Netherlands in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2021

AVROTROS selected the Dutch representative through the televised national final Junior Songfestival that was held on 25 September 2021 at the RTM Stage, a part of the Rotterdam Ahoy, hosted by Romy Monteiro and Buddy Vedder.[4] The winner was determined through points given by a kids jury, a professional jury and public voting, each having equal weight. The kids jury consisted of Junior Songfestival 2020 winners Unity and finalists Robin de Haas and Jackie & Janae, and the professional jury consisted of Jeangu Macrooy, Emma Heesters and Rolf Sanchez.[5]

Following the 2020 edition of the contest, the submissions process had been opened for singers who want to represent the Netherlands in the 2021 contest.[6] Following a call for participants which closed in December, NPO Zapp revealed the list of singers who have made it through to the auditions round in January 2021.[7] The list of finalists was revealed on 4 June 2021.[8][9][10] The finalists were then grouped into four acts. These acts can be soloists, duos or groups. Each act then worked on their entry for the Junior Songfestival final, accompanied by professional songwriters.[11] The exact groupings of the acts was revealed a week later on the official Junior Songfestival YouTube channel.[11]

The final took place on 25 September 2021. Audience members were required to take a COVID-19 test before entering the auditorium.[16] During the online voting window, the finalists performed a common theme song titled "Let's Sing Together".[17] At the end of the show, Ayana, a Dutch singer of Japanese and British descent, was selected with the song "Mata Sugu Aō Ne". The final was watched by a total of 401,000 viewers, and was the third most-watched show on NPO3 the day of the broadcast.[18] Overall, the show had an average of 142,000 viewers with a share of 3.9%. The average number of viewers fell by 19,000 viewers compared to 2020, however, the market share increased by 0.2%.[18]

The same voting system that was introduced in the 2017 edition was used, where the results were determined by 50% online voting and 50% jury voting. Every country had a national jury that consisted of three music industry professionals and two children aged between 10 and 15 who were citizens of the country they represented. The rankings of those jurors were combined to make an overall top ten.[20]

The online voting consisted of two phases. The first phase of the online voting began on 17 December 2021 when a recap of all the rehearsal performances was shown on the contest's website Junioreurovision.tv before the viewers could vote. After this, voters also had the option to watch longer one-minute clips from each participant's rehearsal. This first round of voting ended on Sunday 17 December at 15:59 CET. The second phase of the online voting took place during the live show and began right after the last performance and was open for 15 minutes. International viewers were able vote for three songs.[21] They were also able to vote for their own country's song. These votes were then turned into points which were determined by the percentage of votes received. For example, if a song received 10% of the votes, it received 10% of the available points.

Points awarded to the Netherlands[22] Score Country 12 points 10 points 8 points 7 points 6 points 5 points 4 points  Italy 3 points  Ukraine 2 points 1 point  Kazakhstan  Serbia The Netherlands received 34 points from the online vote

Points awarded by the Netherlands[22] Score Country 12 points  France 10 points  Poland 8 points  Azerbaijan 7 points  Armenia 6 points  Italy 5 points  Georgia 4 points  Spain 3 points  Russia 2 points  Ukraine 1 point  Albania