Eurovision Song Contest 1998

Eurovision Song Contest 1998
Dates
Final	9 May 1998
Host
Venue	National Indoor Arena Birmingham, United Kingdom
Presenter(s)	Terry Wogan Ulrika Jonsson
Musical director	Martin Koch
Directed by	Geoff Posner
Executive supervisor	Christine Marchal-Ortiz
Executive producer	Kevin Bishop Jonathan King
Host broadcaster	British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
Opening act	Birmingham, Old and New
Interval act	Jupiter, The Bringer of Joviality
Website	eurovision.tv/event/birmingham-1998
Participants
Number of entries	25
Debuting countries	Macedonia
Returning countries	Belgium  Finland  Israel  Romania  Slovakia
Non-returning countries	Austria  Bosnia and Herzegovina  Denmark  Iceland  Italy  Russia
hide Participation map      Participating countries     Countries that participated in the past but not in 1998
Vote
Voting system	Each country awarded 12, 10, 8–1 points to their 10 favourite songs
Nul points	Switzerland
Winning song	Israel "Diva"
1997 ← Eurovision Song Contest → 1999

The Eurovision Song Contest 1998 was the 43rd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Birmingham, United Kingdom, following the country's victory at the 1997 contest with the song "Love Shine A Light" by Katrina and the Waves. It was the eighth time that the United Kingdom had hosted the contest, having previously done so in 1960, 1963, 1968, 1972, 1974, 1977 and 1982. The previous hosting record were seven, set by Ireland the previous year. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the contest was held at the National Indoor Arena, with the final on 9 May 1998. The live show was presented by Terry Wogan and Ulrika Jonsson.

Twenty-five countries participated in the contest,^[1] equalling the record of the 1993, 1994 and 1997 editions. Macedonia made their debut this year, even though they had submitted an entry in the non-televised 1996 pre-qualifying round, which failed to qualify into the televised final of that contest.^[2] Belgium, Finland, and Slovakia returned to the contest after 1996. Despite having also taken part in the non-televised 1996 pre-qualifying round, in which they failed to qualify, Romania and Israel returned officially after their last participations in 1994 and 1995 respectively.^[3][4] Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, Iceland, and Russia were relegated, while Italy decided not to participate. Italy would not return to the contest until 2011.^[5]

The winner was Israel with the song "Diva", performed by Dana International, written by Yoav Ginai, and composed by Tzvika Pick. This was Israel's third victory in the contest, following their wins in 1978 and 1979. The United Kingdom, Malta, the Netherlands and Croatia rounded out the top five. Malta achieved their best placing in the contest thus far. This was a record fifteenth time, that the United Kingdom finished in second place. Incidentally, it was the third year in a row that the entry of the host country had finished in second place, following Norway in 1996 and Ireland in 1997.

After the broadcast it was announced that there had been a mistake during the voting sequence; the votes from the Spanish televote were wrongly tallied. The mistake was corrected after the contest and so Germany was placed 7th over Norway. Israel and Norway both received 2 points less than originally and Croatia, Malta, Portugal, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Belgium, Estonia and Turkey all received one point less than indicated during the broadcast. Originally Estonia, Cyprus and Portugal tied for 11th place with 37 points but because Portugal and Estonia received one point less than indicated during the broadcast, Cyprus was placed 11th over Estonia and Portugal, now sharing 12th place.

Location[]

National Indoor Arena, Birmingham – host venue of the 1998 contest. (pictured in 2005 before renovation)

The United Kingdom, along with their national broadcaster the BBC, hosted the contest at the National Indoor Arena in the city of Birmingham having beaten venues in Belfast, London, Manchester, Cardiff and Glasgow to stage the event.^[6] It was the first time since 1982 that the Eurovision Song Contest was staged in the United Kingdom,^[7] and the last to date. This was a record-breaking eighth time that the United Kingdom staged the contest, having done so for the 1960, 1963, 1968, 1972, 1974, 1977, and 1982 contests.^[8] The announcement of the host city and venue took place on 8 August 1997.^[9]

Venue[]

The National Indoor Arena had been used for several major events in the past, including counting no less than eight constituencies in the hall for the 1992 general election.^[10] The week after the Eurovision Song Contest, the city was to host the 24th G8 summit, with Wogan vacating his hotel room to make way for Bill Clinton.^[11][12] Opened in October 1991, the arena was best known in the UK for hosting the 1990s British television series Gladiators, also presented by Jonsson, on ITV.

While the capacity of the National Indoor Arena was up to 12,700 seats, the BBC decided to occupy only half of the venue, which could accommodate some 4,000 spectators,^[13] a figure that would be systematically surpassed in subsequent years. The main stage had as its most outstanding element a structure in the shape of a whale tail. A large green room was built behind the stage where contestants watched the voting. It resembled a nightclub, with a bar area and 40 large television screens. Both areas were designed by Andrew Howe-Davies.^[14]

Format[]

The running order draw for the contest took place at the host venue in Birmingham on 13 November 1997, drawn by Wogan and the 1997 winner, Katrina Leskanich.^[15] Presented by local radio DJ Malcolm Boyden, it was broadcast live on BBC Radio West Midlands.^[16] Following a format change in 1997 where acts were allowed to use purely backing tracks without instruments on the stage, no less than eight countries either partially or wholly used backing tracks: Greece, Switzerland, Germany, Malta, Slovenia, Israel and Belgium purely used backing tracks, whilst France decided to partially use the orchestra in the rehearsal week.

This was the first year in which televoting was used en masse: viewers were given five minutes after the end of the songs to vote for the song they wanted to win, with Terry Wogan remarking that "you'll have nobody to blame but yourself": ironically, dissatisfaction with the televote-only format led to Wogan leaving the role of commentator after 2008.^[17] Ironically, the contest was held in an English speaking country for the last time the contest was run without the free language rule, so only the UK, Malta, and Ireland performed in English.^[18]

Terry Wogan was the third person in the contest's history to combine the roles of presenter and commentator, after the hosting duo of Denise Fabre and Léon Zitrone in 1978. When not on stage, he was backstage in his private booth providing the necessary TV commentary to BBC viewers.^[19]

Postcards[]

The postcards continued with the opening theme of "Birmingham Old and New", looking at a traditional object and then its contemporary. Popular Britpop songs and also some pieces of classical music were used as background music. Finally, the flag of the country about to perform was formed, and then faded into either the conductor bowing or the beginning of the performance of the country about to perform. The various themes were as following, listed in appearance order:^[20]

Voting[]

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

Opening and interval acts[]

Birmingham, Old and New[]

The opening of the contest began with a video entitled Birmingham, Old and New. Views of the past and present of the host city were juxtaposed to give a glimpse of its history. The camera footage ended with a shot of the arena from the approaching canal boat. The orchestra appeared on screen, as well as the trumpets of the Life Guards that sounded the beginning of the transmission. A short video summarising the first competition organised by the BBC in 1960 in London was shown. There appeared Katie Boyle (the only person to have presented the contest four times) who was in the audience along with the winner of the previous year, the vocalist of the group Katrina and the Waves, Katrina Leskanich.

Jupiter, The Bringer of Joviality[]

Vanessa-Mae, a famous violinist, performed as part of interval act.

The intermission performance was entitled Jupiter, The Bringer of Joviality (a movement from orchestral suite The Planets composed by Gustav Holst in 1914) described as a "great coming-together, a magnificent...muesli" by host and commentator Wogan. It was a medley sung and danced, highlighting the multiculturalism of the United Kingdom and included bagpipes, a male voice choir, a soprano singer, a violinist, and some dancing tribal warriors. Pieces inspired by English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Indian and Zulu cultures were played. Over 200 people were involved in the interval act,^[21] which included Clan Sutherland, flutist Andy Findon, an excerpt of Patti Boulaye's Sun Dance (which would later open as a West End musical), harpist Carys Hughes, bhangra dancers Nachda Sansaar, Canoldir Male Voice Choir, Grimethorpe Colliery Band, trumpeters of the Band of the Blues and Royals, Vanessa-Mae, Lesley Garrett and the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Martin Koch.^[22]

Trophy[]

24-year-old Anongkarat Unyawong, a Thai student at the Birmingham School of Jewellery, won a competition to design a trophy for the songwriter(s) of the winning song.^[23] In addition, the winning performers each received a unique glass bowl (bearing the acronym of the Eurovision Song Contest) designed in the Midlands by Susan Nickson.^[11][22]

Participating countries[]

North Macedonia, participating as the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, took part for the first time, after their 1996 entry did not make it past the internal selection by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).^[2] Belgium, Finland, 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. Israel could have returned in 1997, but opted not to due to Holocaust Remembrance Day, meaning they returned for the first time in three years. The Italian broadcaster, RAI, decided not to enter in the contest, a move that would see Italy absent from the contest for 13 years before their return in 2011.^[5]

Russia and Italy did not broadcast the event. 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 Channel One had planned to name as their representative, performing "Solntse moyo"). Because Russia did not participate, Channel One decided not to broadcast the 1998 contest, thus Russia was unable to participate in 1999. According to other sources Channel One had expected Channel Russia to broadcast the contest.^[1] (This is in spite of Romania being able to return in 1998 despite not broadcasting the 1997 final, and Lithuania being able to return in 1999 despite also not showing the 1998 final live). In Lithuania, the contest was broadcast with commentary six days later.^[24]

Conductors[]

Most performances had a musical director who conducted the orchestra. Germany and Slovenia presented their songs without orchestral accompaniment, but nevertheless introduced a conductor before their songs (Raab had never intended to conduct, but still wanted to take his bow as the song's composer; Sepe was due to conduct for Slovenia, but conflicts with the pianist/songwriter led to the use of a backing track that he merely cued in). France initially did not plan to perform with the orchestra, but wound up incorporating the string section for the live performance (although musical director Martin Koch did not take the customary conductor's bow).

Returning artists[]

Artist	Country	Previous Year(s)
Danijela Martinović	Croatia	1995 (as part of Magazin, along with Lidija)
Egon Egemann (violinist)	Switzerland	1990
José Cid (as part of Alma Lusa)	Portugal	1980
Paul Harrington (backing singer)	Ireland	1994 (along with Charlie McGettigan)

Danijela returned for Croatia after last taking part in 1995 as part of the group Magazin. Egon Egemann who was the violinist for Gunvor this year, last participated for Switzerland at the 1990. José Cid part of Alma Lusa in 1980 returned for Portugal; and Paul Harrington who was a backing singer for Dawn Martin in 1998, returned for Ireland after having won the 1994 with Charlie McGettigan.

Results[]

The following tables reflect the officially verified results confirmed after the transmission of the live contest. During the voting sequence seen in the broadcast, the Spanish votes were incorrectly announced, as Germany was excluded from the Spanish announcement. Israel & Norway lost two marks and Belgium, Portugal, Malta, Netherlands, UK, Estonia, Croatia & Turkey all lost one mark each once Germany had been awarded twelve points.

Draw	Country	Artist	Song	Language[18][26]	Place[27]	Points
01	Croatia	Danijela	"Neka mi ne svane"	Croatian	5	131
02	Greece	Thalassa	"Mia Krifi Evesthisia" (Μια κρυφή ευαισθησία)	Greek	20	12
03	France	Marie Line	"Où aller"	French	24	3
04	Spain	Mikel Herzog	"¿Qué voy a hacer sin ti?"	Spanish	16	21
05	Switzerland	Gunvor	"Lass ihn"	German	25	0
06	Slovakia	Katarína Hasprová	"Modlitba"	Slovak	21	8
07	Poland	Sixteen	"To takie proste"	Polish	17	19
08	Israel	Dana International	"Diva" (דיווה)	Hebrew	1	172
09	Germany	Guildo Horn	"Guildo hat euch lieb!"	German	7	86
10	Malta	Chiara	"The One That I Love"	English	3	165
11	Hungary	Charlie	"A holnap már nem lesz szomorú"	Hungarian	23	4
12	Slovenia	Vili Resnik	"Naj bogovi slišijo"	Slovene	18	17
13	Ireland	Dawn Martin	"Is Always Over Now?"	English	9	64
14	Portugal	Alma Lusa	"Se eu te pudesse abraçar"	Portuguese	12	36
15	Romania	Mălina Olinescu	"Eu cred"	Romanian	22	6
16	United Kingdom	Imaani	"Where Are You?"	English	2	166
17	Cyprus	Michael Hajiyanni	"Genesis" (Γένεσις)	Greek	11	37
18	Netherlands	Edsilia	"Hemel en aarde"	Dutch	4	150
19	Sweden	Jill Johnson	"Kärleken är"	Swedish	10	53
20	Belgium	Mélanie Cohl	"Dis oui"	French	6	122
21	Finland	Edea	"Aava"	Finnish	15	22
22	Norway	Lars Fredriksen	"Alltid sommer"	Norwegian	8	79
23	Estonia	Koit Toome	"Mere lapsed"	Estonian	12	36
24	Turkey	Tüzmen	"Unutamazsın"	Turkish	14	25
25	Macedonia	Vlado Janevski	"Ne zori, zoro" (Не зори, зоро)	Macedonian	19	16

Scoreboard[]

12 points[]

Below is a summary of all 12 points in the final:

N.	Contestant	Nation(s) giving 12 points
4	Malta	Ireland,  Norway,  Slovakia,  United Kingdom
	United Kingdom	Croatia,  Israel,  Romania,  Turkey
3	Israel	France,  Malta,  Portugal
	Germany	Netherlands,  Spain,   Switzerland
2	Croatia	Macedonia,  Slovenia
	Netherlands	Belgium,  Hungary
1	Belgium	Poland
	Cyprus	Greece
	Estonia	Finland
	Greece	Cyprus
	Norway	Sweden
	Sweden	Estonia
	Turkey	Germany

Qualification for the 1999 contest[]

In addition to Israel, the host country of the 1999 contest, the 17 countries with the highest average scores between 1994 and 1998 were allowed to take part in the Eurovision Song Contest 1999 alongside new or returning countries.^[29]

Table key

  Automatic qualifier

  Qualifier

  Replacement qualifier

  Withdrew

Rank	Country	Average	Yearly Scores
			1994	1995	1996	1997	1998
1	Ireland	130.60	226	44	162	157	64
2	Israel	126.50		81			172
3	United Kingdom	121.80	63	76	77	227	166
4	Malta	94.40	97	76	68	66	165
5	Norway	83.40	76	148	114	0	79
6	Croatia	74.20	27	91	98	24	131
7[c]	Sweden	67.40	48	100	100	36	53
8[c]	Cyprus	67.40	51	79	72	98	37
9	Netherlands	59.25	4		78	5	150
10	Germany	59.25	128	1		22	86
11	Poland	57.00	166	15	31	54	19
12	France	56.80	74	94	18	95	3
13	Turkey	56.00		21	57	121	25
14	Spain	54.00	17	119	17	96	21
15	Estonia	53.50	2		94	82	36
16	Belgium	50.67		8	22		122
17	Slovenia	44.25		84	16	60	17
18	Hungary[d]	42.00	122	3		39	4
19	Portugal[d]	41.20	73	5	92	0	36
20	Greece	39.80	44	68	36	39	12
21	Macedonia	16.00					16
22[e]	Finland	14.00	11		9		22
23[e]	Slovakia	14.00	15		19		8
24	Switzerland	10.50	15		22	5	0
25	Romania	10.00	14				6

Incidents[]

Miscalculated result[]

Spain originally gave its 12 points to Israel and 10 to Norway. After the broadcast it was announced that the Spanish broadcaster wrongly tallied the votes and Germany should have got the top mark – 12 points – instead of receiving zero points, as in the broadcast. The mistake was corrected after the contest and so Germany was placed 7th over Norway. Israel and Norway both received 2 points less than originally and Croatia, Malta, Portugal, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Belgium, Estonia and Turkey all received one point less than indicated during the broadcast. Originally Estonia, Cyprus and Portugal tied for 11th place with 37 points but because Portugal and Estonia received one point less than indicated during the broadcast, Cyprus was placed 11th over Estonia and Portugal.^[1]

Nul points[]

For the second year in a row, at least one country went home empty-handed; Switzerland's Gunvor Guggisberg with her composition "Lass Ihn" failed to score a single point.

Guildo Horn[]

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Other notable participants were Germany's Guildo Horn, whose shocking comedic act culminated in his climbing the scaffolding on the side of the stage. Controversially chosen to represent Germany, he was criticised for his lack of seriousness by the German press. However, after winning by 60% of the vote, the German people were firmly on Horn's side. "Guildo-Fever" spread throughout Germany during the weeks leading up to the contest, with Horn becoming front-page material in Germany. He was also noticed in countries around Europe, and the early criticism that had existed in Germany arose in those countries. Even though his 7th place was disappointing, to some Germans it was a revival for the contest in Germany, and was the beginning of four consecutive top-ten finishes.

Greece[]

After the first rehearsals, the Greek composer, Yiannis Valvis, was unhappy with the way that the director, Geoff Posner, intended to film his song, specifically a series of six heavily-emphasised chords accompanied by six dance moves which Valvis felt the director was not placing enough emphasis upon. After a meeting where Valvis attempted to ask for the Greeks to have full control over their performance and this request was rejected, Valvis launched a formal protest at the Greek press conference. After making no progress, Valvis protested more actively at the dress rehearsal, standing on the stage during the Greek song, claiming that he was supposed to be playing bass but had not been given an instrument.^[31]

This proved to be the final straw for the EBU, the BBC, and ERT: Valvis was refused entry to the arena on the date of the contest. In response, ERT threatened to withdraw from the competition, which would promote France to second in the running order and reduce the number of entrants to twenty-four. However, minutes later, they reversed their decision. Greece earned only 12 points in the end, all of which came from Cyprus, ranking Greece 20th by the end of the broadcast, their worst result until that point. Watching from a hotel room, Valvis accused the BBC of favouritism, as "Diva" had similar chords and moves, which had been given emphasis by the BBC.^[31]

Israel and Dana International[]

Orthodox Jews were unhappy with the fact that Dana International, the first singer at the contest ever to have undergone gender reassignment surgery in 1993, was representing Israel, due to religious bigotry.^[31][32]

Turkey timing issues[]

After the first rehearsal, the Turkish conductor was found to be playing the tempo too slowly, and so the Turkish song exceeded three minutes, with the first rehearsal performance being three seconds too long. The next rehearsal performance was, alarmingly, even slower, with the Turkish conductor claiming to a camera that due to a series of "hemi-demi-semi-dim-dams" it was impossible for him to play the song quicker. The third performance came in at 3:07, leading to speculation that Turkey would be disqualified from the contest. The conductor then said that a metronome would be useless due to a number of tempo changes in the song. The final performance on the night was timed at 2:59, which was enough to keep Turkey in the competition.^[31]

Ulrika Jonsson ageism row[]

In a BBC interview, future Eurovision entrant Nicki French said that one of her most memorable Eurovision moments was Jonsson's infamous faux pas during the voting. On hearing that the Dutch lady announcing the Netherlands' votes had previously been a contestant in Eurovision, Jonsson replied, "A long time ago, was it?" which was followed by much laughter from the audience.^[33] 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 van den Bos and Jonsson, this wasn't heard above the noise of the audience.^[33] What was heard, however, was Jonsson's seemingly insulting comment.^[1]

Barbara Dex Award[]

The Barbara Dex Award is a humorous fan award given to the worst dressed artist each year. Named after Belgium's representative who came last in the 1993 contest, wearing her self-designed dress, the award was handed for the second year by the fansite House of Eurovision and until the 2016 contest, when the Belgian Eurovision fansite songfestival.be took the reins. Guildo Horn of Germany won the award.

International broadcasts and voting[]

The show was transmitted to 33 European countries, Australia, Canada and South Korea.^[14]

Voting and spokespersons[]

The spokespersons announced the score from their respective country's televote (or, in some cases, national jury) in running order.

Commentators[]

Most countries sent commentators to Birmingham or commented from their own country, in order to add insight to the participants and, if necessary, the provision of voting information.

Participating countries[]

Non-participating countries[]

Notes and references[]

Footnotes[]

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Eurovision Song Contest 1998.

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