Junior Eurovision 2023: What We Know So Far (August 2023)
- Aug 29, 2023
- 17 min read
Updated: Sep 5, 2023
It's that time of year again, where nothing really happens in the fandom. The official term would be "off season". But of course, for us hardcore Eurovision fans, there is no end to the Eurovision season. And while for many people, Junior Eurovision is just a cute little footnote for the actual contest, for me and several others, we find it just as important as adult Eurovision. We don't have a huge amount of information at the moment, but various bits of information is slowly coming in. So let's take a look at what we know so far about Junior Eurovision 2023, five months out from the contest.
Junior Eurovision 2023
Host Country: France
It's actually a rather recent phenomenon that the winning country would then go on to host the upcoming contest. Previously we even had countries like Malta or Bulgaria host the contest, despite having never won the contest. Poland first did it in 2019, they did it again in 2020 (albeit remotely), and then France did it for the first time. After that of course we had Armenia win in Paris, and we went to Yerevan. Then France won in Yerevan, and immediately at the press conference, the French delegation expressed their interest in hosting the upcoming contest.
Strangely they were never officially confirmed as the host country even as a formality, until early April, when the host city was announced alongside the host country. Speaking of which...
Host City: Nice (Palais Nikaïa)
It had been rumoured that the initial host city choice in 2021 had been Nice rather than Paris. Presumably the French delegation did not want kids to go any further than Paris due to Covid concerns, so they held the contest in Paris instead. But this year the pandemic situation is of course much better, so we are finally going to the French Riviera. Although according to Eurofans from France, Nice is apparently a rather racist city. So if you don't look outwardly European, be careful if you plan on travelling there.
The Palais Nikaïa is a venue that can hold 9000 people. Would be small by adult Eurovision standards, but a relatively big venue by Junior standards. Incidentally, "Nikaïa" is the French transliteration of the Ancient Greek name of the city, so the name of the arena literally translates to "palace Nice".
Hosts: unknown
No real point in speculating this far out, but I reckon Carla will probably be involved again one way or another. And/or one of their more recent JESC entrants. Would be great to have Barbara Pravi as a host, but she's probably too busy writing their next JESC entry.
Date: 26th of November
Interesting to note that this is the first November contest since...2020. I thought it was longer ago than that, but Paris 2021 and Yerevan 2022 were both hosted in December, mid-December at that. It was hosted so late in the year that one way or another, these two contests tied a Christmas theme into the show. But this year, we seem to be returning to the norm of hosting the contest in late November as opposed to December. The last December contest before 2021 was 2012, and even then it was only the 1st of December. Paris was by far the latest contest in the year; the latest before then was 2007, when it was hosted on the 8th in Rotterdam.
Part of that decision to move back to November might have been driven by the fact that some of the participants in Yerevan got sick due to the cold and weren't able to perform at their best vocally. In particular, Sophie Lennon from Ireland and Freya Skye from the UK both suffered colds and sore throats. Fortunately Sophie was able to mostly recover and she gave a strong performance on the night, however Freya was not and many of the parts with high and/or falsetto notes had to be sung by the backing dancers, and the long note was replaced by a "let's go Junior Eurovision" shout. One wonders whether the UK would have won the contest, had Freya been able to properly sing. Certainly I still see people suggesting that to be the case. Even so, the UK did still win the televote. Regardless, it seems that this sickness was part of what caused them to move the contest back to where it had been in the year pre-2021.
Slogan: Heroes
This was revealed during the press conference on 10/5 in Liverpool, alongside a dramatic trailer. The French head of delegation, Alexandra Redde-Amiel, says that they "wanted it to be an immediate signal of good times". Also noteworthy that this is the first time the Eurovision heart is being used in the generic logo of JESC, as follows:
Time: 16:00 CET
I normally wouldn't put a section for this because it's relatively trivial, but there has been some confusion in the past few weeks on the show's timing. On the website of the Palais Nikaïa, they wrote that the contest would start at 20:00. This is in direct conflict with what the post on eurovision.tv wrote, which is 16:00, as it had been for basically every single year before then. To quote the post from the Eurovision website: "Junior Eurovision fans should clear their diaries for Sunday, 26 November at 16:00 CET, because that's when the Competition will take place in the host city, Nice". This is what was written on the Eurovision website as of last month, so I'd trust them rather than the website of the host arena. Some confusion in communication, it appears.
Rule Changes: "all performances must be carried out live"
This is what was written on the RTVE website when they announced the opening of casting applications. Many people have since interpreted this as requiring fully live vocals, however if you look at the direct next sentence after this, it says: "In addition, no processor will be allowed for ... full-screen insertion of video clips as part of stage performances."
Remember Poland last year? "To The Moon"? Where they had clips of Laura and the backing dancers in school uniforms? I think that's more what they're trying to ban, rather than backing vocals on the backing track. Plus given that kids more easily get nervous than adults, it would be beneficial actually to have backing vocals on the track. So when some people asked why they implemented this first in JESC rather than adult ESC, my answer is that they didn't implement it. They're implementing a ban on cutting to music videos during the live performance. If they were actually banning non-live vocals, they would most likely specify that in a separate clause.
Budget: unknown
Most likely lower than that of Yerevan though. Yerevan 2022 had a literal government working group set up for the show, with a budget almost reaching that of smaller-scale 2010s ADULT Eurovisions. Redde-Amiel didn't mention much in the way of budgeting, other than "different from Armenia 2022".
Steering Group: member changes
Like its equivalent in the adult contest, the Steering Group of JESC has seen some of its members replaced with new ones. In particular, Ekaterina Orlova from the Russian broadcaster was removed from the group after a year of suspension, with Melissa Hardinge of the BBC taking her place. The rest of the members remain unchanged, with AMPTV, AVROTROS, France Televisions, Rai, RTP and TVP represented in the group.
Non-participating Countries: Denmark, Norway, Sweden (SVT), Finland, Iceland, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Switzerland, Lithuania, Czechia, Slovakia, Kazakhstan, Austria, Luxembourg, Moldova, Belgium, Latvia, San Marino, Romania, Israel, Cyprus, Australia, Azerbaijan, Serbia
For most of these countries, the issue is with finances. However, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Switzerland, and Belgium have stated that they do not rule out either a return or a debut in the future. With VRT in fact, they explicitly said that they will consider it next year. Countries in italics had previously taken part in at least one of the past two editions of the contest.
Iceland was reported to be planning some sort of national final for Junior Eurovision, and was widely viewed to be the most likely debutant, but they didn't even broadcast Yerevan 2022. It remains to be seen whether they will broadcast Nice 2023, as they did with Paris 2021.
Perhaps noteworthy as well that the current Moldovan head of delegation is actually also the head of children's programming at the national broadcaster. Again, although they did not mention it in their statement, the issue seems to be with finances. We often say that Moldova at adult Eurovision is "5 euros and a dream", well, if their adult Eurovision budget is so low, then how would they be able to finance taking part in Junior?
Also Slovakia had inexplicably expressed interest in debuting in Junior Eurovision in 2019 and 2021, despite them simultaneously saying interest in Eurovision was low in the country. However, Slovakia will remain out of the contest at least this year.
People noted that since at least 2018, the EBU has been successful in getting the host country of next year's adult Eurovision to take part in Junior Eurovision this year. Portugal did JESC2017 (although they had been taking part before then), Israel did JESC2018, Netherlands did JESC2019 (they've taken part every single year), Italy did JESC2021, and the UK did JESC2022, as did Ukraine who are very active in JESC. Well, that streak ends this year. Despite a jury-favouring voting system and previously having done JESC up to 2014 (cf. Norway and Denmark up to 2005), SVT have said that they will NOT take part in Junior Eurovision in Nice. Of course this still leaves TV4, the other Swedish JESC broadcaster, free to do it, but at this point it's not super likely. I was talking to a Swedish Eurofan, and he said to me that SVT don't have much funding at the moment. This could have some implications for ESC2024, but I'll get to that in a separate blog post. For now, unless TV4 for some reason accepts the costs of participation, we aren't seeing Sweden in Nice. It's worth noting as well that while Sweden was in the contest, they had intermittently used a national selection for their entry, named "Lilla Melodifestivalen". One imagines that any return to the contest would likely involve the hosting of such an event, or at least when SVT is involved.
One standout country from that list is Kazakhstan. So far, they are the only country to withdraw from the contest, having taken part in Yerevan. It was being noted that interest in Eurovision seemed to be waning on the part of Khabar Agency (the Kazakh EBU associate member). They had broadcast several editions of adult Eurovision in the years prior, but they stopped doing that since 2022 and didn't broadcast Liverpool 2023 either. Prior to Yerevan 2022, officials at Khabar stated that their result in JESC2022 would have a big impact on whether they debut in Eurovision 2023. And of course this was their first time outside the top 10 - quite far outside the top 10 in fact. It's not known exactly why they decided to withdraw from the contest, with some people suggesting that they pulled a hissy fit after flopping in one contest, but their official statement mentioned "internal conditions" and "creating the best conditions for participation in the Competition in 2024" as their reasons for withdrawal. So it may be an issue of low viewership, lack of funding and/or reevaluating their strategy on how to stop sending ballads year after year. Regardless, they did state that they aim to broadcast the show from Nice, and we may well see them return (at least to the junior contest) in 2024.
Serbia, despite taking part in JESC in Yerevan, will not return to the contest. Officially, the reasoning is stated as financial constraints; however, observers noted that interest in the contest was extremely low in Serbia, with the number of applicants for casting usually not exceeding even a dozen. Furthermore, Serbia's results have not been stellar as of late, with the last time Serbia getting better than 10th place being 2015.
Azerbaijan wasn't in JESC2022 because, well, Armenia. But now it's back in France, and they were in France last time around, so it should be fine for them to participate again. On 24/6, Azerbaijani Eurovision fan site 12xal reported that Ictimai have not yet made a decision on participation, although said decision will be made "in the coming days". On 1/8 however, Vasif Mammadov, the Azerbaijani head of delegation, stated that Azerbaijan will not take part in the contest once again held in France, without giving any reasoning.
Returnees/debutants: unknown
As mentioned earlier, no Iceland this year. Although in my video of this, I did mention the Faroe Islands. I used Wales as an example, saying that the Welsh broadcaster, S4C, is also not in the EBU like the Faroese broadcaster KVF. It turns out that that's not correct. S4C is under the "United Kingdom Independent Broadcasting" group, or UKIB, alongside broadcasters like Channel Four, STV and ITV. Therefore the Welsh broadcaster is in the EBU (as is the Scottish one), and as I wrote elsewhere, permitting broadcasters of non-sovereign states to enter the EBU independent of their country, such as in the case of the Faroe Islands, would open a whole new can of worms that I think the EBU simply doesn't want to deal with right now. So tough luck to the Faroe Islands.
At this point, the only country which (to me) has a realistic prospect of debuting at the contest in Nice is Estonia. They are the only Baltic country to have never taken part in the contest, and had previously said that they do not participate due to lack of funding, but also do not rule out debuting in the future. ERR have not made any statements regarding Junior this year so far, and until they do, I would point to them as the most likely debutant at this point, after Iceland said no.
So TL;DR: Azerbaijan's gone, Estonia might debut, but even that's questionable. On a more positive note...
Participating Countries (so far): Albania, Armenia, France, Georgia (Anastasia Vasadze), Germany, Ireland, Italy, Malta (Yulan Law), Netherlands, North Macedonia (Tamara Grujevska), Poland, Portugal (Júlia Machado), Spain (Sandra Valero), Ukraine, United Kingdom
Alexandra Redde-Amiel, the French head of delegation and producer of JESC2023, said at the 10/5 press conference that at that time they did not have the exact number of countries taking part yet, but that they would know by the end of May or beginning of June. So the country list is already set in stone at this point.
With France and the UK, there's not much to talk about. They're almost certain to use an internal process, and there isn't much point in speculating who will be chosen since we usually don't get selection shortlists. France is probably using some song co-written by Barbara Pravi. She's like the Giga Kukhianidze of France at JESC.
RTSH confirmed on 5/7 that Albania will once again return to the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. Furthermore, they will also return to the national final "Junior Fest", but this year it will be influenced by the music creation platform "Talent", which encourages the creativity of young Albanian artists. On 20/7, submissions were opened, and will stay open until 25/8. The national final will take place on 20/9, although it is not known whether the show will be broadcast on that day or recorded and retransmitted later. Junior Fest 2022 was only broadcast 3(?) days after its recording. On 3/8, RTSH posted a new trailer for Junior Fest 2023. In addition to a logo change, a slogan was introduced for the first time - "Bëhu Hero I Vetvetes!", which translates to "be your own hero". The deadline was also pushed forward by 10 days, with submissions closing on 15/8, although it was confirmed that unfinished or demo tracks may now also be submitted to the broadcaster, which will be further worked on by a team at RTSH. An Instagram account @junior_fest_rtsh was also created for the JESC national final. The studios will now also open a few days before the national final, so contestants can have rehearsals. Contestants will also have their own vocal coaches.
On 4/7, AMPTV announced that they will once again select their next representative via an open call. Candidates can apply solo, as a duo, or a group not exceeding 6 members, but they must cover two songs. The deadline for submissions was 23/7, after which there will be two rounds of auditions, the second one being live and judged by a professional jury. Last year, the jury involved such names as David Tserunyan (longtime Armenian head of delegation) and Rosa Linn. This year, the committee consists of Tserunyan, other longtime members of the Armenian delegation, Sona Rubenyan (part of Garik & Sona, Garik being Garik Papoyan who co-hosted JESC2022 and wrote Aram MP3's Eurovision song), as well as Malena and her producer Tokionine, as revealed in an Instagram story on 4/8. On 8/8, it was reported that the pre-final selection stage was complete, and 20 young singers were selected to compete to represent Armenia in Nice. One particular name of note is Sati Sargsyan, who performed Tattoo by Loreen at the auditions with very strong vocals and is strongly speculated to be selected for JESC2023.
Anastasia Vasadze was selected through the national final named "Ranina". It concluded on 10/6, and the final consisted of 5 candidates. Anastasia's song will likely be released maybe a month before the contest, so around late October. Giga Kukhianidze will likely continue to be involved in the songwriting process, perhaps even Iru. For now, here's Vasadze's performance at the final of Ranina:
On 9/8, clips were posted online of Anastasia posing with a small disco ball for a photo shoot. Dua Lipa's "Dance The Night" was played as the background music in those clips, with some fans thus speculating that Anastasia's JESC song will be inspired by Dance The Night. A release date for the song is as yet still unknown.
Germany is also going internal, even though they had previously used a national final. In 2021, it was named "Junior ESC – Wer fährt nach Paris?", and featured 3 singers (but no jury vote). In 2020, it was named "Dein Song für Warschau", and featured 5 singers (but no public vote). On 25/5, KiKa (the German children's broadcaster) announced that for the first time they would select their candidate internally. It is not known when the candidate or their song will be announced. On 23/8, Eurovision.de revealed that instead of a direct internal selection or a televised national final, there will instead be an online vote for the German representative in Nice. The vote will take place on kika.de , and the five candidates will be announced on 8/9 upon which voting will also start. Voting will close on 17/9, the day after which the winning candidate (also decided by 50% jury voting) will be announced. Only people from Germany, Austria and Switzerland can vote however. The five candidates will be presented with performance videos, as well as a minute-long live singing clip of a demo. Only the winning candidate will receive a music video and proper studio version of the track.
Ireland is returning to their national final Junior Eurovision Eire, to be hosted by Irish-language broadcaster TG4. Initial submissions for the national final ended on 15/2, and the second round of submissions ended on 31/3. The national final will start to be broadcast on 3/9 at 20:30 Ireland time, and every Sunday thereafter, and there will be four qualifying rounds, one semi-final and a grand final on 8/10. On 21/8, it was announced that Louise Cantillon and Darragh O Caoimh will return as presenters of the national final, while Aindriu de Paor will be one of the judges, replacing Chris Greene. Niamh Ni Chroinin remains as a judge as well. As with the previous editions, contestants perform Irish cover versions of well-known songs.
Italy is returning to an internal selection. As reported on 7/7, the contest will this year be broadcast on Rai 2 as opposed to Rai 1. Mario Acampa will return as the commentator. The announcement of the Italian representative will be made in September, and will (apparently) be unrelated to "The Voice Kids". The choice will, according to Eurofestival News, likely be made by Antoniano di Bologna.
Malta returned to their national final MJESC, full name Malta Junior Eurovision Song Contest. The "Live Show" took place on 5/8, while the final took place on 12/8, with voting split into 20% televoting and 80% jury. This does not select the song however; the contestants take part in the national final by covering other songs, and the song for JESC2023 will then be selected through a open call to composers. On 3/7, the 24 semi-finalists were announced, 8 of which had already appeared previously on MJESC. These semi-finalists then went through two semi-finals which took take place on 22/7 and 29/7, but the finalists were only determined at the Live Show. On 12/8, the final took place, and Yulan Law was revealed to be the winner of the national final. Yulan had previously attempted to represent Malta in 2019, 2020 and 2021. Song submissions opened on 17/8, and will close on 31/8. The final selected song, which must be in English and/or Maltese, will be announced on 15/9.
The Netherlands will return to their longstanding national final Junior Songfestival. It will take place in Rotterdam on 23/9, to be hosted once again by Matheu (NL JESC2019) and Stefania (Greece 2021). The nine finalists were announced on 16/6, with all of them being 11 or older. The grouping was announced on 1/7, and there will be a solo singer (Duron), a duet (Sep & Jasmijn), and two trios (Flare, JOY!). Snippets of their songs were released on 14/7, and the first full song was posted on 18/7.
North Macedonia stands out for being the only country to take part in Junior Eurovision this year but not adult Eurovision. They have compensated for this by being the first country to announce their candidate for Nice: a 12-year-old named Tamara Grujevska. On 16/5, Tamara was announced as the Macedonian representative in Junior Eurovision 2023, and was selected after a series of live auditions. She has already won multiple awards and contests, such as the "Skoljkice" in Serbia. Cheryl Porter also provides her with online vocal coaching lessons. It is not known when Tamara's song will be released yet, however MRT have announced that Robert Bilbilov will be involved in writing the Macedonian entry. Bilbilov had previously co-written "Green Forces" (NM JESC2021) and "Proud" (NM ESC2019). For now, here is one of her songs:
Poland will return to their national final Szansa Na Sukces, which was previously used for adult Eurovision, but has served as the JESC national final since 2021. The casting for the national final took place on 13-14/5, where the participants of the three qualifying episodes were selected. The final of the national final will take place on 24/9. On 25/8, the semi-final jurors were revealed, and include Viki Gabor, Sara James, Roksana Wegiel, among others. The first semi-final takes place on 3/9.
Portuguese participation in the contest in Nice was officially announced on 20/6, in a short clip featuring Nicolas Alves in an Instagram post by the official Festival Da Cancao Instagram page. On 25/6, the final of The Voice Kids Portugal took place, and the winner was Júlia Machado. As a general rule, the coach of the selected TVK candidate will co-write the Portuguese JESC entry song. For example, Carolina Deslandes was Nicolas Alves' coach in The Voice Kids, and she then co-wrote "Anos 70". As Machado is young enough to take part in Junior Eurovision, her coach Fernando Daniel will now co-write the Portuguese JESC entry for 2023. Fernando Daniel had already previously been involved with Portugal at Junior Eurovision, as he had coached Simão Oliveira back in 2021 and went on to co-write "O Rapaz". In the meantime, here is one of Julia's performances at The Voice Kids:
It was revealed on 9/8 that the composers of Julia's song for JESC are Aurora Pinto, João Direitinho, Fernando Daniel and Twins (co-writer of Ai Coracão).
Spain once again used a casting process to select their candidate for Nice. The application opened on 30/5, and was going to close on 26/6. The song will be internally selected, and announced within 10 days of the casting. On 22/6, RTVE announced a deadline extension to 3/7. And on 7/7, it was announced by RTVE that Sandra Valero, an 11 year old from Valencia, will represent Spain in Nice. The casting video was also shared online, which featured very strong vocals from Valero singing "Parte De Tu Mundo" from the Spanish version of "The Little Mermaid". The song which Valero will sing in Nice has not yet been revealed, however Sofia Martin (Benidorm Fest 2023) tweeted that she has submitted two proposals to RTVE. It was announced on Twitter on 29/7 that RTVE had received more than 60 songs. Earlier, Valero also said that she would like to sing some sort of ballad that "has its rhythm". For now, here is Valero's casting:
On 17/6, UA:PBC opened submissions for the Ukrainian JESC national final. The submissions were open until 9/7. In contrast to previous years, young singers were not required to have their own song to apply for the preselection, and ones lacking a song will be given one from UA:PBC based on style and vocal qualities. Original songs must be at least 60% in the Ukrainian language. The national final will be organized in collaboration with producer Svitlana Tarabarova, who had been a JESC juror in 2017 and was also on the shortlist of potential jurors for ESC2023. On 13/7, the longlist of 10 was released, and the 5 finalists were chosen by a group of 3 music professionals (specifically Demchuk, Khayat, and Yevhen Khmara) after a series of live auditions on 17/7. The five finalists were announced on 24/7. The national final itself will be held online in October, same as last year. The jury for the national final will be determined by online voting, also as in 2022. On 30/7, UA:PBC announced that German Nenov will return as the creative director for the Ukrainian entry for 2023. He had fulfilled this role in the two years prior, and was also the general creative director for (adult) Eurovision 2023. On 15/8, UA:PBC uploaded a video, which revealed that three of the five finalists did not have their own song, and thus new songs were written in collaboration with the aforementioned producer Svitlana Tarabarova.
So that's all we know about Junior Eurovision 2023 so far as of August. Here's a video I did at the end of the month.
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