The
Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA), which won the contest in 1979, renounced its right to host the 1980 edition on 13 August 1979. The resignation was the result of failed negotiations between the broadcaster and the
Knesset, after lawmakers did not authorize extra budget allocations for another international production hosted by IBA in a short space of time. However, rumours later emerged that the resignation was in actuality due to a controversy related to the date of the contest, which had been provisionally confirmed for 19 April 1980, coinciding with the
Yom HaZikaron holiday. The issue itself became controversial in Israel, thanks to a translation error in several documents sent by the
European Broadcasting Union (EBU) to IBA at the end of 1979, when negotiations regarding the holding of the contest would begin. However, IBA tried to negotiate several times with the EBU the possibility of changing the date. However, none of them were fruitful and on 10 December 1979, the Israeli withdrawal was confirmed, following confirmation that the date chosen for the competition was 19 April 1980. Following these incidents, the EBU apologised to IBA, but even with their arguments, the date of the competition could not be changed, since the schedule for the participating broadcasters was tight and many of them already had their participation plans and programming schedules set up. This caused an atypical situation, because it was the only time in history that the country that had won the previous year could not defend its title. Upon learning of the decision taken by the IBA, the EBU sent a public apology, claiming that "the lack of employees with knowledge of the Hebrew language has placed it in a strained situation". The issue was resolved when the IBA publicly accepted the apologies and confirmed that regardless of what happened in the 1980 contest, it would return in 1981. Many years later,
Yair Lapid, son of the late
Tommy Lapid who was the general director of the IBA at the time, told in his father's biography, "that when his father discovered that holding the contest for two years in a row by IBA could result in unexpected bankruptcy. In December 1979, when this argument was presented to the other broadcasters, only NOS immediately accepted". As news arrived, the EBU triggered an emergency protocol and invited the
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) as reserve host broadcaster, something that had already happened four other times (, , , and ). However, this time alleging the same financial problems that delayed the contest, the BBC ended up not taking over production. The third option was (TVE), due to the fact that the Spanish entry had finished second the previous year. However, with the period of the
Spanish transition to democracy having already started, TVE also declined, despite the fact that the tourism board of the was already working in a bid with the Convention Center of
Torremolinos as the venue with the aim of harnessing the area's touristic potential. With negative responses from the reserve options, the EBU and the IBA decided to offer hosting rights to any of the other 15 broadcasters which had participated in the previous edition. 14 of them also gave negative responses to the situation, as no one expected the IBA to give up the rights. The situation only calmed down at the end of 1979, when (NOS) confirmed the date of the competition and its location, which was decided on 23 October. As it accepted the responsibility with little time to organize and produce the event, NOS allocated a smaller budget and reused many elements of the stage design from the contest. ==Production==