Countries Netherlands

The Netherlands won the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time in 1957 and won again in 1959, setting an early record of 2 victories in the first 4 years. After a record-setting 1950s, the new decade didn’t bring much success to the Dutch entries and, in fact, they came last 3 times until Lenny Kuhr finished as 1 of the 4 winners of the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest. De Troubadour was a folk-inspired ballad about the impact music had on the audiences in the Middle Ages.

ABBA won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest so we moved to Stockholm where the Netherlands were drawn to open the competition with the up-tempo Ding-A-Dong from the group Teach-In. The song won the contest, the first time that the show’s opener became the winner and one that put the Netherlands again at the leaderboard with 4 victories, tying with France at the time, who eventually overtook the Netherlands when they won for the fifth time in 1977.

In 1980, Dutch television stepped in to host the Eurovision Song Contest after Israel declined to stage the contest for the second year in a row. From 2005 to 2012, the Netherlands didn’t qualify for a single Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest. However, the Dutch fortunes in the Eurovision Song Contest have changed in recent years with notable results of Anouk who took the country to 9th place in the Grand Final in 2013 and The Common Linnets who were the runner-up in the 2014 Grand Final.

In 2019, Duncan Laurence changed the game by bringing the trophy home to the Netherlands after the country missed out on first place for 44 long years. Duncan received 492 points for his winning song Arcade.