| Eurovision Song Contest 1999 |
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The Eurovision Song Contest 1999 was the 44th after Carola in 1991 . This year the long-standing rule that each country had to sing in one of its own national languages was dropped, and it was decided that France , Germany , Spain and the United Kingdom , as the highest-paying European Broadcasting Union subscribers, would automatically be allowed to participate every year, irrespective of their five-year point average. Also, the requirement of an orchestra was made optional. The Israeli broadcaster chose not to use an orchestra, which meant that for the first time in the history of the contest, all entries would perform using a backing track. This change was criticized by two-time Eurovision winner Johnny Logan , who commented that the contest had turned into Karaoke . The favourite to win the contest this year was Iceland 's Selma , who performed '' All Out Of Luck '', a bouncy, upbeat song with a prophetic title, and the 13th song to be performed. Cyprus was also considered a challenger for Iceland , but ended up getting only 2 points (from the United Kingdom). When the voting began, it was a race between Iceland, Croatia , Germany and Sweden, with Iceland holding the lead throughout most of the voting. The votes from Bosnia And Herzegovina ended the suspense, giving Sweden 12 points and nothing to Iceland. Because Croatia's song used synthesized male backing voices, the country's score was reduced by a third to 79 for the purpose of calculating its five-year average to determine participation in future contests, though it was decided to leave its placement in the 1999 result unaffected. The interval act was the previous year’s winner Dana International , who performed her new song "Free", which caused some controversy in Israel because of the lyrics. Dana International also provided one of Eurovision's most memorable, if embarrassing, moments when she slipped backwards and took a spectacular fall while helping in presenting the winning trophy. The contest ended with all of the participants singing '' Hallelujah '', Israel’s winning song in 1979 . As the Russian broadcaster ORT had failed to send a participant to the 1998 Contest, they decided not to broadcast 1998's Contest in order to make strong comeback the next year. However, the rules of the Contest stated that only broadcasters that broadcast the 1998 Contest would be allowed to participate in the 1999 Contest, leaving Russia out for another year. Latvia initially wished to take part, but withdrew at a late stage due to financial problems. Hungary was offered the free spot but they declined to take it, so Portugal eventually got the opportunity to go to Jerusalem. RESULTS VOTING STRUCTURE Each country had a televote, where the top ten most voted-for songs were awarded the 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points, with the exceptions of Turkey and Bosnia & Herzegovina who used juries. After some thoroughly confusing thrills and spills in the early voting, with Lithuania awarding maximum points to the — for once — rank outsiders Ireland, the contest soon settled into a nip-and-tuck duel between Sweden and Iceland, but with Iceland more often than not holding a slight lead. The fortunes of Germany were more erratic - on a few occasions, their challenge seemed to be failing, only for a couple of high scores to haul them back to within striking distance of the leading pair. That appeared to be the case once again when the penultimate voting country, Bosnia and Herzegovina, handed ten points to the Germans. This momentarily distracted attention from the fact that the Balkan nation had not yet awarded any points to Sweden or Iceland, meaning that one of the two was bound to receive nothing. With Charlotte Nilsson of Sweden already having crept into a three-point lead at a crucial moment, the realisation quickly dawned that, while twelve points for Iceland would put them back into a commanding position, twelve points for Sweden would settle the contest in abrupt fashion. In the end it was Selma of Iceland who was 'all out of luck', while Sweden were taken to their heaven of being able to host the millennium edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. SCORE SHEET SPOKESPERSONS
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