The Netherlands was represented by Saskia and Serge, with the song "Tijd", at the

1971 Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest 1971 was the 16th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Dublin, Ireland, following the country's victory at the with the song "All Kinds of Everything" by Dana. Organised by the European Br ...

, which took place on 3 April in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

. The song was the winner of the Dutch national final for the contest, held on 24 February. Saskia and Serge were selected internally by broadcaster NOS as the 1971 performers; it is widely thought that this was done in response to the 1970 preselection in which the couple's song "Spinnewiel" was placed runner-up by the juries despite being the overwhelming favourite of the Dutch public.

Before Eurovision

Nationaal Songfestival 1971

The national final was held on 24 February 1971 at the NOS studios in

Hilversum Hilversum () is a city and municipality in the province of North Holland, Netherlands. Located in the heart of the Gooi, it is the largest urban centre in that area. It is surrounded by heathland, woods, meadows, lakes, and smaller towns. Hilvers ...

, hosted by Willy Dobbe. Saskia and Serge performed six songs and the winner was chosen by postcard voting; again it is believed that this method was employed so that there could be no complaints that the public's choice had been overruled by a handful of jury members.

At Eurovision

On the night of the final Saskia and Serge performed 14th in the running order, following

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

and preceding

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

. Saskia's performance was hampered by a microphone problem on the opening lines of the song, where her voice was inaudible and the audience and TV viewers heard loud

audio feedback Audio feedback (also known as acoustic feedback, simply as feedback) is a positive feedback situation which may occur when an acoustic path exists between an audio input (for example, a microphone or guitar pickup) and an audio output (for examp ...

. At the close of voting "Tijd" had received 85 points, placing the Netherlands joint 6th (with

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

) of the 18 entries. The Dutch conductor at the contest was

Dolf van der Linden David Gijsbert van der Linden (22 June 1915 – 30 January 1999), known as Dolf van der Linden, was a Dutch conductor of popular music with a reputation which extended beyond the borders of the Netherlands. Biography David Gijsbert van der Lind ...

for the 13th and last time (in total, he conducted 18 songs, including few entries from other countries that did not send their own conductors in the contests hosted by the Netherlands). Each country nominated two jury members, one below the age of 25 and the other above, who voted for their respective country by giving between one and five points to each song, except that representing their own country. All jury members were colocated at the venue in Dublin, and were brought on stage during the voting sequence to present their points. One of the Dutch jury members was Jos Cleber.

References

External links

Dutch Preselection 1971
{{Eurovision Song Contest 1971

1971 * The year 1971 had three partial solar eclipses ( February 25, July 22 and August 20) and two total lunar eclipses (February 10, and August 6). The world population increased by 2.1% this year, the highest increase in history. Events Ja ...

Countries in the Eurovision Song Contest 1971

Eurovision The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...