Belgium in the Eurovision Song Contest

20th century

Tonia's fourth-place at the 1966 contest remained Belgium's best result until Jean Vallée finished second in 1978. By 1980, Belgium had finished last in the contest five times, in 1961, 1962, 1965, 1973 and 1979.

Following good results for Stella (fourth in 1982) and Jacques Zegers (fifth in 1984), Belgium finished last for the sixth time in 1985. This was followed by Belgium's first (and only) Eurovision victory in 1986, when Sandra Kim won with her song "J'aime la vie" in Bergen, Norway. Although she claimed she was 15 years old, she was actually only 13, but was allowed to keep her victory. Currently the minimum age for participation is 16 and thus Sandra Kim will remain the youngest winner unless the age limit is lowered. By winning in 1986, Belgium became the last of the French-speaking countries to win the contest, as France, Luxembourg, Monaco and Switzerland all had won at least once before. Belgium scored an absolute record at the time, with Sandra Kim earning a never seen before amount of 176 points (that record remained until 1993, with Ireland scoring 187 points), an average of 9.26 points per voting nation. Kim received 77.2% of the maximum possible score, which, as of 2017, still ranks eighth among all Eurovision winners.

Belgium finished last for the seventh time at the 1993 contest, before achieving its only top ten result of the decade at the 1998 contest in Birmingham, where Mélanie Cohl finished sixth.

2000s

Belgium finished last in the contest for the eighth and (as of 2018) final time at the 2000 contest in Stockholm, before achieving its best result of the 21st century in 2003, where Urban Trad sang in an invented language and earned second place with 165 points, losing out to Turkey's Sertab Erener by just two points. Ishtar did the same in 2008, but finished 17th in the first semi-final, failing to qualify for the final. In the Eurovision Song Contest 2009, Belgium participated in the first semi-final on 12 May 2009, however they received just one point which came from Armenia and left them in second-last position.

2010–14

The 2010 entry for Belgium was Tom Dice, runner-up of the Belgian Flemish version of The X Factor in 2008. Dice was internally selected and announced by VRT on 25 November 2009.^[3][4] Tom Dice finished 1st in the first semi-final, allowing Belgium to participate to the final for the first time since the introduction of the semi-finals. He eventually finished 6th, Belgium's best result since 2003, and along with 1959, the best result ever for a Flemish entrant, since Belgum's all top 5 placings have been achieved by the representantives of the French-language broadcaster RTBF.^[5]

In 2011, the entry for Belgium was Witloof Bay. They didn't qualify for the finals, finishing 11th only one point behind Moldova, and thus 1 point behind the qualification.^[6]

Due to the good results and the Flemish population's choice, the VRT cancelled 'Eurosong' selection procedure and chose internally for 2012. For the Eurovision Song Contest 2012, they choose 17-year-old singer Iris but decided to let the public choose what song she would sing to represent Belgium. However, she didn't qualify after finishing 17th of 18 entrants in the first semi-final, scoring just 16 points which was the second lowest total of all the 36 semi-final entrants.^[7][8][9]

In 2013, Roberto Bellarosa, winner of The Voice Belgique, was chosen to represent Belgium for the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 in Malmö, Sweden. Bellarosa made it into the final and finished in 12th place.^[10]

In 2014, VRT organized a national final again^[11] and 30 participants were selected to enter the castings. Axel Hirsoux won the national final, with more than 50 percent of the televotes and four times (out of 7 international juries) the maximum of 12 points from the international juries. The song which represented Belgium was called 'Mother' and is a slow ballad.^[12] The song failed to qualify for the final, finishing 14th out of 16.

2015–present

In 2015, RTBF chose another "The Voice Belgique" participant Loïc Nottet, who came second in 2014. He represented Belgium with his song Rhythm Inside in the first semi-final of the competition. He managed to qualify and came second with 149 points. In the final Loïc finished fourth with 217 points. It was the best result for Belgium since 2003 and it was the highest amount of points ever awarded to Belgium. It was also the first time ever that an entry who finished fourth scored over 200 points.

On 26 May 2015 VRT confirmed that it would use Eurosong again as the national final for the 2016 competition. This time the show only had 5 participants. Eurosong 2016 would span over 3 shows, but only in the last show could people vote for the entry who would represent Belgium at the Eurovision Song Contest 2016. On 17 January 2016 Laura Tesoro won Eurosong 2016 with her song What's the Pressure, co-written by Belgian singer Selah Sue. Other contenders were Tom Frantzis, Adil Aarab, Amaryllis Uitterlinden and Astrid Destuyver.

Laura Tesoro performed last at the second semi-final on 12 May 2016, and qualified for the final by finishing in third place on 274 points. In the final on 14 May 2016, she performed first and placed tenth on 181 points.

The Wallonian broadcaster RTBF announced on 22 November 2016 that Ellie Delvaux would represent Belgium in the 2017 contest under her stage name Blanche. Blanche had also appeared on "The Voice Belgique", like her predecessors Roberto Bellarosa (2013), Axel Hirsoux (2014) and Loïc Nottet (2015). It will be the fifth consecutive year that the Belgian representative was a former "The Voice" contestant, Laura Tesoro (2016) appeared on the Flemish version "The Voice van Vlaanderen".

On 8 March 2017, the song "City Lights" was officially announced as the Belgian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2017. It was leaked the night before, on 7 March 2017, through Spotify. Competing in the first half of the first semi-final on 9 May 2017, Blanche qualified for the final on 13 May and performed in the second half of the show, finishing in fourth place. Blanche's fourth-place finish gave Belgium its third top six result of the decade. The only other decade where Belgium achieved this, was the 1980s.

During the Eurovision weekend of 2017, Peter Van de Veire announced that VRT would internally select the participant for 2018. On 28 September 2017, VRT announced Laura Groeseneken as the Belgian entrant during the talk show Van Gils & gasten, aired on Één.^[13][14] Although initially a favorite with bookmakers, "A Matter of Time" was the first Belgian entry since 2014 to not qualify for the final. She finished 12th with 91 points in the first semi-final.