Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2008


The Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2008 was the sixth edition of the annual Junior Eurovision Song Contest, which is the world's largest song contest for children. It was held at the "Spyros Kyprianou" Athletic Centre in Lemesos, Cyprus and hosted by Alex Michael and Sophia Paraskeva. It was won by the Georgian trio Bzikebi, with the song "Bzz..". This is the first song to win any Eurovision Song Contest in an imaginary language. Ukraine took 2nd place and Lithuania finished 3rd. Bzikebi also became the first group act to win Junior Eurovision.
The theme of the event was "Fun in the Sun", despite the fact that there were thunderstorms in Lemesos the day of the contest. The stage, which was designed by George Papadopoulos, was nominated for the prestigious international "Live Design Excellence Awards". The design is an abstract composition and consists of a round stage representing the island of Cyprus, real water along the front of the stage, two jetties, the waves breaking and moving away from the island and five sailing boats with oars. During the competitive performances, a beach ball with the design of the performer's national flag would be floating in the on-stage pond while they were performing.
For the contest, various changes to the rules were made. One was that adults could assist children to write the songs submitted to their national broadcaster; previously only children could write the songs, with no assistance from adults. Another change was only six people could be on stage during a performance, instead of eight. The most significant change, however, was only half of the vote was decided by the tele-voters. Before the 2008 contest tele-voters completely decided the whole result. The other half of the result was decided by a jury of adults and children.

Location

Bidding phase and host selection

On 27 May 2007, the Eurovision Steering Group decided to award CyBC of Cyprus the rights to host the 2008 contest, over bids from TV4 of Sweden and NTU of Ukraine, the latter of which would later host the 2009 edition.

Venue

The Spyros Kyprianou Athletic Center, also known as Palais des sports, is the biggest and the most imposing multi dynamic indoor athletic arena in Cyprus. It is named after the late president of Cyprus Spyros Kyprianou. This project was conducted by the Cyprus Sports Organisation and was constructed north of the city of Limassol near Kato Polemidia and by the side of Limassol - Troodos road. Construction of the project began in late 2002 and was completed at the end of 2005 at a total cost of approximately CY£8.5 million.

Format

On 10 September 2008, the hosts were announced as Alex Michael and Sophia Paraskeva; both presenters with Cypriot backgrounds.
On 13 October 2008, the draw of the running order took place live on CyBC 1. This involved drawing the first and last countries and performers, and then drawing countries into various 'pots' to decide when they would perform. The full running order was announced on 14 October 2008. The stage was constructed between 30 October 2008 and 14 November 2008.

Voting

As in all previous Eurovision Song Contests each country gave their top 10 countries songs points from 1 point for their 10th favourite song up until 8 points for their 3rd favourite song. Then 10 and 12 points were given for the second favorite and favorite respectively. But, the difference between this contest and other past contests is this is the first Eurovision Song Contest that implements a jury vote that counts for half of each countries vote.

Participating countries

Fifteen countries took part in the 2008 Junior Eurovision Song Contest: Armenia, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Macedonia, Georgia, Greece, Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, Romania, Russia, Serbia, and Ukraine., which had taken part twice since 2006 announced that it was no longer interested in the contest and withdrew along with, a founding country in 2003, which left because of other broadcasting plans during the time of the event. Portugal would return in after winning the adult contest for the first time that same year.
On the other hand, Israel and Bosnia and Herzegovina announced their intention to participate, but decided both to withdraw before the contest. Welsh language broadcaster S4C considered the possibility of participation, but in the end it was decided they would not to participate in the competition, because their debut was rejected because Wales isn't a sovereign state. Only the BBC has the exclusive right to represent the United Kingdom. Wales later debuted in the contest.
Azerbaijan announced its intention to take part also, but withdrew from the contest in early October. According to İctimai Televiziya və Radio Yayımları Şirkəti, the network was unable to select and prepare children for such a high scale event without proper help from other governmental structures and bodies. The broadcaster also confirmed payment of a fine to the EBU due to its late withdrawal. Poland had also considered participation but decided that it would not take part this year. The 2008 contest was the first Junior Eurovision Song Contest to have no debuting countries.

Final

For the first time, each country decided their votes through a 50% jury and 50% televoting system which decided their top ten songs. The only country that did not use this system was Ukraine who calculated their vote using a jury. Ukrainian broadcaster NTU opted not to broadcast the contest live, but to air it deferred on Sunday 23 November as Saturday 22 November was Holodomor Remembrance Day in the country.
DrawCountryArtistSongLanguagePlacePoints
01Mădălina and Andrada"Salvați planeta!"Romanian958
02Monica"Im Ergi Hnchyune" Armenian859
03Dasha, Alina & Karyna"Serdtse Belarusi" Russian, Belarusian686
04Mihail Puntov"Spit angel" Russian773
05Niki Yiannouchu"Kapoia nychta" Greek1419
06Bzikebi"Bzz.."Imaginary1154
07Oliver"Shut Up"Dutch1145
08Krastyana Krasteva"Edna mechta" Bulgarian1515
09Maja Mazić"Uvek kad u nebo pogledam" Serbian1237
10Daniel Testa"Junior Swing"English4100
11Marissa"1 dag"Dutch1327
12Viktoria Petryk"Matrosy" Ukrainian2135
13Eglė Jurgaitytė"Laiminga diena"Lithuanian3103
14Bobi Andonov"Prati mi SMS" Macedonian593
15Elena Mannouri and Charis Savva"Gioupi gia!" Greek1046

International broadcasts and voting

Voting and spokespersons

Participating countries

A live broadcast of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest was available worldwide via satellite through European streams such as TVRi, ERT World, ARMTV, RTS Sat and MKTV Sat. The official Eurovision Song Contest website also provided a live stream without commentary via the peer to peer medium Octoshape.

12 points

Below is a summary of all 12 points received:
N.ContestantVoting nation
8GeorgiaArmenia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Lithuania, Netherlands, Russia, Ukraine
3UkraineGeorgia, Malta, Romania
1LithuaniaSerbia
1RussiaBelarus
1CyprusGreece
1SerbiaMacedonia

Junior Eurovision Song Contest: Lemesos 2008, is a compilation album put together by the European Broadcasting Union, and was released by Universal Music Group on 10 October 2008. The album features all the songs from the 2008 contest, along with karaoke versions.