Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest 2000
The Netherlands was represented by Linda Wagenmakers, with the song "No Goodbyes", at the 2000 Eurovision Song Contest, which took place in Stockholm on 13 May. Wagenmakers was the winner of the Dutch national final for the contest, held in Rotterdam on 27 February. Before Eurovision. Nationaal Songfestival 2000. The national final was held on 27 February 2000 in the Rotterdam Ahoy arena, hosted by Paul de Leeuw. Eight songs took part, with the winner being decided by a 50/50 split between televoting and twelve regional juries. Each jury awarded points to the  songs on the ranking scale 10-7-5-4-3-2-1-0. Televotes were assessed by taking the same number of points available to the juries (384) and allocating them "pro rata" according to the percentage of votes each song had received. The rounding up and down of televoting points to the nearest whole number resulted in a slight discrepancy, with only 381 televoting points being awarded in total. The voting turned out to be a one-horse race, with Wagenmakers receiving over twice the points of her closest rival, having been ranked first by eight of the twelve  juries and receiving over one third of the entire televote. At Eurovision. On the night of the final Wagenmakers performed second in the running order, following Israel and preceding the United Kingdom. Despite being one of the pre-contest favourites, at the close of voting "No Goodbyes" had received a disappointing 40 points from 11 countries, placing the Netherlands 13th of the 24 entries. One hour into the transmission of the contest, Dutch broadcaster NOS took the decision to take the programme off the air in order to bring viewers live news updates from Enschede, where some hours earlier a  huge explosion in a fireworks factory had devastated a section of the city and resulted in fatalities and serious injuries. A spokesman for NOS later stated that besides having a duty to keep their viewers informed of the current situation in Enschede, they felt it would have been inappropriate to continue with the broadcast of a frivolous light-entertainment programme at such a time. The suspension of transmission meant that the votes of the Dutch back-up jury were announced during the scoring by spokesperson Marlayne, as no televoting had taken place; the Dutch jury awarded its 12 points to  Turkey. The contest was later rebroadcast in full.