The Eurovision Song Contest 1978 was the 23rd edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

, following the country's victory at the with the song " L'Oiseau et l'Enfant" by

Marie Myriam Marie Myriam (born Myriam Lopes, 8 May 1957, Luluabourg, Belgian Congo, (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) is a French singer of Portuguese descent. Career Representing France, she won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1977 with '' L'oise ...

. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Télévision Française 1 (TF1), the contest was held at the Palais des Congrès on 22 April 1978 and was hosted by French television presenters Denise Fabre and Léon Zitrone. This was the first time that more than one presenter had hosted the contest as well as the first to have a male presenter since . In addition to hosting, the two presenters also served as commentators for France. Twenty countries participated, the highest number of competing countries in the history of the competition at the time. and both returned to the contest. Denmark had not participated since , 12 years before. The winner of the contest was with the song " A-Ba-Ni-Bi" by Izhar Cohen & the Alphabeta. Although 'A-Ba-Ni-Bi' is the correct title, French television mistakenly captioned on screen the song title as 'Ah-Bah-Nee-Bee'. The winning entry was a love song sung in the

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

equivalent of

Ubbi dubbi Ubbi dubbi is a language game spoken with the English language. Originating in America in the 17th century, it was popularized by the 1972–1978 PBS children's show '' Zoom''. When ''Zoom'' was revived in 1999 on PBS, Ubbi dubbi was again a fe ...

(the title is an expansion of the Hebrew word ''ani'' אני, meaning "I"). This was 's first Eurovision win, and it was also the first winning song to be performed in one of the

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigra ...

. Furthermore, it was also the only winning song to be conducted by a woman,

Nurit Hirsh Nurit Hirsh ( he, נורית הירש, b. Tel Aviv, August 13, 1942) is an Israeli composer, arranger and conductor who has written over a thousand Hebrew songs. Three of her most famous and widely known songs are '' Ba-Shanah ha-Ba'ah'' (''Next ...

. finished last for the fifth time, gaining the first ''nul points'' after the new voting system was implemented in .

Location

The event took place in

, the capital and largest city of

, 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 17th arrondissement of Paris (''XVIIe arrondissement'') is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, it is referred to as ''le dix-septième'' (; "the seventeenth"). The arrondissement, known as Batignol ...

. 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 Jane Mallory Birkin, OBE (born 14 December 1946) is an English-French singer and actress. She attained international fame and notability for her decade-long musical and romantic partnership with Serge Gainsbourg. She also had a prolific career ...

and Serge Gainsbourg. The Swedish participant 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 Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria t ...

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

, the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

and Japan.

Participating countries

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...

returned to the competition after having been absent for twelve years, while Turkey did so after missing out two years. This meant that, for the first time, the contest had twenty participating nations competing.

Conductors

Each performance had a conductor who directed the orchestra. * Noel Kelehan * Carsten Klouman * Nicola Samale *

Ossi Runne Ossi Runne (23 April 1927 – 5 November 2020) was a Finnish trumpeter, orchestra leader, composer, and record producer.Alain Goraguer * *

Alyn Ainsworth Alyn Ainsworth (24 August 1924 – 4 October 1990)
was a British musician, singer and conductor of light e ...

* * *

Harry van Hoof Harry van Hoof (born 16 March 1943) is a Dutch conductor, composer and music arranger. Van Hoof has written many successful productions to his name already, he has his own production company and he had his first success as an arranger with "Sof ...

Onno Tunç Ohannes Tunçboyacı, better known as Onno Tunç (December 20, 1948 – January 14, 1996), was a leading Armenian-Turkish musician, working mainly as a composer, arranger and a music producer. Tunç also played bass guitar and occasionally double ...

* * Yvon Rioland * Haris Andreadis * Helmer Olesen * Rolf Soja *

* *

Returning artists

Participants and results

Detailed voting results

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 1978 contest along with the spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country. #

John Skehan John Skehan (18 July 1922 – 18 November 1992) was a prolific broadcaster on RTÉ, radio and television, for four decades. Prior to joining RTÉ, Skehan served in the Irish Army, reaching the rank of captain during The Emergency. Skehan be ...

# # # Kaarina Pönniö # # Marc Menant # Matías Prats Luque # Colin Berry # Michel Stocker # André Hagon # Dick van Bommel # Meral Savcı # # Carole Chabrier # Niki Venega # Jens Dreyer # Jacques Harvey # # # Sven Lindahl

Broadcasts

Each national broadcaster also sent a commentator to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language. In addition to the participating countries, the contest was also reportedly broadcast in Algeria, Iceland, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia and Yugoslavia, in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and the Soviet Union via Intervision, and in Hong Kong, Japan and the United Arab Emirates.

Incidents

Israeli victory reactions

The Israeli 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 John Kennedy O'Connor (born 1964) is a television and radio broadcaster, author and entertainment commentator. He was born in North London, but is a naturalized citizen of the United States. He has written, reported and broadcast for numerous m ...

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,O'Connor, John Kennedy. The Eurovision Song Contest – The Official History. Carlton Books, UK. 2007 later announcing that the Belgian entry (which finished second) was the winner.

Notes

References

External links

* {{Portal bar, Music 1978 Music festivals in France 1978 in French television 1978 in Israel 1978 in Paris 1978 music festivals April 1978 events in Europe Events in Paris