Four semifinals and one final, that's what it takes the Netherlands to select the winning song for the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest. The last Dutch victory was in 1975 with Teach-In's Ding-a-dong.

Like we reported earlier, semifinals take place on Thursday 20th and 27th january, 3rd and 10th February. Finally, the winning song will be chosen during the final on Sunday 13th February. All events take place in the Pepsi Stage, situated in Amsterdam. The candidates will be announced during a press conference on 17th December, when the participating songs and the participants will be introduced on Radio 2 between 14:00 and 17:00 CET.

Nance, who also did the honourable job this year, and a well-known Dutch radio host, were asked to host the semifinals and final of the Nationaal Songfestival 2005. The jury consists of journalist Cornald Maas, former Nationaal Songfestival host, singer and television personality Paul de Leeuw and Esther Hart, who represented the Netherlands in 2003 with One more night. Esther Hart is currently the vocal teacher of Popstars.

A selection committee already finalised the selection of 24 candidates – six per show. In every show, three candidates continue to the final. How these three are going to be selected and how televoting and jury points are going to be balanced is unknown yet.