Eurovision Song Contest 1980
The Eurovision Song Contest 1980 was the 25th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in The Hague, Netherlands and was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (NOS), who agreed to stage the event after , having won in both and , declined to host it for a second successive year. The contest was held at the Nederlands Congresgebouw on Saturday 19 April 1980 and was hosted by Dutch actress 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). Nineteen countries took part in the contest this year with and previous year's winner deciding not to participate in the contest and returning. notably made its first and, so far, only appearance as well. The winner was with the song "What's Another Year" by Johnny Logan and written by Shay Healy. Location. Israel, the winner of the 1979 contest, declined to host it 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. The European Broadcasting Union also set the broadcast on the same day as the Yom HaZikaron holiday, which meant Israel decided not to participate at all, marking the first and only time that the previous year's winner did not even compete. After Spain, the 2nd-place winner of 1979, and reportedly the UK, both declined 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. This remains the last time the previous year's winning country did not host the contest the year after. The contest took place in The Hague at the Congresgebouw (presently known as the "World Forum"). The venue was constructed in 1969 and had previously hosted the contest in . Format. The venue that had hosted the Eurovision Song Contest 1976, Congresgebouw, was again chosen to stage the contest. Various parts of the opening sequence and stage of the 1976 festival were reused. Again, Roland de  Groot took charge of the design. As with the 1977 and 1978 contests, there were no pre-filmed postcards between the songs, with a guest presenter from each nation introducing the entries. Apart from this, the presenter, Marlous Fluitsma, except for the voting, did not make the presentation in English or French, which means that the presentation was made almost entirely in Dutch. NOS spent just US$725,000 on staging the show. During the live interval act performance of "San Fernando" by The Dutch Rhythm Steel and Show Band with The Lee Jackson Dancers, Hans van Willigenburg intercut brief interviews  with some of the participants backstage in the green room, speaking to the singers from Germany, Luxembourg, the UK, Ireland, Norway and the Netherlands, each in their own language. 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", coincidentally also held on Dutch soil. It was also the first time that a male solo artist, (albeit with backing vocals), had won the contest since Udo Jürgens won for Austria in 1966. Germany  were runners-up this year. They would finish in second place again the following year, finally winning in 1982. Germany would go on to finish second again in 1985 and 1987, making the 1980s their most successful Eurovision Song Contest decade. After two relatively poor placings the previous years, United Kingdom returned to form by coming third. Song presenters. Each song was introduced by a presenter from the national country. A few countries used their commentators as presenters, with Turkey's radio commentator and the TV commentators of Denmark, Sweden and Finland being utilised for this role. All the introductions  were made in the language in which the song was performed, with the exception of Ireland which was introduced in Irish. The UK presenter was incorrectly identified in the on screen caption as 'Noel Edmunds'. Voting. 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 declare their scores 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. For the voting sequence, Marlous Fluitsma used a unique telephone to speak to the nineteen jury spokespersons, although the phones were simply props and were not connected. Participating countries. After Israel announced its non-participation, Morocco entered into the contest instead. Monaco also withdrew from the contest, and would not return until 2004. Conductors. With the exception of Belgium, each performance had a conductor who directed the orchestra. It marked the only contest to feature a Black conductor conducting an entry, that being Italy's conductor Del Newman . Scoreboard. 12 points. Below is a summary of all 12 points in the final: Spokespersons. Listed below is the order in which votes were cast during the 1980 contest along with the spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country. Broadcasts. Each national broadcaster also sent a commentator to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language.