French-language broadcaster RTBF was in charge of the selection of the Belgian entry for the 1978 Contest. Eight songs participated in the selection and the winner was chosen by a 12-member expert jury. The jury was chaired by Henri Billen and consisted of three members from SABAM, three journalists, three people in the radio industry, and three people in the television industry.[1][2]
'Avant-première Eurovision' was broadcast on 8 February 1978 at 20:00 CET until 20:30 CET on RTBF 1. The jury were then given two hours to vote, and the winner was announced in a short programme at 22:35 CET.[3] The voting was done in three rounds, in the first round three songs qualified to the second round. In the second round two songs qualified to the third and final round, where each jury member had one vote to give to either song.[2]
Jean Vallée was the winner of the national final with seven votes in the final round. He had previously represented Belgium in the 1970 contest in Amsterdam, where he had finished fifth. Another previous Belgian entrant Jacques Hustin (1974) also took part.[2]
On the night of the final Vallée performed 10th in the running order, following Switzerland and preceding the Netherlands. At the close of the voting "L'amour ça fait chanter la vie" had received 125 points with votes from all other participating countries apart from Denmark and Turkey, and including five first-place 12 points votes from France, Greece, Ireland, Monaco and the United Kingdom. This ranked Belgium second of the 20 competing countries, the highest position achieved by a Belgian entry in Eurovision to that date, which has since only been bettered by Sandra Kim's 1986 victory and matched by Urban Trad in 2003.[4] The Belgian jury awarded its 12 points to contest winners Israel.[5]
Belgium
