User:Lewis R/New JESC article

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What you see below is a complete rewrite of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest article. At present, it has a cleanup tag, lots of useless info, and bad grammar; so I'm starting from scratch and writing the whole thing again, using the Eurovision Song Contest article, a featured article, as a kind of template for it. When it's finished (which, as of yet, it isn't) I'll put it in place of the current JESC article. - Lewis R « т · c » 15:48, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

More refs to be added

The Junior Eurovision Song Contest logo is a singing girl, which features as part of the logo of each annual Contest. Having been in use since the first Contest in 2003, it is to be replaced for the 2007 Contest.^[1]

The Junior Eurovision Song Contest is an annual competition for singers, songwriters and composers aged between eight and fifteen years, based on its counterpart for those of sixteen years or older, the Eurovision Song Contest. As in the adult Contest, all active members of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), who organise and produce the Contest, may enter. Countries participate through EBU-member television stations, who choose a singer and song, by means of an internal or public selection, to represent their country in the live televised final.

[edit] Origins

The Contest originated from the Melodi Grand Prix Nordic,^[2] a similar song contest held in 2002, between the Scandinavian countries; Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The EBU were inspired by the idea, and decided to adapt it to be more similar to the Eurovision Song Contest, one of their productions which had, at the time, been broadcast for almost fifty years.

The first Junior Contest was held in 2003, in Copenhagen, Denmark. The Danish broadcaster, Danmarks Radio, had been asked to host the Contest as a reward for having provided the winning entry, Kickflipper by Razz, to the Melodi Grand Prix Nordic the year before. Sixteen countries entered, considerably lower than the twenty-six that had taken part in the adult's Contest that year. The winner, decided by televoting, was Dino Jelusić, representing Croatia.

[edit] Format

The format of the Contest is very similar to that of its adult counterpart - each participating country and television station submits one song, which is performed on the live show, transmitted by the EBU's Eurovision Network to all of the viewing countries. One television station takes the role of host broadcaster, and transmits the show live from the stadium in which it is being held. Viewers may then vote, by means of a telephone call or text message (i.e., by televoting), for their favourite song or songs, but may not vote for the song which is representing the country they are calling from. Each country then gives points to the songs for which the most calls have been received, and, after all points are given, the song and country with the most is declared the winner. The winning singer or singers will receive a trophy, before giving a reprise performance of the song with which they won.

The programme is hosted by a number of presenters, most commonly two, who introduce different sections of the show and who present the voting. Between the performances, video clips known as 'postcards' are shown, rather than the presenters introducing each song; however, unlike the adult Contest, these clips often show the performers in and around the host city, rather than being used as subtle tourism advertisements. An interval act is also performed between the songs and the announcement of the results, during which the votes are counted. In some years, famous singers which are unrelated to the Contest have perfomed, such as Sugababes and Busted in the 2003 Contest,^[3] and Westlife in the 2004 Contest.^[4] More recently, however, interval acts have included entrants to the Contest in previous years, like María Isabel, the winner in 2004, in the 2005 Contest^[5]; and Ksenia Sitnik, the winner in 2005, as well as former Romanian entrants to the Contest, in the 2006 Contest.

The Contest is held on a Saturday evening, at 19:15 UTC/GMT^[6] (20:15 CET), in November or early December. The Contest is always proceded and ended with an on-screen graphic of the EBU logo, accompanied by the prelude to Marc-Antoine Charpentier's setting of Te Deum.

[edit] Participation

Countries who have participated in the Contest are shown in green.

If a country is to be eligible to enter the Contest, they must be an Active Member of the European Broadcasting Union (i.e., the country must be within the European Broadcasting Area, or must be a member of the Council of Europe^[7]). As of the 2006 Contest, twenty-three countries have taken part. They are listed below, alongside the year in which they entered their début entry. Countries in italics no longer participate.

• 2003 –  Belarus,  Belgium,  Croatia, Cyprus,  Denmark,  Greece,  Latvia,  FYR Macedonia,  Malta,  Netherlands,  Norway,  Poland,  Romania,  Spain,  Sweden,  United Kingdom
• 2004 –  France,  Switzerland
• 2005 –  Russia,  Serbia and Montenegro
• 2006 –  Portugal,  Serbia,  Ukraine

Belarus and Serbia are, as of 2006, the only countries to have entered the Junior Contest before having entered the 'main' Eurovision (Serbia had, however, taken part as part of Serbia and Montenegro the year before).

[edit] Rules

Many of the rules are indentical to the rules of the Eurovision Song Contest, however some are altered and adapted to the Junior Contest. The most significant of these are emphasised here.

[edit] Host countries and broadcasters

Whereas in the adult Eurovision, where the winning country is asked to host the Contest the following year, the host country each year is decided by a vote about a year before the Contest takes place. This is done to reduce pressure on the children who are competing.^[8]

[edit] Singers, songwriters and composers

All songs must have been written, composed and sung by children, who must be between the ages of eight and fifteen years on the day of the Contest.^[6] No adults may assist them in doing this. The children must have also never peformed a solo, lead role or supporting role on a professionally-produced CD, or have been professionally presented in any way before or during their national selection, in order to be eligible to enter. Being a backing vocalist in a choir, however, is allowed, as is concluding a recording contract shortly before the Contest final.^[6] All entrants must also have the nationality of the country they represent, or must have been a resident in that country for at least two and a half years.

From the 2007 Contest onwards, the minimum age will be ten years, as opposed to the eight years that is currently the rule.^[9]

The songwriter/composer does not necessarily need to be the one who sings the song, but if they do not, they must take part in the performance as a musician (for example, the Macedonian entry in 2005 was sung by Denis Dimovski, but was written and composed by Stefan Krstevski).

[edit] Live peformances

Unlike the rules for live singing for the main Eurovision, only the main singer or singers need to sing live, whereas the backing singers must have all of their vocals pre-recorded. In the case of a band, if all of its members sing an almost equal amount, they must all sing live; however if there is a lead singer or singers, they must sing live, and the other members will have their vocals played with the backing track.

No more than eight artists may present a song on stage,^[6] unlike the adult Eurovision, where the maximum is six.^[10]

The songwriter(s) and composer(s) of each song must also all be on stage, with the singer(s), during its performance, but do not need to sing (in the example mentioned in the section above, Stefan played a traditional flute during an instrumental break in the song, but did not sing). There may also be no more than eight performers, including backing singers/dancers, during the presentation of each song. The performance of each song must also be no shorter than two minutes and thirty seconds, and no longer than two minutes and forty-five seconds.^[6]

[edit] Languages

All songs must be written in an official national language of the country they represent, or if the country does not have one, the de facto language.^[6] In the case of a country having more than one national language, it is the choice of the songwriter as to which is used for the lyrics.

[edit] Voting

The scoreboard before the beginning of the voting in 2005. All countries were given twelve points to start with.

Voting at the Junior Contest is almost identical to the voting at the Eurovision Song Contest, however there are some minor differences. As there is no semi-final, only the participating countries in the final vote. An exception to this is the 2005 Contest, where Cypriot broadcaster CyBC withdrew due to accusations of their entry being plagiarism, however were still allowed to let their viewers vote, and were allowed to have these votes included in the final scores. Other differences include giving twelve points to all of the participating countries before the individual countries' votes are announced, which also happened for the first time in 2005; this is most likely to prevent any of the countries from getting nul points (i.e., 0 points in total).

A time-saving technique for the voting, which is now also used in the adult Contest, was first used at the Junior Contest, in 2005. When a country is called upon for its votes, their 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 points are shown by a graphic on the scoreboard, and are repeated by the presenters in English and sometimes French, in the same order. The 6, 7, 8, 10, and maximum 12 points are then read out by the country's spokesperson. The presenters once again repeat the votes, however they do this after each amount of points is allocated; that is, the song receiving six points is announced, and this then repeated by the hosts, the song to get seven points is announced and repeated, and the same is done for the eight, ten and twelve points. In the adult Contest, however, only the 8, 10, and 12 points are announced by the spokespersons; and the 1-7 points are not repeated by the presenters after being shown on screen.

For the first time at the 2006 Contest, voting lines were open before the first song was performed, and continued to be open for some time after the last, giving viewers more time to vote.^[11] Each song's voting numbers were shown for the first thirty seconds of its performance.

[edit] Winners

María Isabel, winner of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2004.

Unlike many winners of the Eurovision Song Contest, most Junior Eurovision winners do not have much success in record charts abroad, usually only gaining popularity in their home country. However, some; like 2004 winner, María Isabel; have charted in many other countries, including some which do not participate in the Contest. The winning artist or artists are often invited back to the Contest the following year, usually to present the trophy to the winning act, but sometimes also to perform as an interval act.^[5]

[edit] List of winners

Year	Country	Song	Performer	Article
2003	Croatia	Ti Si Moja Prva Ljubav	Dino Jelusić	JESC 2003
2004	Spain	Antes Muerta Que Sencilla	María Isabel	JESC 2004
2005	Belarus	My Vmeste	Ksenia Sitnik	JESC 2005
2006	Russia	Vesenniy Jazz	The Tolmachevy Twins	JESC 2006

[edit] Criticisms

The Junior Contest is often criticised as an unnecessary spin-off of its parent programme. When France were considering a withdrawal from the Contest, thus not singing up for a participation in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2005, their Head of Delegation, Bruno Berberes, gave a statement to Eurovision fansite ESCToday, regarding their plans. This stated that the French Eurovision broadcaster France 3 was not very motivated to continue entering the Contest, because, in his words:

"Too much Eurovision kills Eurovision."^[12]

This quote is often used today by many Eurovision fans who are opposed to the Junior Contest, and is used in some essays and blog entries which condemn it.^[13]

Naturally, as the Contest is centred around children, it has often been given bad comments relating to this. The Belgian national final for the Contest has been compared to pædophilia by Flemish Jesuit politician Luc Versteylen, founder of the political party 'Groen!'. As well as this comparison, his statement from 2003 also said that the children being used by the Flemish broadcaster, VRT, for commercial activity like this was "inacceptable", and that "Belgium should withdraw from the Contest in Copenhagen".^[14]

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Portal:Eurovision

[edit] External links

• JuniorEurovision.tv - the official website of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest
• ebu.ch - the official website of the European Broadcasting Union