Eurovision Song Contest 1998

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Eurovision Song Contest 1998
Final	9 May 1998
Presenter(s)	Ulrika Jonsson Terry Wogan
Conductor	James McMillan
Director	Geoff Posner
Host broadcaster	BBC
Venue	National Indoor Arena, Birmingham, England
Winning song	Israel "Diva"
Voting system
Each country awarded 12, 10, 8-1 points to their 10 favourite songs
Number of entries	25
Debuting countries	FYR Macedonia
Returning countries	Belgium  Finland  Israel  Romania
Withdrawing countries	Austria  Bosnia and Herzegovina  Denmark  Iceland  Italy  Russia
Nul points	Switzerland
Interval act	Jupiter, The Bringer of Joviality
Eurovision Song Contest
◄1997    •    1999►

The Eurovision Song Contest 1998 was the 43rd Eurovision Song Contest and was held on 9 May 1998 at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham, England. The presenters were Terry Wogan and Ulrika Jonsson. Despite being one of the presenters, Terry Wogan still managed to provide commentary to the contest for the BBC. Dana International from Israel won this year's Eurovision, with the song Diva, following much pre-contest hype and publicity due to the fact that she is a male-to-female transsexual. This year was notable for several reasons: this was the last year with an orchestra, the first year with mass televoting, and the last year with language restriction. The 1998 contest was also memorable because of the suspenseful voting, where the winner was decided on the last nation's points. Greece, France, Switzerland, Malta, Israel and Belgium did not sing with an orchestra, they sang with backing tracks. France did, in fact, use the violin section of the orchestra but as they did not bring a conductor of their own, no conductor was shown before their entry. On the other hand both Germany and Slovenia presented conductors despite using full backing tracks and no orchestra.

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYR Macedonia) was present for the first time, after their 1996 entry did not make it past the internal selection by the EBU. Belgium, Finland, Israel, Romania and Slovakia all participated after their break from the previous year's contest; Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, Russia and Iceland could not participate because of their low average scores from the past five years. The Italian broadcaster, RAI, decided to withdraw from the contest.

After the points from some countries were announced, it was clear that Israel, Malta, and the United Kingdom would be fighting for the top spot. Israel remained in the lead at the end of the voting, but only by two or three points. Everything came down to the vote of FYR Macedonia, who rewarded Israel with 8 points, United Kingdom 10, and Croatia 12, giving zero to Malta, which left Chiara in third place after being second throughout the entire voting process. On the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel, Dana International brought the nation their third Song Contest victory. Also, Edsilia Rombley, who placed fourth with 150 points, ensured the best result for the Netherlands since their win in 1975.

Other notable participants were Germany's Guildo Horn, whose shocking comedic act culminated in his climbing the scaffolding on the side of the stage. Greece earned only 12 points, all of which came from Cyprus. After the contest, there was a correction made with the Spanish votes, who mistakenly awarded Germany zero points, rather than the 12 that were rightfully theirs.

In a BBC interview, future Eurovision entrant Nicki French said that one of her most memorable Eurovision moments was Ulrika's infamous faux pas during the voting. On hearing that the Dutch lady announcing the Netherlands' votes had previously been a contestant in Eurovision, Ulrika replied, "A long time ago, was it?" which was followed by much laughter and booing from the audience. [1] In fact Conny Van Den Bos who sang for the Netherlands in 1965 said that she had gone to the contest many years ago; unfortunately for both Conny and Ulrika this wasn't heard above the noise of the audience. What was heard, however, was Ulrika's comment.

Russia and Italy did not broadcast the event due to withdrawals. In 1998 the Russian broadcaster ORT prepared to run internal preselections, but soon organisers realised that because of low average results in previous years Russia would not qualify to compete in 1998 (though there were rumours that ORT planned to name Tatyana Ovsienko as their representative, performing "Solntse moyo"). Because Russia did not participate, ORT decided not to broadcast the 1998 Song Contest. According to other sources ORT had expected RTR to broadcast the Contest.

Contents 1 Results 2 Voting structure 3 Score sheet 4 Spokespersons 5 Map

[edit] Results

Draw	Country	Language	Artist	Song	Translation	Place	Points
1	Croatia	Croatian	Danijela	Neka mi ne svane	May The Dawn Never Come	5	131
2	Greece	Greek	Thalassa	Mia Krifi Evesthisia	A Hidden Sensibility	20	12
3	France	French	Marie Line	Où Aller	Where To Go	24	3
4	Spain	Spanish	Mikel Herzog	¿Qué voy a hacer sin ti?	What Am I Going To Do Without You?	16	21
5	Switzerland	German	Gunvor	Lass ihn	Let Him	25	0
6	Slovakia	Slovak	Katarína Hasprová	Modlitba	A Prayer	21	8
7	Poland	Polish	Sixteen	To takie proste	It's so Easy	17	19
8	Israel	Hebrew	Dana International	Diva	-	1	172
9	Germany	German	Guildo Horn	Guildo Hat Euch Lieb!	Guildo Loves You!	7	86
10	Malta	English	Chiara Siracusa	The One That I Love	-	3	166
11	Hungary	Hungarian	Charlie	A holnap már nem lesz szomorú	Sadness Will Be Over Tomorrow	23	4
12	Slovenia	Slovene	Vili Resnik	Naj bogovi slišijo	Let The Gods Hear	18	17
13	Ireland	English	Dawn Martin	Is Always Over Now?	-	9	64
14	Portugal	Portuguese	Alma Lusa	Se eu te pudesse abraçar	If I Could Embrace You	12=	36
15	Romania	Romanian	Mălina Olinescu	Eu cred	I Believe	22	6
16	United Kingdom	English	Imaani	Where Are You?	-	2	167
17	Cyprus	Greek	Michalis Hadjiyiannis	Yenesis	Genesis	11	37
18	Netherlands	Dutch	Edsilia	Hemel en aarde	Heaven and Earth	4	150
19	Sweden	Swedish	Jill Johnson	Kärleken är	Love Is	10	53
20	Belgium	French	Mélanie Cohl	Dis oui	Say Yes	6	122
21	Finland	Finnish	Edea	Aava	Open Landscape	15	22
22	Norway	Norwegian	Lars A. Fredriksen	Alltid sommer	Always Summer	8	79
23	Estonia	Estonian	Koit Toome	Mere lapsed	Children Of The Sea	12=	36
24	Turkey	Turkish	Tüzmen	Unutamazsın	You Can't Forget	14	25
25	FYR Macedonia	Macedonian	Vlado Janevski	Ne zori, zoro	Dawn, Do Not Rise	19	16

[edit] Voting structure

Each country had a televote except Turkey, Romania and some others , where the top ten most voted for songs were awarded the 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points, with a backup jury in case of mistakes. A Jury was used if there was exceptional reasons not to use a televote.

With just one country left to vote, it was anyone's guess as to who was going to prevail, with Israel and Malta locked in battle on the same points total (or so the scoreboard said - in fact, Spain's vote had been wrongly tallied and Malta was really two points ahead), and the United Kingdom apparently nine points behind (really nine behind Malta and seven behind Israel). When FYR Macedonia came to award the decisive points, Israel were the first of the three contenders to be mentioned, receiving eight points. That was enough to knock the UK out of contention for victory, but left plenty of room for Israel to be overtaken by their principal rival. Next, the ten points went to the UK, nudging them into what looked like being an extremely fleeting spell in second place, since most of the audience assumed the twelve points were destined for Malta. Instead, there were gasps as FYR Macedonia sent the final points of the evening to fellow Balkan nation Croatia, handing Israel their first win in the contest since "Hallelujah" in 1979.

[edit] Score sheet

Voting procedure used:Red: Televote. Blue: Jury.		Voters
	Croatia		5	8	1	5	10	6	10	10	10	0	12	3	2	0	2	7	4	3	5	3	6	3	4	12
	Greece	0		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	12	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	France	0	0		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2
	Spain	1	0	4		6	0	0	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	4	0	0	3	0	0	0	0	0
	Switzerland	0	0	0	0		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Slovakia	8	0	0	0	0		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Poland	0	0	2	0	0	0		0	5	0	2	0	0	0	10	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Israel	0	10	12	10	10	0	10		7	12	0	7	6	12	7	5	10	6	5	10	10	3	7	5	8
	Germany	0	3	0	12	12	0	0	0		0	0	8	8	10	6	6	0	12	0	7	1	0	1	0	0
	Malta	7	6	6	5	8	12	8	7	8		7	3	12	5	0	12	5	8	6	8	5	12	5	10	0
	Hungary	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0		0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	0
	Slovenia	3	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0		0	0	5	0	0	0	0	0	4	0	0	3	0
	Ireland	2	0	0	0	2	4	2	0	2	6	6	1		1	8	8	0	0	1	0	0	4	2	8	7
	Portugal	0	1	10	6	0	2	0	2	0	2	0	0	0		0	0	2	0	0	1	0	0	0	6	4
	Romania	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	6	0	0	0	0	0	0		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	United Kingdom	12	7	3	3	3	1	7	12	1	8	10	5	5	6	12		8	7	7	6	8	5	8	12	10
	Cyprus	4	12	0	0	0	5	0	1	0	1	1	0	0	4	4	3		0	0	2	0	0	0	0	0
	Netherlands	10	8	5	4	7	6	5	8	6	7	12	0	10	7	0	10	0		8	12	7	8	0	7	3
	Sweden	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	0	0	4	8	0	2	0	0	1	0	5		0	6	10	12	2	0
	Belgium	0	4	7	7	4	7	12	5	4	3	3	6	7	8	0	7	6	10	2		0	7	6	1	6
	Finland	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	10	0		1	10	0	1
	Norway	0	0	0	8	1	0	4	4	3	5	5	10	4	3	0	4	3	3	12	4	2		4	0	0
	Estonia	0	0	0	2	0	8	1	0	0	0	4	2	1	0	0	0	0	2	4	0	12	0		0	0
	Turkey	5	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	12	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0		5
	FYR Macedonia	6	0	0	0	0	3	0	0	0	0	0	4	0	0	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
The table is ordered by appearance.

[edit] Spokespersons

• Croatia - Davor Mestrovic
• Greece - Alexis Kostalas
• France - Marie Myriam
• Spain - Belén Fernández de Henestrosa
• Switzerland - Regula Elsener
• Slovakia - Alena Heribanová
• Poland - Jan Chojnacki
• Israel - Yigal Ravid
• Germany - Nena
• Malta - Stephanie Farrugia
• Hungary - Barna Hedér
• Slovenia - Mojca Mavec
• Ireland - Eileen Dunne
• Portugal - Lúcia Moniz
• Romania - Anca Turcasiu
• The United Kingdom - Ken Bruce
• Cyprus - Marina Maleni
• Netherlands - Conny Vandenbos
• Sweden - Björn Hedman
• Belgium - Marie-Hélène Vanderborght
• Finland - Marion
• Norway - Ragnhild Sælthun Fjørtoft
• Estonia - Urve Tiidus
• Turkey - Osman Erkan
• Republic of Macedonia - Evgenija

[edit] Map

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