The Eurovision Song Contest 1998 was the 43rd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, held on 9 May 1998 at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham, United Kingdom, and presented by Terry Wogan and Ulrika Jonsson. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), who staged the event after winning the for the with the song "Love Shine a Light" by Katrina and the Waves.
Broadcasters from twenty-five countries participated in the contest. Six participating countries in the 1997 edition were absent, with , , , and relegated due to achieving the lowest average points totals over the previous five contests and actively choosing not to participate. These countries were replaced by in its first contest appearance, and previously relegated and absent countries , , , and .
The winner was with the song "Diva", composed by Svika Pick, written by Yoav Ginai and performed by Dana International. The , , the , and rounded out the top five. Dana International was a winning artist; however, her participation for Israel was controversial among sections of Israeli society and resulted in opposition and death threats against her in the run-up to the contest.
It was the first contest in which the results were determined predominantly through televoting, and would become the last contest in which all participants were required to perform in the language of their country and the last to feature an orchestra and live music accompaniment for the competing entries.
Location
The 1998 contest took place in Birmingham, the United Kingdom, following the country's victory at the with the song "Love Shine a Light", performed by Katrina and the Waves. This was the first contest to take place outside the host nation's capital city since the in Millstreet. It was the eighth time that the United Kingdom had hosted the contestsetting a new contest recordwith the nation having previously hosted the contest in London in , , and , in Edinburgh in , in Brighton in and in Harrogate in . The selected venue was the National Indoor Arena, a sporting venue and indoor arena opened in 1991 which prior to the contest had previously hosted the 1993 IBF Badminton World Championships and 1995 World Netball Championships, as well as being the principal venue for the recording of UK television programme Gladiators.
Many cities across the United Kingdom expressed interest in hosting the contest, the first to be held in the country in sixteen years, with venues in Aberdeen, Belfast, Bournemouth, Brighton, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Harrogate, Inverness, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield being considered. Following visits by the production team to each city, Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, London and Manchester were shortlisted as potential host cities, and Birmingham's National Indoor Arena was subsequently announced as the host venue on 8 August 1997.
Participants
Per the rules of the contest twenty-five countries were allowed to participate in the event. participated in the contest for the first time, having previously applied to enter the but failing to progress from that edition's qualifying round; due to the then-ongoing Macedonia naming dispute with Greece, the nation participated under the provisional reference "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" or its shortened form "FYR Macedonia". , , , , and made a return to the contest, replacing , , , , and , which were relegated following the previous year's contest, and which decided against entering the event. Italy would not return to the contest again until 2011.
Among the performers at this year's contest were five representatives who had previously competed as lead artists in past editions. Two artists returned as lead artists in the 1998 contest: Danijela had previously represented as a member of the group Magazin; and José Cid, a member of Alma Lusa, had represented . Additionally, three artists who had previously competed as lead artists at Eurovision returned as backing performers for their respective countries at this year's event: José María Guzmán, who had represented as a member of the group Cadillac, was a backing singer for Mikel Herzog; Egon Egemann, who had represented , performed on stage as violinist for Gunvor; and Paul Harrington, who won the contest for with Charlie McGettigan, providing backing vocals for Dawn Martin.
+ Eurovision Song Contest 1998 participants Country Broadcaster Artist Song Language Songwriter(s) Conductor RTBF Mélanie Cohl "" French Philippe Swan HRT Danijela "" Croatian Petar Grašo CyBC Michael Hajiyanni "" () Greek Costas Cacogiannis ETV Koit Toome "" Estonian Heiki Vahar YLE Edea "" Finnish Olli Ahvenlahti Marie Line "" French Martin Koch NDR Guildo Horn "" German Stefan Raab Stefan Raab ERT Thalassa "" () Greek MTV Charlie "" Hungarian Miklós Malek RTÉ Dawn Martin "Is Always Over Now" English Gerry Morgan Noel Kelehan IBA Dana International "Diva" () Hebrew MRT Vlado Janevski "" () Macedonian Aleksandar Džambazov PBS Chiara "The One That I Love" English NOS Edsilia "" Dutch Dick Bakker NRK Lars A. Fredriksen "" Norwegian Geir Langslet TVP Sixteen "" Polish RTP Alma Lusa "" Portuguese José Cid TVR Mălina Olinescu "" Romanian Adrian Romcescu STV Katarína Hasprová "" Slovak Vladimír Valovič RTVSLO Vili Resnik "" Slovene Mojmir Sepe TVE Mikel Herzog "" Spanish Alberto Estébanez SVT Jill Johnson "" Swedish Anders Berglund SRG SSR Gunvor "" German TRT Tüzmen "" Turkish Ümit Eroğlu BBC Imaani "Where Are You?" English James McMillan
Qualification Due to the high number of countries wishing to enter the contest a relegation system was introduced in in order to reduce the number of countries which could compete in each year's contest. Any relegated countries would be able to return the following year, thus allowing all countries the opportunity to compete in at least one in every two editions. The relegation rules introduced for the 1997 contest were again utilised ahead of the 1998 contest, based on each country's average points total in previous contests. The twenty-five participants were made up of the previous year's winning country and host nation, the eighteen countries which had the highest average points total over the preceding four contests, and any eligible countries which did not compete in the 1997 contest. In cases where the average was identical between two or more countries the total number of points scored in the most recent contest determined the final order.
Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, , Iceland and Russia were therefore excluded from participating in the 1998 contest; however, after Italy declined to participate Germany was subsequently provided a reprieve and allowed to enter. The calculations used to determine the countries relegated for the 1998 contest are outlined in the table below.
Table key
+ Calculation of average points to determine qualification for the 1998 contest Rank Country Average Yearly Point Totals 1 155.20 187 226 44 162 157 2 ‡ 121.40 164 63 76 77 227 3 91.60 120 76 148 114 0 4 80.40 121 74 94 18 95 5 79.50 45 114 6 75.20 69 97 76 68 66 7 74.60 89 48 100 100 36 8 66.50 166 15 31 54 9 63.40 17 51 79 72 98 10 61.40 58 17 119 17 96 11 59.33 2 94 82 12 54.67 122 3 39 13 54.20 31 27 91 98 24 14 52.25 10 21 57 121 15 50.20 64 44 68 36 39 16 47.50 148 15 22 5 17 46.00 60 73 5 92 0 18 44.75 92 4 78 5 19 † 42.50 4 81 20 42.25 9 84 16 60 21 42.25 18 128 1 22 22 42.00 9 92 25 23 40.00 70 17 33 24 39.60 32 19 67 68 12 25 38.20 42 49 31 51 18 26 23.00 27 39 14 13 22 27 † 17.00 15 19 28 † 14.00 14 29 † 13.33 20 11 9 30 † 11.00 3 8 22 – † –
Production The Eurovision Song Contest 1998 was produced by the British public broadcaster British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Kevin Bishop served as executive producer, Guy Freeman served as producer, Geoff Posner served as director, Andrew Howe-Davies served as designer, and Martin Koch served as musical director, leading the 60-piece BBC Concert Orchestra and arranging and orchestrating the music for the opening and closing sequences and the interval act. On behalf of the contest organisers, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the event was overseen by Christine Marchal-Ortiz as scrutineer.
Construction within the National Indoor Arena began on 19 April 1998 to build out the stage and orchestral area for the contest, as well as creating space for the green room, the dressing rooms, the press centre and accreditation area, and small rooms for use by each country's individual commentators. Although the arena could hold up to 13,000 people, the assembled audience during the contest was limited to around 4,500, with tickets for the dress rehearsal and live show awarded by ballot. The contest organisers also engaged with fan groups, and tickets in the front rows of the arena were distributed among these groups for the first time.
The green room was situated behind the stage, and was designed to resemble a nightclub. The arena featured three large video screens to enable the audience to follow the voting, and video walls were also constructed for use on stage, in the press centre and the green room. A 400-seat auditorium for press conferences and 38 booths for journalists equipped with phone lines were installed within the press centre, and 40 commentary boxes were constructed in the arena to accommodate the teams from the various broadcasters, with 28 built for television and 12 for radio. Much of the press centre facilities constructed for the contest were subsequently retained and augmented for use during the 24th G8 summit held in Birmingham the following week.
Orchestral rehearsals and rehearsals of the main elements of the interval act took place on 2 and 3 May, with rehearsals for the competing countries beginning on 4 May. The first rehearsals for each country, lasting 40 minutes in total followed by a 20 minute press conference, took place on 4 and 5 May, with second rehearsals for each country taking place on 6 and 7 May and lasting 30 minutes. Three dress rehearsals were held on 8 and 9 May, with an audience in attendance during the evening dress rehearsal on 8 May, which was also recorded for use in case of problems during the live contest that resulted in the broadcast being suspended. Stand-in studios were also prepared in Studio 4 of BBC Television Centre, London and in the Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham in case of an emergency at the National Indoor Arena that resulted in evacuation.
Presenters
The Swedish-British television presenter and model Ulrika Jonsson and the Irish television and radio presenter Terry Wogan were the presenters of the 1998 contest. Wogan had previously provided television and radio commentary on the BBC since 1971, and performed this role once again for the contest's broadcast on BBC One from a separate commentary booth erected behind the stage in addition to his role as the contest presenter.
The draw to the determine the running order, held on 13 November 1997 in the National Indoor Arena, was compered by Wogan and Katrina Leskanich, lead vocalist of the 1997 contest winners Katrina and the Waves.
Conductors For those countries which opted to utilise the orchestra during their performance a separate musical director could be nominated to lead the orchestra, with the host musical director, Martin Koch, also conducting for those countries which did not nominate their own conductor.