A Song for Europe 1979 was planned to take place at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 8 March 1979.

After a day's rehearsals a strike by the BBC technicians stopped the show about an hour before transmission.

Audio recordings of the songs were voted on by 14 regional juries: Bristol, Bangor, Leeds, Norwich, Newcastle, Aberdeen, Birmingham, Belfast, Cardiff, Plymouth, Glasgow, Southampton, and London.

The Manchester votes were later verified and added to the scores, demoting the song "Call My Name" down to third place.

Wogan had originally been scheduled to provide the television commentary but opted out of going to Israel following comments he made of the 1978 winner "A-Ba-Ni-Bi" sounding like "I Wanna Be a Polar Bear".