The Eurovision Song Contest 1990 was the 35th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, held on 5 May 1990 at the Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, and presented by Oliver Mlakar and Helga Vlahović. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Radiotelevizija Zagreb (RTV Zagreb) on behalf of Jugoslavenska radiotelevizija (JRT), who staged the event after winning the 1989 contest for Yugoslavia with the song "Rock Me" by the group Riva. It was the first contest to be held in the Balkans and the only to be held in a socialist state.
Broadcasters from twenty-two countries participated in the contest, with the same countries that had participated in 1989 returning. The 1990 contest was the first to implement an age limit on the competing performers, following criticism of the participation of two child performers in the previous year's event; all artists were now required to be 16 or older at the time of the contest.
The winner was Italy for the second time in its history, with the song "Insieme: 1992", written and performed by Toto Cutugno. France and Ireland shared second place, with Iceland and Spain rounding out the top five countries. France and Spain both placed within the top 5 for the first time in several years, while Iceland recorded its best ever result up to that point.
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Location
The 1990 contest took place in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, following the country's victory at the 1989 contest with the song "Rock Me", performed by the group Riva. It was the first time that Yugoslavia had hosted the contest, and marked the first time the contest had been held in the Balkans and the first edition to be held in a socialist state. The chosen venue was the Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall, named after the 19th-century Croatian composer Vatroslav Lisinski and whose main hall has an audience capacity of over 1,800. Constructed between 1963 and 1971, the venue underwent significant renovation ahead of hosting the Eurovision Song Contest. "Eurovision night club" was organised in the Ritz night club.
Participants
The same twenty-two countries which had participated in 1989 returned for the 1990 contest; this marked the first time since 1972 that no changes to the composition of the competing countries were made compared to the previous event.
Among the competing artists in this year's event was Ketil Stokkan, who had also represented Norway in 1986. Additionally, Kari Kuivalainen, who had represented Finland in 1986, returned as a backing vocalist for the Finnish group Beat, and the Slovene group Pepel in kri supported Italy's Toto Cutugno as backing vocalists, having previously represented Yugoslavia in 1975.
Many of the competing songs made reference to the changing political and social landscape across the European continent following revolutions in Central and Eastern European countries in 1989 and spoke of the future of the European continent. The Finnish and German entries referenced the increasing freedoms experienced by citizens in countries formerly under repressive regimes, the Austrian and Norwegian entries harked back to the fall of the Berlin Wall six months prior and the opening of frontiers along the Iron Curtain between east and west Europe, while the Italian entry made reference to the planned signing of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 which would form the European Union and lead to greater European integration. Other social and political messages were also present among the competing entries, including a message for racial harmony from France, an ode to the environment from the United Kingdom, and Belgium's Philippe Lafontaine presenting a love song for his Macedonian wife.
Production
The Eurovision Song Contest 1990 was produced by the Yugoslav public broadcaster Radiotelevizija Zagreb (RTV Zagreb) on behalf of Jugoslavenska radiotelevizija (JRT). Goran Radman served as executive producer, Nenad Puhovski served as director, Zvjezdana Kvočić served as designer, Seadeta Midžić served as musical director, and Igor Kuljerić served as conductor leading an assembled orchestra, with assistance from Stanko Selak. A separate musical director could be appointed by each participating delegation to lead the orchestra during its country's performance, with the host conductors also available to conduct for those which did not appoint their own conductor. On behalf of the contest organisers, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the event was overseen by Frank Naef as scrutineer. Over 400 journalists covered the event. The overall costs to organise the contest was about 6 million Convertible Yugoslav dinars (US$1,250,000 in 2026).
Following the confirmation of the twenty-two competing countries, the draw to determine the running order of the contest was held on 10 November 1989.
Rehearsals for the participating artists began on 30 April 1990. Two technical rehearsals were conducted for each participating delegation in the week approaching the contest, with countries rehearsing in the order in which they would perform. The first rehearsals, comprising 15 minutes for stage set-up and 35 minutes for performances, were held on 30 April and 1 May. Following these rehearsals each delegation was provided an opportunity to watch back recordings of its entrant's performances and engage in a press conference. Each country's second rehearsals were held on 2 and 3 May and lasted 35 minutes total, followed by another viewing session and press conference. Three dress rehearsals were held with all artists, two held in the afternoon and evening of 4 May and one final rehearsal in the afternoon of 5 May. An audience was present during the two dress rehearsals held on 4 May; the final dress rehearsal on 5 May was also recorded for use as a production standby for use should broadcast of the live event became impossible.
During the week of rehearsals, problems arose regarding the choice of presenters for the event. Oliver Mlakar and Helga Vlahović had been selected to host the contest, officially announced publicly in March 1990, however a second couple, Rene Medvešek and Dubravka Marković, had also been chosen as a reserve hosting pair. No agreement on which duo would host the contest had been settled going into the rehearsal week however, and screen tests of the voting sequence with the contest's executive supervisor Frank Naef were scheduled to determine which of the pairings would get the job. The ages of Mlakar and Vlahović, respectively 54 and 45 years old at the time, had also resulted in criticism from press outlets ahead of the contest. Subsequently, Mlakar and Vlahović walked away during rehearsals on the Wednesday before the event and announced their resignations as show hosts, leading to a hastily arranged press conference to announce Medvešek and Marković as their replacements. Meetings held behind closed doors over the following 24 hours however led to Mlakar and Vlahović returning to the contest as the show's presenters.
Format
Each participating broadcaster submitted one song, which was required to be no longer than three minutes in duration and performed in the language, or one of the languages, of the country which it represented. A maximum of six performers were allowed on stage during each country's performance. Each entry could utilise all or part of the live orchestra and could use instrumental-only backing tracks, however any backing tracks used could only include the sound of instruments featured on stage being mimed by the performers. The 1990 contest was the first to implement restrictions on the age of the performers, following criticism of the young age of the Israeli and French entrants in the previous year's contest, 12-year-old Gili Netanel and 11-year-old Nathalie Pâque respectively. For the 1990 event performers were required to be at least 16 years old in the year they competed in the event; although the United Kingdom had selected 15-year-old Emma as its representative, as she turned 16 later in the year she was still eligible to compete. The introduction of this rule, which was subsequently raised ahead of the 2027 contest to require artists to be at least 18 years old on the day of their first rehearsal, means that Sandra Kim, who won the contest for Belgium in 1986 at the age of 13, will hold the record of the youngest ever Eurovision winner in perpetuity, barring any further changes to the rule.
The results of the 1990 contest were determined through the same scoring system as had first been introduced in 1975: each country awarded twelve points to its favourite entry, followed by ten points to its second favourite, and then awarded points in decreasing value from eight to one for the remaining songs which featured in the country's top ten, with countries unable to vote for their own entry. The points awarded by each country were determined by an assembled jury of sixteen individuals, who were all required to be members of the public with no connection to the music industry, split evenly between men and women and by age. Each jury member voted in secret and awarded between one and ten votes to each participating song, excluding that from their own country and with no abstentions permitted. The votes of each member were collected following the country's performance and then tallied by the non-voting jury chairperson to determine the points to be awarded. In any cases where two or more songs in the top ten received the same number of votes, a show of hands by all jury members was used to determine the final placing.
Contest overview
The contest took place on 5 May 1990 at 21:00 (CEST) with a duration of 2 hours and 47 minutes and was presented by Oliver Mlakar and Helga Vlahović.
The contest was opened with a pre-recorded film entitled Zagreb: City of Music, which showcased various locations in Zagreb and featured performances of various musical styles and genres. Another pre-recorded film featured during the interval between the competing entries and the voting sequence; entitled Yugoslav Changes, which highlighted the various cultures, landscapes, cuisines and industries within Yugoslavia. The trophy awarded to the winners was presented at the end of the broadcast by the contest's executive producer Goran Radman.
The contest's first entry suffered from a technical incident. The conductor of the Spanish entry was unable to hear the backing track, as the sound engineers had failed to raise the volume of the tape, and could not cue the orchestra to commence on time. When the volume was eventually raised the track was already partway through the song, meaning the orchestra and performers were out of sync with the tape, resulting in the two Salazar sisters of Azúcar Moreno leaving the stage as the backing tape continued to play. The tape was ultimately reset and the performance restarted with no further issues.
The winner was Italy represented by the song "Insieme: 1992", written and performed by Toto Cutugno. It was Italy's second win in the contest, following its first victory in 1964. At 46 years old Cutugno became the oldest Eurovision winner at that point. France achieved its first top 5 placing since 1981, placing equal second with Ireland, while Iceland's fourth place finish was the country's best ever result to that point. Spain also achieved its best finish since 1984, placing fifth. The 1990 contest marks the last time that the future "Big Five" countries all placed within the top 10: alongside Italy's first place, France's equal second place and Spain's fifth place finish, the United Kingdom placed sixth and Germany placed ninth.
Spokespersons
Each participating broadcaster appointed a spokesperson, connected to the contest venue via telephone lines and responsible for announcing, in English or French, the votes for its respective country. Known spokespersons at the 1990 contest are listed below.
Cyprus – Anna Partelidou
Finland – Solveig Herlin
Ireland – Eileen Dunne
Netherlands – Joop van Os
Sweden – Jan Ellerås
United Kingdom – Colin Berry
Detailed voting results
Jury voting was used to determine the points awarded by all countries. The announcement of the results from each country was conducted in the order in which they performed, with the spokespersons announcing their country's points in English or French in ascending order. The detailed breakdown of the points awarded by each country is listed in the tables below.
12 points
The below table summarises how the maximum 12 points were awarded from one country to another. The winning country is shown in bold. France received the maximum score of 12 points from six of the voting countries, with Italy receiving three sets of 12 points, Iceland, Ireland, Switzerland and Yugoslavia receiving two sets of maximum scores each, and Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain and the United Kingdom each receiving one maximum score.
Broadcasts
Each participating broadcaster was required to relay the contest via its networks. Non-participating member broadcasters were also able to relay the contest as "passive participants". Broadcasters were able to send commentators to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language and to relay information about the artists and songs to their television viewers. These commentators were typically sent to the venue to report on the event, and were able to provide commentary from small booths constructed at the back of the venue.
The contest was reportedly broadcast in 37 countries, with a number of non-participating broadcasting countries name-checked by Helga Vlahović during the event, specifically Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Japan, Poland, Romania, South Korea, and the Soviet Union. The contest was also reportedly intended to be broadcast in Tunisia as well as other countries in Africa and South America. Reports at the time indicated that the estimated global audience could be as high as 600 million viewers, with Vlahović also mentioning that the contest could be seen by as many as one billion people.
Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.
Notes and references
Bibliography
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