Eurovision Song Contest 1989


The Eurovision Song Contest 1989 was the 34th annual Eurovision Song Contest. It was held on 6 May 1989 in Lausanne, Switzerland, after Celine Dion's victory in Dublin the previous year. The program was presented by Lolita Morena and Jacques Deschenaux. Riva, representing Yugoslavia, won with the song "Rock Me". This was the only victory for Yugoslavia as a unified state. Furthermore, this was the first victory for one of the Balkan countries and this was the first winning song to be performed in one of the Slavic languages.

Location

is a city in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and the capital and biggest city of the canton of Vaud. The city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva. It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura Mountains to its north-west. Lausanne is located northeast of Geneva.
Palais de Beaulieu, a convention and exhibition centre, was chosen to host the 1989 contest. The centre includes the 1,844 seat Théâtre de Beaulieu concert, dance and theatre hall. Inaugurated in 1954, the Théâtre de Beaulieu is the biggest theatre in Switzerland. The Eurovision Song Contest took place in the Hall 6 + 7 of the Palais, to the right from the main hall and the theatre.

Contest overview

The United Kingdom's Ray Caruana, lead singer with Live Report was outspoken about coming second to what he considered a much less worthy song. They had been defeated by 7 points.
Two of the performers, Nathalie Pâque and Gili Natanael were respectively 11 and 12 years old at their time of competing. Due to bad publicity surrounding their participation, the European Broadcasting Union introduced the rule stating no performer is allowed to take part before the year of their 16th birthday.
The previous year's winner, Celine Dion, opened the show with a mimed performance of her winning song and a mimed performance of her first English-language single, "Where Does My Heart Beat Now". The song became a top ten hit in the US a year later - effectively launching her into international success.

Returning artists

Only one artist returned this year to represent their country for a second time. Marianna Efstratiou of Greece was a backing vocalist of the Greek band "Bang" in 1987.

Conductors

Each performance had a conductor who led the orchestra. Unlike in most years and like in 1988, the conductors took their bows after each song, not before.
DrawCountryArtistSongLanguagePlacePoints
01Anna Oxa & Fausto Leali"Avrei voluto"Italian956
02Gili Netanel & Galit Burg-Michael"Derekh Hamelekh" Hebrew1250
03Kiev Connolly & The Missing Passengers"The Real Me"English1821
04Justine Pelmelay"Blijf zoals je bent"Dutch1545
05Pan"Bana Bana"Turkish215
06Ingeborg"Door de wind"Dutch1913
07Live Report"Why Do I Always Get it Wrong?"English2130
08Britt Synnøve Johansen"Venners nærhet"Norwegian1730
09Da Vinci"Conquistador"Portuguese1639
10Tommy Nilsson"En dag"Swedish4110
11Park Café"Monsieur"French208
12Birthe Kjær"Vi maler byen rød"Danish3111
13Thomas Forstner"Nur ein Lied"German597
14Anneli Saaristo"La dolce vita"Finnish776
15Nathalie Pâque"J'ai volé la vie"French860
16Nina"Nacida para amar"Spanish688
17Fani Polymeri & Yiannis Savvidakis"Apopse as vrethume" Greek1151
18Furbaz"Viver senza tei"Romansh1347
19Marianna Efstratiou"To diko sou asteri" Greek956
20Daníel Ágúst Haraldsson"Það sem enginn sér"Icelandic220
21Nino de Angelo"Flieger"German1446
22Riva"Rock Me"Serbo-Croatian1137

Voting structure

Each country had a jury who awarded 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 point for their top ten songs. There was also a change of rule in case of a tie; prior to 1989, both countries would perform their songs again until a final decision was made. However from 1989 onwards, if there was a tie at the end of the voting, the country that scored the most twelves would be declared the winner. If there was still a tie, the winner was the country that scored the most tens. And if there still was a tie after that, both countries would be declared joint winners.

Score sheet

12 points

Below is a summary of all 12 points in the final:
№ContestantVoting nation
5United KingdomFrance, Germany, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal
4YugoslaviaIreland, Israel, Turkey, United Kingdom
3AustriaBelgium, Greece, Italy
3DenmarkFinland, Netherlands, Sweden
3SwedenAustria, Denmark, Yugoslavia
2GreeceCyprus, Switzerland
1CyprusIceland
1ItalySpain

Commentators

Television

Participating countries

Some participating countries did not provide radio broadcasts for the event; the ones who did are listed below.