Public broadcaster AvroTros is planning to expand the selection committee which chooses the Dutch entry for the Eurovision song contest, following this year’s failure to make the final of the competition for the first time in eight years.

In addition, AvroTros says it will also welcome songs without a named artist and, if chosen, the committee will then select the artist at a later date. However, there are no plans to introduce a national song competition to find the best entry, as some have suggested.

Songwriters, artists, producers, and record labels can submit “authentic, stand-out and competitive songs” for “Europe’s greatest music show” between now and September 30.

Eurovision fans had called for change after Burning Daylight, performed by Mia Nicolai and Dion Cooper, failed to win enough votes to put the Dutch through to the final. The duo’s performance was also beset by problems and the song was altered in the run-up to the semi-final so they could sing it live.

As yet, the make-up of the new-look committee has not been made public but the new members will be “representatives of the music industry,” AvroTros said. It will be chaired, as the previous one, by Twan van de Nieuwenhuijzen

The 2024 Eurovision Song Contest takes place in Malmö in Sweden. 

Armin van Buuren, one of the world’s highest-earning DJs, was rejected by the Dutch Eurovision Song Festival committee two years ago.

Van Buuren told Shownieuws in June that he had submitted a song in 2021, together with singer Jaap Reesema. But the selection committee instead opted for relatively unknown singer-songwriter S10, and her entry De Diepte, which came 11th. 

The Netherlands has won Eurovision five times, most recently in 2019 when Duncan Lawrence took the top prize with Arcade.