Following Edsilia Rombley's failure to qualify to the final of the 2007 with the song "On Top of the World", the Dutch broadcaster revealed that the broadcaster would continue to internally select both the artist and song for the Eurovision Song Contest and that several artists had already been in contact with the broadcaster in regards to participating. Artists that were rumoured in Dutch media to be in talks with NOS included the band Bearforce1 and 1988 Dutch Eurovision entrant Gerard Joling. On 9 November 2007, Dutch media reported that NOS had selected singer Hind Laroussi to represent the Netherlands at the 2008 contest. Hind was confirmed as the Dutch entrant on 23 November 2007 during a press conference. Following the press conference, a song submission period was opened where composers were able to submit their songs in English.