Eurovision 1980: The Hague

Israel had won twice running, and in 1980 it neither hosted the contest nor sang in it.

At first Israeli television had big plans: an open-air show, at Caesarea or on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. But staging Jerusalem and bringing in colour television had emptied its budget, and on 13 August 1979 it formally gave up the right to host.

Nobody volunteers

The EBU set a date, 26 April, and asked for volunteers by 3 September. The deadline passed without one.

Spain had finished second and was not interested, even though the Costa del Sol’s tourist board had offered a conference centre in Torremolinos. In the Netherlands one broadcaster, TROS, was keen, but the national organisation would not back it and hoped somebody else would step forward.

Nobody did, and the EBU came back to the Dutch as the only option left. They agreed on two conditions: more money from the EBU, and a date one week earlier, because that was when the congress centre in The Hague was free.

The date

The new date, 19 April, was Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s day of remembrance for its fallen soldiers.

Israel made a long effort to get the date changed. It failed, and on 10 December 1979 it withdrew. The country that had won the last two contests would not defend its title.

Morocco

With Israel gone, Morocco entered. Samira Bensaïd sang “Bitakat Hob” and finished eighteenth of nineteen, with seven points.

Morocco has not entered since. It remains the country’s only appearance.

Monaco dropped out too, and was not seen again until 2004. Turkey came back.

A show made from leftovers

There was little time and less money. The Dutch reassembled the team that had made the 1976 contest — which so infuriated TROS that it walked away from organising the Dutch national final — and reused the 1976 opening film and parts of its set.

There were no postcards. Instead each broadcaster sent somebody to introduce its own song, usually in the language it was sung in. Ireland’s was the exception: an English-language song, introduced in Irish.

The host, the actress Marlous Fluitsma, spoke Dutch almost throughout, turning to English and French only for the formalities and the voting.

One to twelve

The voting itself changed in a way that outlasted everything else about the evening. Until now each jury had read its points in the order the songs were performed. From 1980 they read them from the lowest to the highest, so that every country’s announcement ended on its twelve.

Fluitsma took each call on a different telephone, nineteen of them. They were props. None was connected to anything.

Johnny Logan

Ireland won with “What’s Another Year”, written by Shay Healy and sung by Johnny Logan — born in Australia, and singing for his parents’ country. He finished on 143 points, fifteen clear of Germany’s Katja Ebstein, who had been third twice a decade earlier. The United Kingdom was third.

It was Ireland’s second win. Both had come in the Netherlands.

Logan was also the first man to win as a solo singer since 1966.

A footnote

1980 was the last contest for a very long time that was not held in the country that had won the year before. It did not happen again for 43 years.