The contest was held at the Nederlands Congresgebouw on 19 April 1980 and was hosted by Dutch actress Marlous Fluitsma, although each song was introduced by a presenter appointed by each participating broadcaster (in some cases, this was the same person providing the commentary).

The resignation in turn was the result of failed negotiations between the broadcaster and the Israeli parliament, after lawmakers did not authorize extra budget allocations for another international production hosted by IBA in a short space of time.

[3][4] However, some days later rumours emerged that the resignation was actually the result of 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.

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".

However, along the period of Spanish transition to democracy already started, TVE also declined, despite the fact that the tourism board of the Costa del Sol was already working in a bid with the Convention Center of Torremolinos as the event's venue, trying to harness the area's touristic potential.

[9] As it accepted the responsibility with little time to organize and produce the contest, with a small budget and reusing practically the same structure used four years earlier, the Dutch broadcaster host spent just NLG 900.000 to hold the event.

During the live interval act performance of San Fernando by The Dutch Rhythm Steel and Show Band with the Lee Jackson dancers, Hans van Willigenburg intercut brief interviews with some of the participants backstage in the green room, speaking to the singers from Germany, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway, and the Netherlands, each in their own language.

For the voting sequence, Marlous Fluitsma used a different telephone to speak to each of the nineteen jury spokespersons, although the phones were simply props and were not connected.

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.

[23] The contest was also reportedly broadcast in Cyprus, Israel, Iceland, and Jordan; in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union via Intervision; and in Cuba, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates, with an estimated audience of 450 million viewers.

[24][25][26] The contest was reportedly broadcast via radio in countries including Belgium, Finland, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.