Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest 1980
| Eurovision Song Contest 1980 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Country |
 Netherlands | |||
| National selection | ||||
| Selection process | Internal Selection | |||
| Selected entrant | Maggie MacNeal | |||
| Selected song | "Amsterdam" | |||
| Finals performance | ||||
| Final result | 5th, 93 points | |||
| Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest | ||||
| ||||
The Netherlands was represented by Maggie MacNeal, with the song '"Amsterdam", at the 1980 Eurovision Song Contest, which took place in The Hague on 19 April. 1980 was one of only three years in Dutch Eurovision history (1961 and 2008 being the others) when both performer and song were chosen internally by broadcaster NOS. MacNeal had previously finished third in the 1974 Eurovision as part of duo Mouth and MacNeal.
At Eurovision
The 1980 contest was held in The Hague as the previous year's winners Israel had announced that they would not be participating, and 1979 runners-up Spain declined to host the event (as also, reportedly, did the BBC, the European Broadcasting Union's traditional fall-back choice when a winning nation could or would not host the following year). NOS had finally agreed to host at the same venue (the Congresgebouw) in which the 1976 contest had been held.
On the night of the final MacNeal performed 15th in the running order, following Portugal and preceding France. "Amsterdam" made a very strong start in the voting and was in the lead for the first five rounds, before fading away to finish the evening in 5th place with 93 points from 14 countries (including maximum 12s from Austria, France, Luxembourg and Turkey). The Dutch jury awarded its 12 points to Germany.[1]