The first episode of the Dutch selection for the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2026 has been released this afternoon.
The Netherlands’ search for Junior Eurovision 2026 is underway, as AVROTROS releases the first episode of Junior Songfestival 2026. The first show sees a recap of the auditions which were held on March 3 and 4, which determined the singers going through to the final round of auditions. Matheu Hinzen, who represented the Netherlands at Junior Eurovision 2019, returns as the host of the Dutch selection.
The final round of auditions took place on March 22 to select the singers going through to the Junior Songfestival 2026 final, and the results of the auditions will be revealed in an upcoming episode.
Meadow represented the Netherlands at Junior Eurovision 2025 with โFreezeโ. She placed 10th in the final scoring 93 points, the Netherlands were 10th with the jury and 13th with the public vote.
The Netherlands debuted at the first edition of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in 2003 and is the only country to have taken part in every edition to date. To date, the country has only won the competition once. Their only victory came in 2009, when Ralf Mackenbach performed โClick Clackโ, scoring a total of 121 points. This was just 5 points more than runners-up Armenia and Russia. The Netherlands narrowly lost the contest in 2011, when Rachel performed โTeenagerโ. She missed out on victory by 5 points. The Netherlandsโ worst result came in 2021 when Ayana finished in 19th place out of 19 competing countries.
