingdom both declined to host, the Netherlands ultimately 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, his father called his then 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.[3]

The contest took place in The Hague at the Congresgebouw (presently known as the World Forum). The venue was constructed in 1969 and had previously hosted the contest in 1976.

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Participating countries

Quick Facts – Participation summaries by country ...
Eurovision Song Contest 1980  Participation summaries by country
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Katja Ebstein
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Maggie MacNeal

After Israel announced its absence, Morocco entered into the contest instead for its only ever participation. Monaco also withdrew from the contest, and would not return until 2004.

More information Country, Broadcaster ...
Eurovision Song Contest 1980 participants[4][5]
Country Broadcaster Artist Song Language Songwriter(s) Conductor
 Austria ORF Blue Danube "Du bist Musik" German Klaus-Peter Sattler Richard Oesterreicher
 Belgium RTBF Telex "Euro-Vision" French No conductor
 Denmark DR Bamses Venner "Tænker altid på dig" Danish
Allan Botschinsky
 Finland YLE Vesa-Matti Loiri "Huilumies" Finnish Ossi Runne
 France TF1 Profil "Hé, hé m'sieurs dames" French
  • Richard de Bordeaux
  • Richard Joffo
  • Sylvano Santorio
Sylvano Santorio
 Germany BR[a] Katja Ebstein "Theater" German Wolfgang Rödelberger
 Greece ERT Anna Vissi and the Epikouri "Autostop" (Ωτοστόπ) Greek
  • Jick Nacassian
  • Rony Sofou
Jick Nacassian
 Ireland RTÉ Johnny Logan "What's Another Year" English Shay Healy Noel Kelehan
 Italy RAI Alan Sorrenti "Non so che darei" Italian Alan Sorrenti Del Newman
 Luxembourg CLT Sophie and Magaly "Papa Pingouin" French
Norbert Daum
 Morocco RTM Samira Bensaïd "Bitakat Hob" (بطاقة حب) Arabic
  • Abdel Ati Amenna
  • Malou Rouanne
Jean Claudric
 Netherlands NOS Maggie MacNeal "Amsterdam" Dutch
Rogier van Otterloo
 Norway NRK Sverre Kjelsberg and Mattis Hætta "Sámiid ædnan" Norwegian
Sigurd Jansen
 Portugal RTP José Cid "Um grande, grande amor" Portuguese José Cid Jorge Machado
 Spain TVE Trigo Limpio "Quédate esta noche" Spanish José Antonio Martín Javier Iturralde
 Sweden SVT Tomas Ledin "Just nu" Swedish Tomas Ledin Anders Berglund
  Switzerland SRG SSR Paola "Cinéma" French Peter Reber
 Turkey TRT Ajda Pekkan "Pet'r Oil" Turkish
Attila Özdemiroğlu
 United Kingdom BBC Prima Donna "Love Enough for Two" English
John Coleman
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Returning artists

More information Artist, Country ...
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Format

The venue that had hosted the 1976 contest, the Congresgebouw, was again chosen to stage the contest. Because of the limited budget and time available, NOS decided to recycle several elements of the 1976 production such as several opening video sequences and many pieces and elements that were being used in other broadcaster shows since then. Again, Roland de Groot took charge of the design. As with the 1977 and 1978 contests, there were no pre-filmed postcards between the songs, with a guest presenter from each nation introducing the entries. Apart from this, the presenter, Marlous Fluitsma practically presented the contest almost entirely in Dutch, with exceptions in the protocol parts and in the voting where she used French and English according to tradition. Thus, the broadcaster host spent only US$725,000 on staging the show.

Song presenters

Each of the 19 contestants was presented by a presenter from that country.[5] Each of the songs was introduced in the same language as the competing country's song, with the exception of the Irish introduction, which was made in the Irish language, whereas the song was performed in English. The UK presenter was incorrectly identified in the onscreen caption as 'Noel Edmunds' and the Finnish presenter as 'Heikki Haarma'.

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Contest overview

During the live interval act performance of San Fernando by The Dutch Rhythm Steel and Show Band with the Lee Jackson dancers, Hans van Willigenburg intercut brief interviews with some of the participants backstage in the green room, speaking to the singers from Germany, Luxembourg, the UK, Ireland, Norway and the Netherlands, each in their own language.

Australian-born Johnny Logan, representing his parents' country Ireland, was ultimately crowned the winner with the song "What's Another Year". This was Ireland's second victory in the competition, having previously won in 1970 with "All Kinds of Everything", coincidentally also held on Dutch soil. It was also the first time that a male solo artist (albeit with backing vocals) had won the contest since Udo Jürgens won for Austria in 1966.

More information R/O, Country ...
Results of the Eurovision Song Contest 1980[7]
R/O Country Artist Song Points Place
1  Austria Blue Danube "Du bist Musik" 64 8
2  Turkey Ajda Pekkan "Pet'r Oil" 23 15
3  Greece Anna Vissi and the Epikouri "Autostop" 30 13
4  Luxembourg Sophie and Magaly "Papa Pingouin" 56 9
5  Morocco Samira Bensaïd "Bitakat Hob" 7 18
6  Italy Alan Sorrenti "Non so che darei" 87 6
7  Denmark Bamses Venner "Tænker altid på dig" 25 14
8  Sweden Tomas Ledin "Just nu" 47 10
9   Switzerland Paola "Cinéma" 104 4
10  Finland Vesa-Matti Loiri "Huilumies" 6 19
11  Norway Sverre Kjelsberg and Mattis Hætta "Sámiid ædnan" 15 16
12  Germany Katja Ebstein "Theater" 128 2
13  United Kingdom Prima Donna "Love Enough for Two" 106 3
14  Portugal José Cid "Um grande, grande amor" 71 7
15  Netherlands Maggie MacNeal "Amsterdam" 93 5
16  France Profil "Hé, hé m'sieurs dames" 45 11
17  Ireland Johnny Logan "What's Another Year" 143 1
18  Spain Trigo Limpio "Quédate esta noche" 38 12
19  Belgium Telex "Euro-Vision" 14 17
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Spokespersons

Each country nominated a spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country via telephone. Known spokespersons at the 1980 contest are listed below.

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Detailed voting results

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

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 declare their scores 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.

For the voting sequence, Marlous Fluitsma used a unique telephone to speak to each of the nineteen jury spokespersons, although the phones were simply props and were not connected.

More information Total score, Austria ...
Detailed voting results[10][11]
Total score
Austria
Turkey
Greece
Luxembourg
Morocco
Italy
Denmark
Sweden
Switzerland
Finland
Norway
Germany
United Kingdom
Portugal
Netherlands
France
Ireland
Spain
Belgium
Contestants
Austria 6413451456463341041
Turkey 233128
Greece 30512243184
Luxembourg 5611463787838
Morocco 77
Italy 8726231086274121221010
Denmark 25426715
Sweden 478101065521
Switzerland 104625738212101076101222
Finland 651
Norway 154623
Germany 12881031012757210812105127
United Kingdom 106758810121043775686
Portugal 71454106821815674
Netherlands 931212612331082412153
France 453721141354365
Ireland 143101271127128121212568712
Spain 384786562
Belgium 143110
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12 points

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

More information N., Contestant ...
N. Contestant Nation(s) giving 12 points
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
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Broadcasts

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.[12] The contest was also reportedly broadcast in 29 countries, including the participating nations, Cyprus, Israel and Iceland, in Czechoslovakia, Poland and the Soviet Union via Intervision, and in South Korea.[13][14] The contest was reportedly broadcast via radio in countries including Belgium, Finland, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Turkey and the United Kingdom.[13] Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.

More information Country, Broadcaster ...
Broadcasters and commentators in participating countries
Country Broadcaster Channel(s) Commentator(s) Ref(s)
 Austria ORF FS2 Ernst Grissemann [15][16]
 Belgium RTBF RTBF1 [17]
RTBF Radio 1 [18]
BRT TV1 [17]
 Denmark DR DR TV Jørgen de Mylius [19]
 Finland YLE TV1, Rinnakkaisohjelma [fi] Heikki Harma [20][21]
 France TF1 Patrick Sabatier [22]
 Germany ARD Deutsches Fernsehen Ado Schlier [de] [23][24]
 Greece ERT ERT [25]
 Ireland RTÉ RTÉ 1 Larry Gogan [26]
RTÉ Radio 1 [27]
 Italy RAI Rete Due[b] Michele Gammino [28]
 Luxembourg CLT RTL Télé-Luxembourg Jacques Navadic [29]
 Netherlands NOS Nederland 2 Pim Jacobs [30][31]
Hilversum 1 Willem van Beusekom
 Norway NRK NRK Fjernsynet Knut Aunbu [32]
NRK Erik Heyerdahl [no]
 Portugal RTP RTP1 [33]
RDP RDP Programa 1 [34]
 Spain TVE TVE 1 Miguel de los Santos [es] [35][36]
 Sweden SVT TV1 Ulf Elfving [37]
RR [sv] SR P3 Kent Finell [38]
  Switzerland SRG SSR TV DRS Theodor Haller [de] [15][39]
TSR Georges Hardy [fr]
TSI[c] [40]
 Turkey TRT TRT Televizyon Bülend Özveren [41][42]
Radyo 3 Şebnem Savaşçı [42]
 United Kingdom BBC BBC1 Terry Wogan [43]
BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2 Steve Jones [44][45]
BFBS BFBS Radio Andrew Pastouna [5]
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More information Country, Broadcaster ...
Broadcasters and commentators in non-participating countries
Country Broadcaster Channel(s) Commentator(s) Ref(s)
 Cyprus CyBC RIK [46]
 Hong Kong TVB TVB Jade[d] [47]
TVB Pearl[d]
 Iceland RÚV Sjónvarpið[e] Björn Baldursson [48]
 Israel IBA Israeli Television[f] [49]
Reshet Bet [he], Reshet Gimel [he] [50]
 Jordan JTV JTV2 [51]
 Netherlands Antilles TeleAruba[g] [52]
 Romania TVR Programul 1[h] [53]
 South Korea KBS KBS[i] [54]
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Notes

  1. On behalf of the German public broadcasting consortium ARD[6]
  2. Deferred broadcast at 22:00 (CEST)[28]
  3. Broadcast through a second audio programme on TSR[15]
  4. Deferred broadcast on 20 April at 9:30 (HKT)[47]
  5. Delayed broadcast on 26 April 1980 at 21:30 (WET)[48]
  6. Delayed broadcast on 20 April 1980 at 21:30 (IST)[49]
  7. Delayed broadcast on 20 July 1980 at 16:00 (ADT)[52]
  8. Delayed broadcast in a shortened format on 4 May 1980 at 14:40 (EET)[53]
  9. Delayed broadcast on 3 May 1980 at 22:30 (KST)[54]

References

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