Eurovision Song Contest 1999

Eurovision Song Contest 1999
Dates
Final	29 May 1999 (1999-05-29)
Host
Venue	International Convention Center Jerusalem, Israel
Presenter(s)	Dafna Dekel Yigal Ravid Sigal Shachmon
Directed by	Hagai Mautner
Executive supervisor	Christine Marchal-Ortiz
Executive producer	Amnon Barkai
Host broadcaster	Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA)
Opening act	Digital animation "From Birmingham to Jerusalem" transitioning into a film about Jerusalem
Interval act	"To Life" by Dafna Dekel & Sigal Shachmon" "Freedom Calling", with the song "Free" performed in a medley with a version of a traditional prayer for freedom, "Dror Yikra" by Dana International
Reprise act	All acts performed the English version of "Hallelujah" as a tribute to the victims of the Balkan War
Website	eurovision.tv/event/jerusalem-1999
Participants
Number of entries	23
Debuting countries	None
Returning countries	Austria  Bosnia and Herzegovina  Denmark  Iceland  Lithuania
Non-returning countries	Finland  Greece  Hungary  Macedonia  Romania  Slovakia   Switzerland
hide Participation map      Participating countries     Countries that participated in the past but not in 1999
Vote
Voting system	Each country awarded 12, 10, 8–1 points to their 10 favourite songs
Nul points	None
Winning song	Sweden "Take Me to Your Heaven"
1998 ← Eurovision Song Contest → 2000

The Eurovision Song Contest 1999 was the 44th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Jerusalem, Israel, following the country's victory at the 1998 contest with the song "Diva" by Dana International. It was the second time Israel had hosted the contest, having previously done so in 1979. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA), the contest was held at the International Convention Center with the final on 29 May 1999. The live show was presented by Yigal Ravid, Dafna Dekel and Sigal Shachmon.

Twenty-three countries participated in the contest. It saw the return of Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark and Iceland after being relegated from competing the previous year. Lithuania also returned to the contest, after their last participation in 1994. Finland, Greece, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia and Switzerland were relegated due to having the lowest average scores over the previous five editions. Hungary decided not to participate, which left a spot open for Portugal, who otherwise would had been relegated from competing. Russia had intended to participate, but were not allowed to, due to not having broadcast the previous year's contest.

The winner was Sweden with the song "Take Me to Your Heaven", performed by Charlotte Nilsson, written by Gert Lengstrand and Marcos Ubeda, and composed by Lars Diedricson. This was Sweden's fourth victory in the contest, following their wins in 1974, 1984 and 1991. Iceland, Germany, Croatia and Israel rounded out the top five. Iceland achieved their best result in the contest at this point. Further down the table, Bosnia and Herzegovina also achieved their best result as an independent country at this point, finishing seventh.

Location[]

International Convention Center, Jerusalem – host venue of the 1999 contest.

In the run-up to the Contest, many speculated that it would not be held in Israel, but would be moved to either Malta or stay at the United Kingdom (the countries that completed the top 3 of the 1998 Contest). This came about after major concerns over funding for the event from the Israeli government arose, alongside the opposition from Orthodox Jews that they would attempt to stop the Contest from coming to Israel after Dana International won the previous year's Contest. This, however, provided no hindrance for IBA or to the organizing team of the event, and the Ussishkin Auditorium at International Convention Center in Jerusalem was selected as the venue for the 44th Contest.^[1]

Format[]

Long-standing rules in place for decades were abolished during this Contest: rules that each country had to sing in one of their national languages was abolished for the first time since 1977. A majority of the participating countries, fourteen out of twenty-three, chose to sing entirely or partly in English and only eight entirely in their respective national languages; Lithuania, Spain, Croatia, Poland, France, Cyprus, Portugal and Turkey, not counting the United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta, who have English as a national or official language. Furthermore, live music became optional for the first time in the Contest's history. IBA took advantage of this and decided to drop the orchestra from the Contest as a way to conserve money for the show. This meant that for the first time all entries used backing track during their performances.^[2] This caused controversy for Eurovision traditionalists, with two-time winner Johnny Logan criticising the move, describing the event now as "karaoke".^[1]

Cover art for compilation CD

A compilation CD was released in Israel by the host broadcaster and IMP Records. Due to licensing problems, the CD omitted the songs from Poland, Cyprus, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom.^[3] Since then, all compilation CDs have featured all the songs.

It was announced in 1999 that, as of the 2000 Contest, the four biggest financial contributors to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) – Germany, Spain, France and the United Kingdom – would all be given automatic entry into the Contest, regardless of their average scores over the past five years.^[1][2]

Latvia had attempted to participate in the contest for the first time, but later withdrew. This gave Hungary a chance to enter the contest, however, Magyar Televízió decided not to take part, allowing Portugal to compete as the 23rd country.^[2]

Draw for the order of performances took place on 17 November 1998.^[4]

Lithuania returned to the contest for the first time in five years. The Lithuanian delegation had budget problems to contend with, and so the EBU allowed the Lithuanians to arrive in Israel a day later than everyone else. The first delegation on the other hand, to arrive were Estonia.^[2]

Russia's Channel One had decided not to broadcast that year's contest, in order to allow for a strong comeback in Israel. However, as only countries which had broadcast the previous year's contest were allowed to enter the next year's contest, Russia was forced to miss another year.

The favourites to win the Contest came from Iceland's Selma with "All Out of Luck", and Cyprus's Marlain with "Tha 'Ne Erotas", after an internet poll by fans. But, while Iceland finished second to Sweden (the country's best showing in the contest), Cyprus failed to inspire televotes, finishing second last with only two points, both from the United Kingdom.^[1][2]

Television news anchor Yigal Ravid, singer and 1992 contestant Dafna Dekel and model/actress Sigal Shachmon presented the show, and it was the first time that three presenters were used to host the contest. Israel's two previous winners, Izhar Cohen, who won in 1978 with "A-Ba-Ni-Bi" and Milk and Honey's Gali Atari who won it the next year with "Hallelujah" attended as spectators.

Postcards[]

The postcards' theme was "interactive tour in the Land of the Bible". It featured paintings of biblical stories, "coming to life" with a humorous animation (created by cartoonist Yossi Abulafia), and then continuing to modern locations in Israel or modern themes that represent Israel's culture and industries. The various themes were as following, listed in appearance order:

Incidents[]

A number of controversies occurred before the Contest. Two songs selected to compete in Israel were found to be ineligible: Bosnia and Herzegovina's Hari Mata Hari were disqualified after their entry was discovered to have been released in Finland some years previously; Germany's Corinna May was also disqualified after her song was revealed to have been released in 1997 by a different singer.^[1][5] Both artists would eventually represent their countries in Eurovision, in 2006 and 2002 respectively.

Croatia's entry, Marija Magdalena, attracted objections from the Norwegian delegation, due to synthesised male vocals being used on the backing track of Doris Dragović's entry. The EBU decided to reduce the country's score by a third for the purpose of calculating its five-year average to determine participation in future contests, though it was decided to leave its placement in the 1999 result unaffected.^[1][2]

The interval act was provided by Dana International, who performed a cover of the Stevie Wonder song "Free", which although was a smash hit in Israel at the time, caused some controversy there due to the song's lyrics. Dana International also appeared at the end of the show, handing the winning trophy to Nilsson. After pretending that the trophy was too heavy to lift, she fell to the stage, bringing down the winning composers with her.^[1][2] After the encore of the winning entry coming from Sweden, the three presenters re-appeared inviting everyone on stage to sing a rendition of the English version of "Hallelujah", the Israeli winner from the 1979 Contest, as a tribute to the victims of the Kosovo War (particularly then-Yugoslavia, which was banned from participation as penalty due this conflict), who were unable to view the contest after bombings destroyed television transmitters.^[1]

Returning artists[]

Lead artists[]

Artist	Country	Previous Year(s)
Doris Dragović	Croatia	1986 (for  Yugoslavia)
Evelin Samuel (along with Camille)	Estonia	1997 (as a backing singer for Maarja-Liis Ilus)
Darja Švajger	Slovenia	1995

Backing performers^[6][]

Artist	Country	Previous Year(s)
Chris and Moira	Malta	1994
	Sweden	1997 (as a member of Blond)
Stefán Hilmarsson	Iceland	1988 (as a member of Beathoven) and 1991 (with )
	Denmark	1992 (with )
Linda Williams	Belgium	1981 (for the  Netherlands).

Results[]

Draw	Country	Artist	Song	Language[7][8]	Place[9]	Points
01	Lithuania	Aistė	"Strazdas"	Samogitian	20	13
02	Belgium	Vanessa Chinitor	"Like the Wind"	English	12	38
03	Spain	Lydia	"No quiero escuchar"	Spanish	23	1
04	Croatia	Doris Dragović	"Marija Magdalena"	Croatian	4	118
05	United Kingdom	Precious	"Say It Again"	English	12	38
06	Slovenia	Darja Švajger	"For a Thousand Years"	English	11	50
07	Turkey	Tuğba Önal & Grup Mistik	"Dön Artık"	Turkish	16	21
08	Norway	Stig Van Eijk	"Living My Life Without You"	English	14	35
09	Denmark	Trine Jepsen & Michael Teschl	"This Time I Mean It"	English	8	71
10	France	Nayah	"Je veux donner ma voix"	French	19	14
11	Netherlands	Marlayne	"One Good Reason"	English	8	71
12	Poland	Mietek Szcześniak	"Przytul mnie mocno"	Polish	18	17
13	Iceland	Selma	"All Out of Luck"	English	2	146
14	Cyprus	Marlain	"Tha'nai Erotas" (Θα'ναι έρωτας)	Greek	22	2
15	Sweden	Charlotte Nilsson	"Take Me to Your Heaven"	English	1	163
16	Portugal	Rui Bandeira	"Como tudo começou"	Portuguese	21	12
17	Ireland	The Mullans	"When You Need Me"	English	17	18
18	Austria	Bobbie Singer	"Reflection"	English	10	65
19	Israel	Eden	"Yom Huledet (Happy Birthday)" (יום הולדת)	English, Hebrew	5	93
20	Malta	Times Three	"Believe 'n Peace"	English	15	32
21	Germany	Sürpriz	"Reise nach Jerusalem – Kudüs'e seyahat"	German, Turkish, English[a]	3	140
22	Bosnia and Herzegovina	Dino & Béatrice	"Putnici"	Bosnian, French	7	86
23	Estonia	Evelin Samuel & Camille	"Diamond of Night"	English	6	90

Voting structure[]

Each country had a televote, where the top ten most voted-for songs were awarded the 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points, with the exceptions of Turkey, Lithuania, Ireland and Bosnia and Herzegovina who used juries.^{[citation needed]}

Scoreboard[]

12 points[]

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

N.	Contestant	Nation(s) giving 12 points
5	Germany	Israel,  Netherlands,  Poland,  Portugal,  Turkey
	Sweden	Bosnia and Herzegovina,  Estonia,  Malta,  Norway,  United Kingdom
3	Iceland	Cyprus,  Denmark,  Sweden
2	Croatia	Slovenia,  Spain
	Slovenia	Croatia,  Ireland
1	Bosnia and Herzegovina	Austria
	Denmark	Iceland
	Ireland	Lithuania
	Netherlands	Belgium
	Portugal	France
	Turkey	Germany

Qualification for the 2000 contest[]

In addition to Sweden, the host country of the 2000 contest, and the "Big Four", the 13 countries with the highest average scores between 1995 and 1999 were allowed to take part in the Eurovision Song Contest 2000 alongside new or returning countries.^[11]

Table key

  Automatically qualified

  Qualified

Rank	Country	Average	Yearly Scores
			1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
1	United Kingdom	116.80	76	77	227	166	38
2	Israel	115.33	81			172	93
3	Sweden	90.40	100	100	36	53	163
4	Ireland	89.00	44	162	157	64	18
5	Croatia	84.60	91	98	24	131	79[b]
6	Malta	81.40	76	68	66	165	32
7	Netherlands	76.00		78	5	150	71
8	Estonia	75.50		94	82	36	90
9	Norway	75.20	148	114	0	79	35
10	Denmark	62.67	92		25		71
11	Germany	62.25	1		22	86	140
12	Iceland	61.50	31	51	18		146
13	Cyprus	57.60	79	72	98	37	2
14	Austria	53.00	67	68	12		65
15	Spain	50.80	119	17	96	21	1
16	Turkey	49.00	21	57	121	25	21
17	Belgium	47.50	8	22		122	38
18	Slovenia	45.40	84	16	60	17	50
19	France	44.80	94	18	95	3	14
20	Bosnia and Herzegovina	33.75	14	13	22		86
21	Portugal	29.00	5	92	0	36	12
22	Poland	27.20	15	31	54	19	17
23	Lithuania	13.00					13

International broadcasts and voting[]

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 Jerusalem 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[]

Radio commentators[]

The participating countries that provided radio broadcasts for the event are listed below.

Notes and references[]

Notes[]

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Eurovision Song Contest 1999.

• Official website