The Albany Gazette - Dutch to resume Eurovision with new broadcaster

"The Dutch public broadcaster will once again take part in the Eurovision Song Contest from 2027 onwards with a Dutch participant. An independent team of experts will carefully guide the process surrounding the act," said the NPO (national public broadcaster).

In August, the AVROTROS broadcaster, which selected the Dutch entry and broadcast the show, had pulled out, saying the event can "no longer be considered neutral" given divisions over the Gaza war.

"The EBU (European Broadcasting Union that runs Eurovision) has since taken significant steps regarding the rules of the Eurovision Song Contest," said the NPO.

Acknowledging the contest provokes "mixed feelings" in the Netherlands, NPO said it had "explicitly asked the EBU to once again make the unifying character of the festival an important part of the event."

Jurre Bosman, NPO's director of media, said in a statement: "It is important that, as a public broadcaster, we remain part of this unifying European event at this moment in particular."

The contest has recently been hit by a wave of boycotts over Israel's participation, in protest at the country's deadly offensive in Gaza, which was sparked by Hamas militant attacks in 2023.

In August, organisers announced they were excluding any country involved in an armed conflict from hosting the competition.

But when it pulled out, AVROTROS had said those changes did "not provide sufficient confidence that the independent and neutral character of the Eurovision Song Contest has been restored".

- 'Bangaranga' -

Next year's contest, the world's biggest live televised music event, will take place on May 15 in Bulgaria's Black Sea city of Burgas.

It will be the first time the Balkan nation has hosted the contest, coming after Bulgarian singer Darina Yotova, known as Dara, won this year's contest in the Austrian capital Vienna with the catchy floor-filler "Bangaranga".

Since its launch in 1955, Eurovision has become the ultimate pop platform, catapulting Swedish icons ABBA to worldwide fame, as well as boosting the likes of Celine Dion, Cliff Richard and Olivia Newton-John.

The 2026 competition was watched by 131 million viewers, down 35 million on the year before after five countries boycotted it over Israel's participation.

The Netherlands, Iceland, Spain, Ireland and Slovenia all pulled out of the 2026 contest -- with the latter three refusing to broadcast the show at all.

The Dutch took part in the very first Eurovision Song Contest back in 1956, and have won on five occasions.

Their most recent winner was Duncan Laurence, whose song Arcade won the contest in 2019, going on to top charts globally.

It became the first Eurovision entry to reach one billion streams on Spotify, according to the Eurovision website.

(L.Thomas--TAG)