Final 19 April 1980 Director Theo Ordeman | Conductor Rogier van Otterloo Executive supervisor Frank Naef | |
 | ||
Venue Nederlands Congresgebouw
The Hague, Netherlands Presenter(s) Marlous Fluitsma
Hans van Willigenburg (Green Room) | ||
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".
Contents
- Location
- Format
- Conductors
- Results
- Score sheet
- 12 points
- Song Presenters
- Spokespersons
- National jury members
- References
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.
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.
Location
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 larger Randstad 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
Notes
a.^ Although the song was completely in Norwegian, the title is in the North Sami dialect of the Sami languages.Score sheet
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.
12 points
Below is a summary of all 12 points in the final:
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.