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).
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.
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.
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.
Participants of the Eurovision Song Contest 1980[4][5][6][7]
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'.
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.
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.
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.
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.[14] The contest was also reportedly broadcast in 29 countries, including the participating nations, Czechoslovakia, Poland and the Soviet Union.[15] 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
^ abcdRoxburgh, Gordon (2016). Songs for Europe: The United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest. Volume Three: The 1980s. Prestatyn: Telos Publishing. pp. 39–55. 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. 148–149. ISBN91-89136-29-2.
^ ab"T.V. Programma's" [TV Programme]. De Voorpost (in Dutch). Aalst, Belgium. 18 April 1980. p. 39. Archived from the original on 12 January 2023. Retrieved 12 January 2023.
^ ab"Sabato 19 aprile" [Saturday 19 April]. Radiocorriere TV (in Italian). Vol. 57, no. 16. 13–19 April 1980. pp. 204–205. Archived from the original on 5 April 2023. Retrieved 18 January 2023.
^"Televisão – Hoje" [Television – Today]. Diário de Lisboa (in Portuguese). Lisbon, Portugal. 19 April 1980. p. 20. Archived from the original on 12 January 2023. Retrieved 12 January 2023 – via Casa Comum.
^"Rádio". Diário de Lisboa (in Portuguese). Lisbon, Portugal. 19 April 1980. p. 26. Archived from the original on 12 January 2023. Retrieved 12 January 2023 – via Casa Comum.
^"radioprogrammen" [radio programmes]. Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish). Stockholm, Sweden. 19 April 1980. p. 23.
^"TV – samedi 19 avril" [TV – Saturday 19 April]. Radio TV – Je vois tout (in French). No. 16. Lausanne, Switzerland. 17 April 1980. pp. 14–15. Retrieved 12 January 2023 – via Scriptorium.
^"Televizyon" [Television]. Cumhuriyet (in Turkish). Istanbul, Turkey. 19 April 1980. p. 6. Archived from the original on 12 January 2023. Retrieved 12 January 2023.
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