PARIS 1978

After having won in London in 1977, French Television organised the 1978 Eurovision Song Contest in Paris on the 22nd of April. For the third time in Eurovision Song Contesthistory, the event was held in France. After having hosted the two previous contests in Cannes, French Television decided to host it in the capital Paris. A record of 20 countries participated this year. Denmark returned to the contest after 11 years of absence. Turkey also participated, and no country withdrew from the previous year. For the first time, the show was presented by two persons, Denise Fabre and Léon Zitrone. It was the first time contest was broadcast live in Dubai.

Israel won the song contest for the first time with the song A-Ba-Ni-Bi by Izhar Cohen & The Alphabeta. The country received five consecutive 12 point votes, which is still a Eurovision Song Contest record. Israel’s Head of Delegation, Rivka Michaeli, admitted though that they hadn’t been satisfied with Cohen’s song. Michaeli said it was only because all the other entries were “so absolutely awful” that Cohen had won the national heats. When it was obvious that Israel would win, the broadcasting company of Jordan stopped the live broadcast claiming they had technical difficulties. A day later they presented the song from Belgium – which came second – as the winning song.

Norway did not get a single vote, which was unique for the new voting system, but that fact would be repeated several times in the future. Big European stars participated in the contest this year, despite all achieving only moderate success. Italy’s Ricchi & Poveri, only ending up 12th, went on to have a major success in Europe as part of the later wave of Italo-Pop. The popular singer for Germany, Ireen Sheer, also took part for the second time and came 6th beating Spain’s disco queens Baccara who sang for Luxembourg into 7th position.

VOTING GRID: FINAL