Eurovision Song Contest 1998
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The 43 Euro Vision Song Contest was held on 9 May 1998 at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham instead. Was presented the spectacle with 25 participating countries from British Euro Visions veteran Terry Wogan and Ulrika Jonsson.
Macedonia was represented for the first time after a participation in the year 1996 at the internal qualification of the EBU had failed. Belgium, Finland and Slovakia were on their last year forced break back again; Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, Russia and Iceland were not allowed to participate because of their poor average placement of the last 5 years. Italian broadcaster RAI had decided to stay away from the Euro Vision Song Contest in future.
Special
Two participants attended in advance for a huge media response: firstly, the German contribution of the self-styled pop - Master Guildo Horn, who with his song " has Guildo love you " and his - wanted to demonstrate exalted stage show to the world that even German - for the time Euro vision conditions have humor and can laugh at himself.
After his victory in the preliminary round was intensively discussed in the press, whether Guildo horn is a suitable representative of Germany or would rather stain the national prestige abroad. The bill horn finally went on: His Stefan Raab under the pseudonym " Alf Igel " written ( in allusion to the composer Ralph Siegel ) song ended on a venerable 7th place, beyond the Grand Prix was in Germany a huge boost in popularity. The real star of the evening and the most controversial participant in the Grand Prix history, however, was the singer of Israel, Dana International, who was a few years earlier another man. To mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel state television IBA had specially selected as representative of the country to show itself as a modern and open country, much to the annoyance of the ultra-Orthodox forces in the holy land. The message got through nonetheless: After an exciting scoring procedure, the singer was with her song "Diva" at the top of the scoring table.
The Swiss representative Gunvor made headlines after nude photos had surfaced from her. At the end she received for her song Let him zero points, then to Switzerland had to pause for the next competition.
The Euro Vision Song Contest 1998 was the last in which the participating countries had to sing in one of their official languages ; in the following year, the "Free -Language Rule" was introduced, can be sung after written in any language - apart from the introduction of televoting and the abolition of the orchestra, this was one of the measures for rejuvenation of the contest in the late 1990s.
Placements
The red countries were left out at the next competition because of their poor rankings in the last five years.
1 English is an official language alongside Maltese from Malta, Malta why could compete with English-language songs, as the songs were sung in their own language.
Scoring
For the first time identified almost all participating countries by televoting their scoring, except Ireland, Romania, Turkey and Hungary, which resorted to juries.
* The table is vertically ordered by the appearance order, horizontally to the chronological point Ever reading. During the live voting, Spain announced their voices wrong, the error was not corrected until after the competition. It has been "forgotten" that Germany got 12 points.
Map
- Participating countries
- Countries that had already participated in a previous ESC, but not in 1998