The country has missed only four contests, twice because the dates coincided with Remembrance of the Dead (1985 and 1991), and twice because of being relegated due to poor results the previous year (1995 and 2002).

The Netherlands has won the contest five times, with "Net als toen" performed by Corry Brokken (1957), "Een beetje" by Teddy Scholten (1959), "De troubadour" by Lenny Kuhr in a four-way tie (1969), "Ding-a-dong" by Teach-In (1975), and "Arcade" by Duncan Laurence (2019).

The country's other top five results are "Als het om de liefde gaat" by Sandra and Andres fourth (1972), "I See a Star" by Mouth and MacNeal third (1974), "Amsterdam" by Maggie MacNeal fifth (1980), "Rechtop in de wind" by Marcha fifth (1987), "Hemel en aarde" by Edsilia Rombley fourth (1998), and "Calm After the Storm" by The Common Linnets second (2014).

Nederlandse Televisie Stichting (NTS) was a full member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), thus eligible to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest.

After a year, success came fast as "Net als toen" from Brokken won the 1957 contest in Frankfurt, receiving points from every single country.

In 1959 in Cannes, the Netherlands was represented by Teddy Scholten with "Een beetje", a song about being unfaithful in a relationship.

Milly Scott was the first black performer to participate in 1966, Ireland and the United Kingdom both gave "Fernando en Filippo" 1 point, having the Netherlands finish 15th.

Dolf van der Linden refused to go to Madrid and the song was conducted by Frans de Kok.

The last two countries brought the Netherlands, France, the United Kingdom, and Spain tied in first place with 18 points.

Sandra and Andres's "Als het om de liefde gaat" was the first entry where the audience clapped along.

The country slumped to three non top-tens after, "De mallemolen" with Heddy Lester, 12th, "'t Is OK" with Harmony, 13th, and Xandra, the pseudonym of Sandra Reemer, with "Colorado", finishing 12th.

A year later, The Millionaires's "Fantasie eiland" controversially missed the ticket because expert juries sent Bill van Dijk with "Jij en ik".

The English trio Tight Fit covered the song as Fantasy Island, which became a top 5 hit in the UK.

At the 1987 Nationaal Songfestival, Marcha performed all six competing songs, and "Rechtop in de wind" was selected.

Justine Pelmelay, a backing singer for "Shangri-La", won the selection in 1989 with the song "Blijf zoals je bent", which finished 15th.

In 1990, The country was represented by sisters Maywood with the power ballad "Ik wil alles met je delen", again finishing 15th.

In 1997, Mrs. Einstein, which the German television jokingly announced as the Dutch Spice Grandmothers, represented the Netherlands with "Niemand heeft nog tijd" finishing tied 22nd with five points.

The highest-scoring entry that period was Edsilia Rombley's "Hemel en aarde": it even led the voting for some time.

The year after, Sieneke was selected through a national final with "Ik ben verliefd (Sha-la-lie)" sung in Dutch - she also failed to qualify.

The Netherlands missed out on the final eight years in a row, making it the country with the longest period of non-qualification in the contest.

Anouk chose the song "Birds" and the background singers herself and went on to break the Netherlands' long non-qualification streak, subsequently giving the country its first top 10 placing since 1999.

The year following Anouk, The Common Linnets (consisting of singers Ilse DeLange and Waylon) with "Calm After the Storm" won their semi-final and finished in second place overall.

This qualification streak was ended the following year, when Mia Nicolai and Dion Cooper failed to advance from the semi-finals.

But at 22:00 (UTC+2) on 13 May, the broadcast of the Eurovision final was halted as an explosion in a fireworks factory destroyed parts of a suburb in Enschede a few hours before.

[4] The points awarded by the Netherlands were taken from the back-up jury vote, as there was no televote after the program was cut short.

The delegation, whose size can greatly vary, includes a head of press, the performers, songwriters, composers, and backing vocalists, among others.

[23] Over the years Dutch commentary has been provided by several experienced radio and television presenters, including Willem Duys, Ivo Niehe, Pim Jacobs, Ati Dijckmeester, and Paul de Leeuw.

On 29 June 2010, Maas was sacked as commentator after posting insults on Twitter about Sieneke, Joran van der Sloot and the Party for Freedom (PVV).