Junior Eurovision Song Contest

Contents

Host

UK Heat:

Mark Durden-Smith and Tara Palmer-Tomkinson (2003)

Stephen Mulhern, Holly Willoughby and Michael Underwood (2004)

Michael Underwood and Nikki Sanderson (2005)

Co-hosts

Commentary:
Mark Durden-Smith and Tara Palmer-Tomkinson (2003)
Matt Brown (2004)
Michael Underwood (2005)
Ewan Spence (2013-)
Luke Fisher (2013, 2015-)
Ivan Ivanov (2015-)

Broadcast

Television:

ITV1, 6 September 2003 and 15 November 2003

ITV2, 4 September 2004, 20 November 2004, 3 September 2005 and 26 November 2005

junioreurovision.tv, 22 November 2008 to present

Radio:

Castle FM, 30 November 2013

K107/103 The Eye, 15 November 2014

Cotswold FM/Fun Kids, 21 November 2015 to present

Synopsis

In 2003, the EBU started doing a Junior version of the Eurovision Song Contest, which is held in November each year. It has surprisingly high production values, so high in fact that when ITV realised how much money it would cost to put it on they stepped out when it was their turn to host it. The winning country doesn't necessarily hold the next one (as apparently it would put too much pressure on the kids, as opposed to singing for the whole of Europe). There is an upper age limit to the contestants, and they have to write the lyrics and the melodies.

The first one rated so poorly on ITV (who bought the rights to it when the BBC declined) that the next two contests aired on ITV2, before being dropped altogether the following year. Despite not being broadcast on any UK TV channel, viewers in the UK can still watch the contest via a live webstream made available during the event.

The Junior contest came close to ending in 2012 when the show was beset by technical problems and really didn't work. Things changed from 2013, moving the focus up a few years from tweens to teens. The show returned to UK broadcast media, with Ewan Spence and Luke Fisher delivering the EBU commentary, rebroadcast on Castle FM in Edinburgh. The 2014 radio commentary was outsourced to Glasgow-based Radio Six International, and taken by community station K107 in Kirkcaldy.

Web links

Official site

Wikipedia entry

See also

A Song for Europe

Eurovision Song Contest

Weaver's Week reviews of 2005, 2014 and 2015

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