While the Dutch broadcaster NOS keeps everything silent around the 32 participants for the Dutch preselection of the Nationaal Songfestival 2003, more and more names of participants come up in the press.

Dutch popular singer Gordon confirmed to enter the preselections with the song I'll be your voice. Gordon already participated in the Nationaal Songfestival in the late eighties.

Café owner Martin Frankena will participate in one of the four preselections with Zoeken door de lucht (Search trough the sky). Jeffrey Cuypers (picture) will sing Waar en wanneer (Where and when) and the Soullistics will sing We don't stop the music. The band Boulevard will sing Souvenirs and sillhouets, Kathy will sing I'm on fire. All these artists are relatively unknown in the Netherlands.

The song Blue skies are for free, which Paul de Leeuw would initially perform, will now be performed by Bert Heerink and two of the backing vocals of the popular singer René Froger. The song has been promoted every day on Radio 3FM, which caused anger among fans and critics because “the huge promotion of the song has an unfair influence on the voting”, one of them said to esctoday.com.