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The Eurovision Song Contest 1989 was the 34th edition of the
Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest (), often known simply as Eurovision, is an international Music competition, song competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) among its members since 1956. Each participating broadcaster ...
, held on 6 May 1989 in the in
Lausanne Lausanne ( , ; ; ) is the capital and largest List of towns in Switzerland, city of the Swiss French-speaking Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Vaud, in Switzerland. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway bet ...
, Switzerland. Organised by the
European Broadcasting Union The European Broadcasting Union (EBU; , UER) is an alliance of Public broadcasting, public service media organisations in countries within the European Broadcasting Area (EBA) or who are member states of the Council of Europe, members of the ...
(EBU) and host broadcaster (TSR) on behalf of the
Swiss Broadcasting Corporation The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (; ; ; ; SRG SSR) is the Swiss public broadcasting association, founded in 1931, the holding company of 24 radio and television channels. Headquartered in Bern, the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation is a non-pro ...
(SRG SSR), and presented by Jacques Deschenaux and Lolita Morena, the contest was held in Switzerland following the country's victory at the with the song "" by
Céline Dion Céline Marie Claudette Dion (born 30 March 1968) is a Canadian singer. Referred to as the " Queen of Power Ballads", Dion's powerful, technically skilled vocals and commercially successful works have had a significant impact on popular musi ...
. Twenty-two countries participated in the contest, with returning after a one-year absence. Among the participating artists were the two youngest artists to have ever participated in the contest, 12-year-old Gili Netanel and 11-year-old Nathalie Pâque representing and , respectively; the inclusion of the young performers led to some controversy in the run-up to the event, including calls for their exclusion from the contest, and although no action was taken by the organisers of this event it did result in a rule change for the . The winner was with the song " Rock Me", composed by Rajko Dujmić, written by Stevo Cvikić and performed by the group Riva. This was Yugoslavia's first contest victory in twenty-four attempts. The , , , and rounded out the top five positions; the United Kingdom and Denmark placed second and third respectively for a second consecutive year, and Austria finished in the top five for the first time since . gained their best result since , while and achieved their worst ever placings to date, placing eighteenth and twenty-second respectively, with Iceland ultimately earning '' nul points'' and coming last for the first time.


Location

The 1989 contest took place in
Lausanne Lausanne ( , ; ; ) is the capital and largest List of towns in Switzerland, city of the Swiss French-speaking Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Vaud, in Switzerland. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway bet ...
, Switzerland, following the country's victory at the with the song "" performed by
Céline Dion Céline Marie Claudette Dion (born 30 March 1968) is a Canadian singer. Referred to as the " Queen of Power Ballads", Dion's powerful, technically skilled vocals and commercially successful works have had a significant impact on popular musi ...
. It was the second time that Switzerland had hosted the event, following the of the contest held in 1956 in
Lugano Lugano ( , , ; ) is a city and municipality within the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland. It is the largest city in both Ticino and the Italian-speaking region of southern Switzerland. Lugano has a population () of , and an u ...
. The chosen venue was the , a convention and exhibition centre. The contest took place in the Hall 7 of the , also known as the , which was temporarily renamed in honour of Switzerland's first Eurovision winning artist. An audience of around 1,600 people could occupy the during the contest. Over a dozen cities were reported to have applied to host the contest, with Lausanne winning out due to its combination of a suitable production venue, logistical infrastructure availability, and proximity to an international airport.


Participants

Twenty-two countries participated in the 1989 contest, with the twenty-one countries from the previous year's event being joined by , returning after a one-year absence. For the first time, Switzerland sent an entry in Romansh, the smallest of Switzerland's four national languages. No artists competing in the 1989 contest had previously taken part as lead artists in previous events, however, two of the artists had previously performed in the contest in past editions for the same country: Justine Pelmelay had been one of the backing vocalists supporting the , and Marianna had also performed as a backing vocalist for . Additionally, Søren Bundgaard who had represented , , and , as a member of the duo
Hot Eyes Kirsten & Søren, known internationally as Hot Eyes, were a Danish singing duo consisting of Kirsten Siggaard Andersen (born 7 September 1954 in Slagelse) and Søren Bundgaard Nielsen (born 4 March 1956 in Glostrup). Biography Kirsten was brou ...
, was one of Birthe Kjær's backing performers in this year's event. For the first time since , the event featured two participating songs written by the same songwriters: both the and entries were written by
Dieter Bohlen Dieter Bohlen (; born Dieter Günter Bohlen on 7 February 1954) is a German songwriter, producer, singer and television personality. He first achieved fame as a member of the pop duo Modern Talking in the 1980s, and has since produced numerous G ...
and Joachim Horn-Bernges. The 1989 contest featured the youngest ever lead performers, in the form of 12-year-old and 11-year-old Nathalie Pâque representing and respectively. Their inclusion in the contest led to controversy and protest from some of the other competitors, who felt their young age should preclude them from the contest. As there were no existing rules regarding the age of performers, the two artists were allowed to compete, however, the controversy led to the introduction of an age restriction on performing artists for the .


Production

The Eurovision Song Contest 1989 was produced by the Swiss public broadcaster (TSR) on behalf of the
Swiss Broadcasting Corporation The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (; ; ; ; SRG SSR) is the Swiss public broadcasting association, founded in 1931, the holding company of 24 radio and television channels. Headquartered in Bern, the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation is a non-pro ...
(; ; SRG SSR). Raymond Zumsteg served as executive producer, Alain Bloch served as producer and director, Charles-André Grivet served as director, Paul Waelti served as designer, and Benoît Kaufman served as musical director leading an assembled orchestra of 55 musicians. A separate musical director could be nominated by each country to lead the orchestra during their performance, with the host musical director also available to conduct for those countries which did not nominate their own conductor. On behalf of the contest organisers, the
European Broadcasting Union The European Broadcasting Union (EBU; , UER) is an alliance of Public broadcasting, public service media organisations in countries within the European Broadcasting Area (EBA) or who are member states of the Council of Europe, members of the ...
(EBU), the event was overseen by Frank Naef as scrutineer. Following the confirmation of the twenty-two competing countries, the draw to determine the running order of the contest was held on 23 November 1988. Production details related to the contest were also shared on this date, including the contest's mascot and logo. The mascot, Cindy Aeschbach, an 11-year old girl from
Morges Morges (; , Plurale tantum, plural, probably Ablative (Latin), ablative, else dative; ) is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the Switzerland, Swiss Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Vaud and the seat of the Morges District, distri ...
, was chosen from among two hundred girls from schools in the Swiss region of to embody the character of
Heidi ''Heidi'' (; ) is a work of children's fiction published between 1880 and 1881 by Swiss author Johanna Spyri, originally published in two parts as ''Heidi: Her Years of Wandering and Learning'' () and ''Heidi: How She Used What She Learned'' ( ...
in the contest's opening sequence. The logo, designed by Fritz Aeschbach, is a representation of the
Matterhorn The , ; ; ; or ; ; . is a mountain of the Alps, straddling the Main chain of the Alps, main watershed and border between Italy and Switzerland. It is a large, near-symmetric pyramidal peak in the extended Monte Rosa area of the Pennine Alps, ...
created with
computer graphics Computer graphics deals with generating images and art with the aid of computers. Computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, digital art, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. ...
, constructed using contour lines to represent the strings of a
guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...
, and featuring a silhouette outline of
Lausanne Cathedral The Cathedral of Notre Dame of Lausanne is a Church architecture, church located in the city of Lausanne, in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. It is owned by the Evangelical Reformed Church of the Canton of Vaud. History Construction of the ...
at the base. The presenters of the contest were publicly revealed on 17 January 1989: the sports journalist and television presenter Jacques Deschenaux and the television presenter and Miss Switzerland 1982 Lolita Morena were chosen from among several candidates considered by TSR. Rehearsals for the participating artists began on 1 May 1989. Two technical rehearsals were conducted for each participating delegation in the week approaching the contest, with countries rehearsing in the order in which they would perform. The first rehearsals of 50 minutes were held on 1 and 2 May, followed by a press conference for each delegation and the accredited press. Each country's second rehearsals were held on 3 and 4 May and lasted 35 minutes total. Three dress rehearsals were held with all artists, held in the afternoon and evening of 5 May and in the afternoon of 6 May; all dress rehearsals were held in front of an audience, although for the afternoon rehearsal on 5 May, the acts were not required to be in their performance costumes. During the contest week each delegation also took part in recording sessions for the postcards, short films which served as an introduction to each country's entry, as well as providing an opportunity for transition between entries and allow stage crew to make changes on stage. Footage for the postcards were filmed between 1 and 4 May for the delegations, with the exception of the Swiss delegation which filmed for their postcard in the weeks leading up to the contest; delegations recorded for their postcards on one of the days in which they were not required to be present at the contest venue. Delegations were also invited to a number of special events during the contest week: on 1 May a welcome reception was hosted by the Council of States of the canton of
Vaud Vaud ( ; , ), more formally Canton of Vaud, is one of the Cantons of Switzerland, 26 cantons forming the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. It is composed of Subdivisions of the canton of Vaud, ten districts; its capital city is Lausanne. Its coat ...
and the municipality of Lausanne in the ballroom of the ; on 2 May, Céline Dion performed her first show on Swiss soil as part of her Incognito Tour at the ; a dinner cruise on Lake Geneva was organised for 3 May; and a reception on 5 May was organised by the tourist office of the canton of
Grisons The Grisons (; ) or Graubünden (),Names include: * ; *Romansh language, Romansh: ** ** ** ** ** **; * ; * ; * . See also list of European regions with alternative names#G, other names. more formally the Canton of the Grisons or the Canton ...
.


Format

Each participating broadcaster submitted one song, which was required to be no longer than three minutes in duration and performed in the language, or one of the languages, of the country which it represented. A maximum of six performers were allowed on stage during each country's performance. Each entry could utilise all or part of the live orchestra and could use instrumental-only
backing track A backing track is an audio recording on audiotape, CD or a digital recording medium or a MIDI recording of synthesized instruments, sometimes of purely rhythmic accompaniment, often of a rhythm section or other accompaniment parts that live m ...
s, however any backing tracks used could only include the sound of instruments featured on stage being mimed by the performers. The results of the 1989 contest were determined through the same scoring system as had first been introduced in : each country awarded twelve points to its favourite entry, followed by ten points to its second favourite, and then awarded points in decreasing value from eight to one for the remaining songs which featured in the country's top ten, with countries unable to vote for their own entry. The points awarded by each country were determined by an assembled jury of sixteen individuals, who were all required to be members of the public with no connection to the music industry, split evenly between men and women and by age. Each jury member voted in secret and awarded between one and ten votes to each participating song, excluding that from their own country and with no abstentions permitted. The votes of each member were collected following the country's performance and then tallied by the non-voting jury chairperson to determine the points to be awarded. In any cases where two or more songs in the top ten received the same number of votes, a show of hands by all jury members was used to determine the final placing. Partly due to the close result at the previous year's event, the tie-break procedure, to determine a single winner should two or more countries finish in first place with the same number of points, was modified. For the 1989 event and for future contents, an analysis of the tied countries' top marks would be conducted, with the country that received the most 12-point scores being declared the winner. If a tie for first place remained then the country with the most 10 points would be crowned the winner. Should two or more countries still remain tied for first place after analysing both 12- and 10-point scores then the tying countries would be declared joint winners.


Contest overview

The contest took place on 6 May 1989 at 21:00 ( CEST) with a duration of 3 hours and 10 minutes and was presented by Jacques Deschenaux and Lolita Morena. The contest opened with a seven minute film, directed by Jean-Marc Panchaud, highlighting modern Swiss landscapes and themes in juxtaposition with paintings by celebrated Swiss artists and starring Sylvie Aeschbach as
Heidi ''Heidi'' (; ) is a work of children's fiction published between 1880 and 1881 by Swiss author Johanna Spyri, originally published in two parts as ''Heidi: Her Years of Wandering and Learning'' () and ''Heidi: How She Used What She Learned'' ( ...
. This was followed by performances in the contest venue by the reigning Eurovision winner Célion Dion, who performed both her winning song from the 1988 contest "" and the premiere of her first English language single " Where Does My Heart Beat Now". The interval act was the stunt artist Guy Tell; modelling himself after the Swiss
folk hero A folk hero or national hero is a type of hero – real, fictional or mythology, mythological – with their name, personality and deeds embedded in the popular consciousness of a people, mentioned frequently in Folk music, folk songs, folk tales ...
William Tell William Tell (, ; ; ; ) is a legendary folk hero of Switzerland. He is known for shooting an apple off his son's head. According to the legend, Tell was an expert mountain climber and marksman with a crossbow who assassinated Albrecht Gessler, ...
, Guy Tell used high-powered
crossbow A crossbow is a ranged weapon using an Elasticity (physics), elastic launching device consisting of a Bow and arrow, bow-like assembly called a ''prod'', mounted horizontally on a main frame called a ''tiller'', which is hand-held in a similar f ...
s to pierce various targets with precision at distance. The climax of the performance featured sixteen crossbows being positioned to set off a chain reaction in sequence, with the arrow from the first crossbow hitting a target which set off the next crossbow, culminating in an arrow piercing an apple set above the head of the performer. Ultimately however, on the night of the contest itself, the final arrow missed the apple slightly by a few centimetres. The trophy awarded to the winners was presented at the end of the broadcast by Céline Dion and Sylvie Aeschbach. The winner was represented by the song " Rock Me", composed by Rajko Dujmić, written by Stevo Cvikić and performed by the band Riva. It was Yugoslavia's first Eurovision win on their twenty-fourth contest appearance, becoming the seventeenth nation to win the contest. It would also prove to be the country's only win, as the nation would begin to break into separate states two years later and would eventually participate for the last time in . It was the sixth time that the song which was performed last ended up winning the contest. The and placed second and third respectively for the second consecutive year, with the United Kingdom finishing in second place for the twelfth time in total. finished in the top five for the first time since , while achieved its best result since . achieved their worst result to date, and for the third consecutive year one of the participating countries failed to receive any points, on this occasion became the newest country to receive '' nul points'', their worst result in four years of participation. During the traditional winner's reprise performance, Riva sung the winning song entirely in English.


Spokespersons

Each participating broadcaster appointed a spokesperson, connected to the contest venue via
telephone line A telephone line or telephone circuit (or just line or circuit industrywide) is a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system. It is designed to reproduce speech of a quality that is understandable. It is the physical wire or oth ...
s and responsible for announcing, in English or French, the votes for its respective country. Known spokespersons at the 1989 contest are listed below. * Solveig Herlin * Erla Björk Skúladóttir * Eileen Dunne * Agneta Bolme Börjefors * Colin Berry


Detailed voting results

Jury voting was used to determine the points awarded by all countries. The announcement of the results from each country was conducted in the order in which they performed, with the spokespersons announcing their country's points in English or French in ascending order. The detailed breakdown of the points awarded by each country is listed in the tables below.


12 points

The below table summarises how the maximum 12 points were awarded from one country to another. The winning country is shown in bold. The United Kingdom received the maximum score of 12 points from five of the voting countries, with Yugoslavia receiving four sets of 12 points, Austria, Denmark and Sweden each receiving three sets of maximum scores, Greece receiving two sets of 12 points, and Cyprus and Italy receiving one maximum score each.


Broadcasts

Each participating broadcaster was required to relay the contest via its networks. Non-participating member broadcasters were also able to relay the contest as "passive participants". Broadcasters were able to send commentators to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language and to relay information about the artists and songs to their television viewers. These commentators were typically sent to the venue to report on the event, and were able to provide commentary from small booths constructed at the back of the venue. The contest had a estimated total audience of over 500 to 600 million viewers and listeners, with the contest reportedly broadcast on 35 channels in 30 countries. Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.


See also

* Eurovision Young Dancers 1989


Notes and references


Notes


References


Bibliography

* * * *


External links

* {{Eurovision Song Contest
1989 1989 was a turning point in political history with the "Revolutions of 1989" which ended communism in Eastern Bloc of Europe, starting in Poland and Hungary, with experiments in power-sharing coming to a head with the opening of the Berlin W ...
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