Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest 1998

Originally, MTV had chosen singer Erika Zoltán to represent them at the contest with the song "Csak Neked!". She was reported to have won a national final held earlier in 1998. The reason for her withdrawal was apparently due to her being heavily pregnant at the time, however another explanation is that the song was released previously in 1991 which would have made it ineligible according to rules of the contest. Charlie was then chosen internally, despite not taking part in the national final.[1]

On the night of the final Charlie performed 11th in the running order, following Malta and preceding Slovenia. The song was in a blues style which had rarely been heard before at Eurovision, and had not been predicted to go down well with the televoting European public as it lacked any kind of memorable hook. At the close of voting "A holnap már nem lesz szomorú" had picked up only 4 points (2 from Norway and 1 each from France and Romania), placing Hungary 23rd of the 25 entries. The 1998 contest was the first to implement full televoting across Europe; however technical problems meant that the Hungarian televote failed, so the votes of the Hungarian back-up jury had to be used, with the jury awarding its 12 points to the Netherlands.[2]

• Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest
• Eurovision Song Contest 1998