Eurovision Song Contest 1979


The Eurovision Song Contest 1979 was the 24th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It was held on 31 March 1979 in Jerusalem, Israel, following the country's win at the 1978 edition. The event was staged at the International Convention Center. The presenters were Daniel Pe'er and Yardena Arazi. Nineteen out of the twenty countries that participated in 1978 also participated, with the exception of Turkey, which withdrew after Arab countries pressured into not participating in Israel.
The winner was Israel with the song "Hallelujah", performed by Milk and Honey. Yugoslavia, who missed the 1978 Contest, also didn't want to take part nor transmit the 1979 show for political reasons. As well as being broadcast live in the 19 competing countries, the contest was broadcast in Turkey, Romania, Hong Kong and Iceland.

Location

is one of the oldest cities in the world. In the ancient cuneiform, Jerusalem was called "Urusalima", meaning "City of Peace", during the early Canaanite period. It is considered holy to the three major Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Format

The stage concept designed by Dov Ben David, inside the stage there is an moving symbol which based on Israeli Broadcast Authority logo. using a small projected model.
Each country had a jury who awarded 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 point for their top ten songs. This was the last year in which the points were announced via order of appearance, as opposed to order of preference.
The voting was extremely close. Israel gained a good lead in the early stages of the voting, but Spain eventually caught up and took a good lead themselves. At the close of the penultimate jury's votes, Israel were one point behind Spain, and only the Spanish jury had yet to give their votes. Spain ended up giving Israel 10 points, causing the crowd to erupt into enormous cheers.

Participating countries

At one point before the contest Turkey was going to participate. The country would have appeared 11th on stage, represented by Maria Rita Epik and 21. Peron with the song ":tr:Seviyorum |Seviyorum". However Turkey was forced to retire from the contest under pressure from Arab states who objected to a predominantly Muslim country taking part in a contest held in Israel.

Returning artists

The contest saw the return of four artists who had participated in previous editions of the contest: France's representative Anne-Marie David was the winner for Luxembourg in 1973, Netherlands' Xandra represented the country in 1972 and 1976, Norway's Anita Skorgan represented the country in 1977, and Switzerland's Peter, Sue and Marc represented the country in 1971 and 1976.

Conductors

For each nation's performance, the orchestra was conducted by the following:
Had Turkey not withdrawn, their entry would have been conducted by Tuğrul Karataş.

Results

The following tables reflect the confirmed, verified scores, which were adjusted after the live broadcast. During the voting announcement, due to a misunderstanding by the presenter Yardena Arazi, Spain appeared to award 10 points to both Portugal and Israel and these scores were added to the scoreboard. After the programme, verification confirmed that Portugal should only have received six points, leaving the total Portuguese score reduced by four points to 64.
DrawCountryArtistSongLanguagePlacePoints
01Manuela Bravo"Sobe, sobe, balão sobe"Portuguese964
02Matia Bazar"Raggio di luna"Italian1527
03Tommy Seebach"Disco Tango"Danish676
04Cathal Dunne"Happy Man"English580
05Katri Helena"Katson sineen taivaan"Finnish1438
06Laurent Vaguener"Notre vie c'est la musique"French1612
07Elpida"Sokrati" Greek869
08Peter, Sue, Marc, Pfuri, Gorps and Kniri"Trödler und Co"German1060
09Dschinghis Khan"Dschinghis Khan"German486
10Milk and Honey"Hallelujah" Hebrew1125
11Anne-Marie David"Je suis l'enfant soleil"French3106
12Micha Marah"Hey Nana"Dutch185
13Jeane Manson"J'ai déjà vu ça dans tes yeux"French1344
14Xandra"Colorado"Dutch1251
15Ted Gärdestad"Satellit"Swedish178
16Anita Skorgan"Oliver"Norwegian1157
17Black Lace"Mary Ann"English773
18Christina Simon"Heute in Jerusalem"German185
19Betty Missiego"Su canción"Spanish2116

Scoreboard

12 points

Below is a summary of all 12 points in the final:
N.ContestantVoting nation
6IsraelFinland, Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, United Kingdom
4GermanyDenmark, France, Monaco, Spain
4SpainBelgium, Germany, Italy, Switzerland
2DenmarkGreece, Israel
2FranceLuxembourg, Netherlands
1SwitzerlandAustria

International broadcasts and voting

Voting and spokespersons

Participating countries