Eurovision Song Contest 1999 Details Page


For all those people who are interesting in the Eurovision Song Contest which comes once a year, here are some details about the 1999 contest.

Links to other Pages. More Links at bottom of page.

Well done to Israel in winning the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest in Birmingham, United Kingdom. A lot of people may wonder why Israel is allow to enter, even though Israel is not in Europe!. They belong to the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) and that is why they can enter.

The 1999 contest was held at the Israeli Conference Center (Binyanei Ha'uma (English Translation - National buildings)) in Jerusalem, Israel on Saturday 29th of May 1999. It is the same location of the 1979 contest and the latest date that the Eurovision Song Contest has every held! The 1999 venue may be one of the smallest since Italy in 1991, only seating 2,000. This date will be the latest date ever held for the Eurovision Song Contest. The previous latest date was in 1956 when it all began in Switzerland on 24th May 1956. The earliest date to be held was in 1957 when Germany host the contest on 3rd March 1957.

The presenters for the 1999 contest were Dafna Dekel, Sigal Shachamon and Yigal Ravid. Due to the fact that all 3 can speak fluent English and French plus Yigal can also speak German, this means that this years contest was in English.

There were 23 countries entered. The following countries entered the 1999 Contest. Austria, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and United Kingdom.

Unlike previous Eurovision Song Contest, Israeli TV has decided not to have an orchestra in the contest. The rules now say that the producing TV company can decided if they want to provide an orchestra or not. Each country will have a backing tracks played, but must still sing the song live.

Latvia has pulled out of the contest as at 15 November 1998 and Portugal has been allowed to enter.

Finland, FYR Macedonia, Greece, Italy, Hungary, Luxembourg, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Switzerland are not entering the 1999 contest, due to low scores in the past 5 contest.

Because of the current rules that countries must be in at least every two years, Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Denmark, Iceland and Russia are guarantee to be in because there were not in the 1998 contest, that is if they wanted to. Of which, Russia decided not to enter.

From the year 2000 onwards, the four largest contributing to the Eurovision Song Contest, Germany, United Kingdom, France and Spain will be allow to enter the contest in any year, regarding to how many points each country will gain. There is a pattern here! The largest English speaking country in Eurovision is the UK, the largest French speaking country is France, then Spanish for Spain and German for Germany!

New for 1999. Each country will be allow to sing in any language as they like. At last, we can understand each other songs! It looks like about half of the countries will be singing in English. Countries stands more chances to winning if it was sung in English. See below to see what language each country will be singing.

10 Countries will sing in English, 1 in French, 1 in Bosnian, 1 in Croatian, 1 in Danish, 1 in Greek, 1 in Lithuanian, 1 in Polish, 1 in Portuguese, 1 in Spanish, 1 in Slovenian, 1 in Turkish and 2 countries attempts to sing in more that one language, which are Israel singing in English/Hebrew and German singing in German/English/Turkish.

On 17 November 1998, the drawing was broadcast live on Jerusalem's Manny Pe'er show - a popular weekly talk show. The results of the drawing is as follows. All entries and songs for the 1999 contest are shown below. English translation where available are in brackets.

Pos Country Song Artist Language
1. Lithuania Strazdas (Thrush) Aiste Smilgeviciute Lithuanian
2. Belgium Like the wind Vanessa Chinitor English
3. Spain No Quiero Escucharte (I Don't Want To Listen To You) Lydia Spanish
4. Croatia Marija Magdalena (Maria Magdalena) Doris Dragovic Croatian
5. United Kingdom Say It Again Precious English
6. Slovenia Se Tisoc Let (For a Thousand Years) Darja Svajger Slovenian
7. Turkey Dön Artik (Immortal Love) Tugba Önal & Grup Etnik Turkish
8. Norway Living my life without you Van Eijk English
9. Denmark Denne Gang (This Time I mean it oh baby) Trine Jepsen & Michael Teschl English
10. France Je veux donner ma voix (I want to give my voice) Nayah French
11. Netherlands One Good Reason Marlayne English
12. Poland Przytul mnie mocno (Hold Me Tight) Mietek Szczesniak Polish
13. Iceland All out of luck Selma Björnsdóttir English
14. Cyprus Tha nai erotas (It Will Be Love) Marlain Aggelidou Greek
15. Sweden Take Me To Your Heaven Charlotte Nilsson English
16. Portugal Como tudo começou (How It All Began) Rui Bandeira Portuguese
17. Ireland When You Need Me Bronagh and Karen Mullan English
18. Austria Reflections in Your Eyes Bobbie Singer English
19. Israel Yom holedet (Happy Birthday) Eden English/Hebrew
20. Malta Believe in Peace Times 3 English
21. Germany Reise Nach Jerusalem (Journey to Jerusalem) Sürpriz German/English/ Turkish
22. Bosnia Herzegovina Putnici (Passengers) Dino Dervishalidovic and Beatrice Bosnian
23. Estonia Diamond Of The Night Evelin Samuel & Camille English

The German Winner was disqualified as the song "Hör Den Kindern Einfach Zu (Just Listen To The Children)" sung by "Corinna May" was previous released before in which the EBU forbids it. Also, the Bosnia Winner was also disqualified on 17th April as the song "Starac I More (The Old Man and the Sea)" sung by group "Hari Mata Hari" has been recorded in Finland by Janne Hurme in 1996. It is now being replaced with "Dino Dervishalidovic and Beatrice" singing "Putnici".

The full jury score sheet can be downloaded from here, including the entries. Please click here for details.

The full contest results was on the internet at 12:45am (UK, BST), 1:45am (CET) on Sunday 30 May 1999, a day before my Birthday and this web site's 3rd Birthday! A new record of 1 hour and 30 minutes. The programme overran by 15 minutes. My previous record was 1 hour 40 minutes after the contest.

Just for the record, the 1999 contest will be the first one I have ever recorded in Stereo. The area I live in, doesn't broadcast in stereo so I have record it via Sky Digital Satellite. I have recorded (and still got) all the contest since 1990. Please, do not email me for copies!

For UK and Ireland Selection Details, please click here.

For the 1999 official rules (PDF Format), please click here.

Many thanks for all the votes over the months between 14 March 1999 to 23 May 1999. This chart indicated who could have won the 1999 contest. Cyprus was this web site's hot tip to win, and came 22nd place in the contest. Bosnia came second and 7th in the contest. Iceland was 3rd, the best Icelandic song for a long time and ended up runner-up in the contest. The after contest voting was completely different. Iceland came first and 2nd in the contest, Malta came second and 15th in the contest and Croatia ended up in 3rd place and came 4th in the contest.

Before Contest Voting Results
14 March 1999 to 23 May 1999

Internet
Position
Final
Position
Country Internet
Votes
1 22 Cyprus 165
2 7 Bosnia 143
3 2 Iceland 81
4 4 Croatia 45
5 12= United Kingdom 33
6 1 Sweden 30
7 5 Israel 25
8 3 Germany 23
9 8= Netherlands 23
10= 15 Malta 21
10= 16 Turkey 20
10= 23 Spain 20
13 17 Ireland 19
14= 19 France 14
14= 6 Estonia 14
14= 10 Austria 14
17= 14 Norway 12
17= 12= Belgium 12
17= 8= Denmark 12
20 18 Poland 10
21 11 Slovenia 7
22 20 Portugal 6
23 21 Lithuania 5
Number of Votes Cased 0757

After Contest Voting Results
30 May 1999 to 4 July 1999

Internet
Position
Final
Position
Country Internet
Votes
1 2 Iceland 39
2 15 Malta 31
3 4 Croatia 28
4 6 Estonia 23
5 22 Cyprus 22
6= 11 Slovenia 19
6= 8= Denmark 19
8= 14= Austria 18
8= 3 Germany 18
10 1 Sweden 17
11= 8= Netherlands 14
11= 12= Belgium 14
13 7 Bosnia 11
14= 18 Poland 10
14= 12= United Kingdom 10
16 21 Lithuania 7
17= 14 Norway 5
17= 23 Spain 5
17= 5 Israel 5
20 16 Turkey 4
21= 20 Portugal 2
21= 19 France 2
23 17 Ireland 1
Number of Votes Cased 0324

The full jury score sheet can be downloaded from here, including the entries. Please click here for details.


-----> To return to the 1999 page, click here <-----


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