Eurovision Song Contest 1978

Eurovision Song Contest 1978
Dates
Grand final	22 April 1978
Host
Venue	Palais des Congrès Paris, France
Presenter(s)	Denise Fabre Léon Zitrone
Musical director	François Rauber
Directed by	Bernard Lion
Executive supervisor	Frank Naef
Host broadcaster	Télévision Française 1 (TF1)
Interval act	Stéphane Grappelli and Oscar Peterson Yehudi Menuhin Kenny Clarke Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen
Website	eurovision.tv/event/paris-1978
Participants
Number of entries	20
Debuting countries	None
Returning countries	Denmark Turkey
Non-returning countries	None
Participation map  Participating countries  Countries that participated in the past but not in 1978
Vote
Voting system	Each country awarded 12, 10, 8-1 points to their 10 favourite songs
Nul points	Norway
Winning song	Israel "A-Ba-Ni-Bi"

The Eurovision Song Contest 1978 was the 23rd edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It was held on 22 April 1978 in Paris. The contest was won by Izhar Cohen & the Alphabeta who represented Israel with the song "A-Ba-Ni-Bi". Although 'A-Ba-Ni-Bi' is the correct title, French television mistakenly captioned on screen the song title as 'Ah-Bah-Nee-Bee'. The presenters were Denise Fabre and Léon Zitrone, and this was the first time more than one presenter hosted an edition of the Contest and the first to have a male presenter since 1956. In addition, the two presenters served as commentators for France. Twenty countries participated, a record at the time.

The winning entry was a love song sung in the Hebrew equivalent of Ubbi dubbi (the title is an expansion of the Hebrew word ani אני, meaning "I"). This was Israel's first Eurovision win, which was also the first winning song to be performed in one of the Semitic languages. The win caused problems for several North African and Middle-Eastern nations that were televising the contest, even though they were not participating. According to author and political commentator John Kennedy O'Connor in his book The Eurovision Song Contest: The Official History, when Israel became the clear winners during the voting, most of the Arabic stations ended their transmission of the contest. Jordanian TV finished the show with a photo of a bunch of daffodils on screen,^[1] later announcing that the Belgian entry (which finished second) was the winner. Television of the USSR for the first time showed a competition, and until 1988 only performances of several participants, each time with the exception of representatives of Israel.^[2] Norway finished last for the fifth time, gaining the first nul points during the current voting system was implemented in 1975.

Location

The event took place in Paris, the capital and largest city of France, with the host venue being the Palais des congrès de Paris which is a concert venue, convention centre and shopping mall in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. The venue was built by French architect Guillaume Gillet, and was inaugurated in 1974.

Format

The postcards were filmed live, featuring the artists making their way to the stage. They took a corridor, then an elevator. Leaving the lift, they were greeted by the previous participants and then made their entrances to the stage. The camera also made several shots of the audience, notably Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg.

Björn Skifs was unhappy with the rule that every country would have to perform in their native language. He planned to sing in English anyway, but changed his mind at the last moment, causing him to completely forget the lyrics. He therefore sang the first few lines in gibberish before finding the words again. Along with the 20 participating countries, the show was also broadcast live in Yugoslavia, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Jordan, East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Dubai, Hong Kong, the Soviet Union and Japan.

Participating countries

Denmark returned to the competition after twelve years of absence, while Turkey did so after missing out two years.^[3]

Conductors

Each performance had a conductor who conducted the orchestra.^[4][5]

Returning artists

Several artists returned to the 1978 Contest. Ireen Sheer had previously represented Luxembourg in 1974, and finished in equal fourth place. Jean Vallée also returned, eight years after representing Belgium in 1970, while Norbert Niedermeyer, who had represented Austria in 1972 as part of the band The Milestones, was back as a member of the Austrian band Springtime.

Results

Draw	Country	Artist	Song	Language[6][7]	Place	Points
01	Ireland	Colm C. T. Wilkinson	"Born to Sing"	English	5	86
02	Norway	Jahn Teigen	"Mil etter mil"	Norwegian	20	0
03	Italy	Ricchi e Poveri	"Questo amore"	Italian	12	53
04	Finland	Seija Simola	"Anna rakkaudelle tilaisuus"	Finnish	18	2
05	Portugal	Gemini	"Dai li dou"	Portuguese	17	5
06	France	Joël Prévost	"Il y aura toujours des violons"	French	3	119
07	Spain	José Vélez	"Bailemos un vals"	Spanisha	9	65
08	United Kingdom	Co-Co	"The Bad Old Days"	English	11	61
09	Switzerland	Carole Vinci	"Vivre"	French	9	65
10	Belgium	Jean Vallée	"L'amour ça fait chanter la vie"	French	2	125
11	Netherlands	Harmony	"'t Is OK"	Dutch	13	37
12	Turkey	Nilüfer & Nazar	"Sevince"	Turkish	18	2
13	Germany	Ireen Sheer	"Feuer"	German	6	84
14	Monaco	Caline & Olivier Toussaint	"Les jardins de Monaco"	French	4	107
15	Greece	Tania Tsanaklidou	"Charlie Chaplin" (Τσάρλυ Τσάπλιν)	Greek	8	66
16	Denmark	Mabel	"Boom Boom"	Danish	16	13
17	Luxembourg	Baccara	"Parlez-vous français?"	French	7	73
18	Israel	Izhar Cohen and the Alphabeta	"A-Ba-Ni-Bi" (א-ב-ני-בי)	Hebrew	1	157
19	Austria	Springtime	"Mrs. Caroline Robinson"	Germanb	15	14
20	Sweden	Björn Skifs	"Det blir alltid värre framåt natten"	Swedish	14	26

Notes:

a. ^ Contains some words in French.

b. ^ Contains some words in English.

Scoreboard

12 points

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

Broadcasters, commentators and spokespersons

Spokespersons

Listed below is the order in which votes were cast during the 1978 contest along with the spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country.

Broadcasters and commentators

Each national broadcaster also sent a commentator to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language.

Country	Broadcaster(s)	Commentator(s)	Ref(s)
Participating countries
Austria	FS2	Ernst Grissemann	[13][14]
	Hitradio Ö3	Walter Richard Langer
Belgium	RTBF1	French: Claude Delacroix	[13]
	BRT1	Dutch: Luc Appermont	[13][15]
	RTB La Première	French: Jacques Bauduin
	BRT Radio 1	Dutch: Nand Baert and Herwig Haes
Denmark	DR TV	Jørgen de Mylius	[13][16]
	DR P3	Kjeld Koplev
Finland	YLE TV1	Erkki Toivanen	[13][17]
	YLE Rinnakkaisohjelma	TBC
France	TF1	Léon Zitrone and Denise Fabre	[18]
	France Inter	René Boyer and Michel Polac
Germany	Deutsches Fernsehen	Werner Veigel	[13][19]
	Deutschlandfunk/Bayern 2	Wolf Mittler
Greece	ERT	Mako Georgiadou	[20]
	Proto Programma	Dimitris Konstantaras
Ireland	RTÉ	Larry Gogan	[13]
	RTÉ Radio	Mike Murphy
Israel	Israeli Television	No commentator
Italy	Rete 2 and Rai Radio 2	Tullio Grazzini
Luxembourg	RTL Télé Luxembourg	Jacques Navadic	[13][18]
	RTL	André Torrent
Monaco	Télé Monte Carlo	José Sacré
Netherlands	Nederland 2	Willem Duys	[21]
	Hilversum 3	Jan van Veen
Norway	NRK	Bjørn Scheele	[22]
	NRK P1	Erik Heyerdahl
Portugal	RTP1	Eládio Clímaco	[13][23]
	RDP Programa 1	Amadeu Meireles
Spain	TVE1	Miguel de los Santos	[13][24]
Sweden	SR TV1	Ulf Elfving	[13][12]
	SR P3	Kent Finell	[12]
Switzerland	TV DRS	German: Theodor Haller	[13]
	TSR	French: Georges Hardy	[13][25]
	TSI	Italian: Enzo Guidi	[13]
	RSR 1	French: Robert Burnier	[26]
Turkey	Ankara Television	Bülend Özveren	[13]
	Radyo 3	Şebnem Savaşçı
United Kingdom	BBC1	Terry Wogan	[13][5][27]
	BBC Radio 2	Ray Moore	[5]
Non-participating countries
Algeria	ENTV	Unknown	[5]
Czechoslovakia	ČST	Unknown	[5]
East Germany	Deutscher Fernsehfunk	Unknown	[5]
Hong Kong	RTHK	Unknown	[5]
Hungary	RTV	Unknown	[5]
Iceland	Sjónvarpið	Ragna Ragnars	[5][28]
Japan	TBC	Unknown	[5]
Jordan	JRTV	Unknown	[5]
Morocco	TVM	Unknown	[5]
Poland	TVP	Unknown	[5]
Soviet Union	Soviet Central Television	Unknown	[5]
Tunisia	RTT	Unknown	[5]
United Arab Emirates	Dubai Radio and Colour Television	Unknown	[5]
Yugoslavia	TVB 2	Serbo-Croatian: Milovan Ilić	[5]
	TVZ 1	Serbo-Croatian: Oliver Mlakar
	TVL 1	Slovene: Tomaž Terček

References

External links

• Official website