The Eurovision Song Contest 1989 was the 34th edition held on 6 May 1989 at the Palais de Beaulieu in Lausanne, Switzerland following Celine Dion's victory in Dublin the previous year. It was hosted by Lolita Morena and Jacques Deschenaux.
An estimated 600 million viewers across Europe watched the contest, also airing in Canada and Japan for the first time.
Cyprus returned after a year's absence, and all 21 nations from 1988 returned to compete for the 1989 Grand Prix.
A change was introduced to the tiebreaker rules in this year's contest. Known as the "count-back" procedure, if two countries were tied for first place, the song with the most 12-point scores would win. If still tied, the 10-point scores would be taken into account and so on down to the 1-point scores. If still tied after that, both countries would be confirmed as joint winners.
Yugoslavia was the winner with the song Rock Me by the group Riva, beating the United Kingdom by 7 points. They would be the last new nation to win the contest until 2001.
Many countries did their best in 1989. Austria equaled their best result since their first win in 1966; Finland fell one place short of equaling their best entry before beating it in 2006. Despite the controversy surrounding the competitor's age, France did well finishing in 8th place. Greece placed inside the top ten for the first time since 1981, whilst Riva of Yugoslavia proved that the last spot was the luckiest to be, with the spot winning twice in the 1980s.
Incidents[]
France and Israel both picked young competitors to perform their songs. 12-year-olds Nathalie Pâque of France and Gili Netanel of Israel were considered "underage" by the other competitors, however, Israel's song Derech Hamelech was one of the favorites to win the contest, despite having the unlucky second place in the running order. Because of this, the EBU instigated the age rule the following year.
Riva, despite being the winners of the contest, were quite unpopular across Europe, with "Rock Me" failing to sell in many countries, and wasn't even released in some. Terry Wogan, the commentator for the United Kingdom, called it "the death knell" for the Contest. They did not appear at the 1990 contest held in Zagreb, as per custom the winner usually presents the trophy to their successor.
Gallery[]
Participants[]
| Draw | Country | Artist | Song | Language | Translation | Place | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 |  Italy
|
Anna Oxa & Fausto Leali | Avrei Voluto | Italian | I would have wanted | 9 | 56 |
| 02 |  Israel
|
Gili Netanel & Galit Burg | Derech Hamelech | Hebrew | The king's road | 12 | 50 |
| 03 |  Ireland
|
Kiev Connolly & The Missing Passengers | The Real Me | English | -- | 18 | 21 |
| 04 |  The Netherlands
|
Justine Pelmelay | Blijf zoals je bent | Dutch | Stay where you are | 15 | 45 |
| 05 |  Türkiye
|
Pan | Bana Bana | Turkish | To me, to me | 21 | 8 |
| 06 |  Belgium
|
Ingeborg | Door de wind | Dutch | Through the wind | 19 | 13 |
| 07 |  United Kingdom
|
Live Report | Why Do I Always Get It Wrong? | English | -- | 2 | 130 |
| 08 |  Norway
|
Britt Synnøve Johansen | Venners nærhet | Norwegian | The closeness of friends | 17 | 30 |
| 09 |  Portugal
|
Da Vinci | Conquistador | Portuguese | Conqueror | 16 | 39 |
| 10 |  Sweden
|
Tommy Nilsson | En Dag | Swedish | One day | 4 | 110 |
| 11 |  Luxembourg
|
Park Café | Monsieur | French | Mister | 20 | 11 |
| 12 |  Denmark
|
Birthe Kjær | Vi maler byen rød | Danish | We're painting the town red | 3 | 111 |
| 13 |  Austria
|
Thomas Forstner | Nur ein Lied | German | Just a song | 5 | 97 |
| 14 |  Finland
|
Anneli Saaristo | La Dolce Vita | Finnish | The sweet life | 7 | 76 |
| 15 |  France
|
Nathalie Pâque | J'ai volé la vie | French | I stole life | 8 | 60 |
| 16 |  Spain
|
Nina | Nacida para amar | Spanish | Born to love | 6 | 88 |
| 17 |  Cyprus
|
Fani Polymeri & Yiannis Savvidakis | Apopse As Vrethoume | Greek | Let's meet tonight | 11 | 51 |
| 18 |  Switzerland
|
Furbaz | Viver Senza Tei | Romansh | Live without you | 13 | 47 |
| 19 |  Greece
|
Mariana Efstratiou | To Dhiko Sou Asteri | Greek | Your own star | 9 | 56 |
| 20 |  Iceland
|
Daníel Ágúst Haraldsson | Það sem enginn sér | Icelandic | Where no one sees | 22 | 0 |
| 21 |  Germany
|
Nino de Angelo | Flieger | German | Flyers | 14 | 46 |
| 22 |  Yugoslavia
|
Riva | Rock Me | Croatian | -- | 1 | 137 |
Trivia[]
- This was the first year (excluding 1956) where there were no returning artists (though Mariana Efstratiou was a backing vocalist for Bang in 1987).
- Rock Me was the first winning song to be performed in a Slavic language.
- RAI almost didn't compete in this edition, because they failed to confirm before the EBU's set deadline. When they wanted to participate, the EBU accepted, but the Italian delegation had to accept the opening spot in the running order.
- This was the last contest in which Ossi Runne conducted for Finland.
- Nathalie Pâque participated when she was younger than 12, making her the youngest competitor ever.