The country's only other top ten result was achieved in 1997 when Tanja Ribič performing "Zbudi se" placed tenth.

In 2019, "Sebi" performed by Zala Kralj and Gašper Šantl qualified to the final and placed fifteenth.

[2] The Slovenian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest has traditionally been selected through a national final entitled Evrovizijska Melodija (EMA), which has been produced with variable formats.

The third stage was the final, during which a three-member expert jury and public televoting selected two of the ten songs to proceed to EMA 2020.

An expert committee consisting of Maja Pinterič (social media influencer), Rebeka Tomc (social media influencer), Denis Živcec (journalist and Eurovision expert), Klemen Kopina (television presenter) and Bojan Cvjetićanin (singer-songwriter) selected eighteen artists and songs for the competition from the received submissions.

The duels stage of EMA FREŠ 2020 took place over three weeks between 4 and 22 November 2019, hosted by Bojan Cvjetićanin, who would later go on to represent Slovenia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 as lead singer of Joker Out, Klemen Kopina, Denis Živčec, Maja Pinterič and Rebeka Tomc.

The Second Chance round of EMA FREŠ 2020 took place over three weeks between 25 November and 6 December 2019, hosted by Bojan Cvjetićanin, Klemen Kopina, Denis Živčec, Maja Pinterič and Rebeka Tomc.

An expert committee consisting of Raiven (musician and singer), Mojca Menart (head of the publishing business of ZKP RTV SLO) and Jernej Vene (music editor for Radio Val 202) selected ten artists and songs for the competition from the received submissions.

[29][30] In 2020, it emerged that the Serbian pop star Jelena Karleuša had applied to EMA in 2020, but was not on the list of selected participants.

[31] At the end of 2020, she confirmed that she "had received an invitiation from Slovenian organizers to represent Slovenia at Eurovision 2020", and that she prepared the song "La bomba" featuring Pabllo Vittar for the occasion, but that it didn't sound the way she had intended.

[32] In 2023, she reconfirmed this, stating that the Spanish-English-Slovenian languaged song was written for Eurovision, but that she withdrew it due to "technical issues".

EMA 2020 took place on 22 February 2020 at the RTV Slovenija Studio 1 in Ljubljana, hosted by Klemen Slakonja.

An online backstage broadcast at RTV Slovenija's official website also occurred concurrently with the competition, which was hosted by Boštjan Gorenc, Anže Tomić and Eva Košak.

[35] According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big Five" (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) are required to qualify from one of two semi-finals in order to compete for the final; the top ten countries from each semi-final progress to the final.

On 28 January 2020, a special allocation draw was held which placed each country into one of the two semi-finals, as well as which half of the show they would perform in.