JuniorEurovision.tv has been asking fans from all over the world to send in tweets with questions for Vladislav Yakovlev, this year’s Executive Supervisor.
In the most recent of the #AskVlad videos, Vladislav answered questions about when the final list of participating countries will be announced.
In a nutshell, he explained that since it’s normal for Europeans to take days off in August, state broadcasters were delayed when trying to complete the relevant paperwork. He also mentioned that there are three factors that have made it difficult to reveal the final list of participating countries.
First, some countries who confirmed that they will participate have ended up backing out for a multitude of reasons – budgeting, scheduling or problems with the format.
Second, other countries, who spent an eternity refusing to participate, decided to confirm their participation out of the blue. We have seen this with the surprise addition of Italy.
The third reason is the most interesting. Vladislav mentioned that there are commercial channels in some countries who are not members of the EBU. They have shown a high level of interest in taking part in the contest. He said that this is an issue which they will have to look into in the upcoming weeks. One path forward seems to be the Bulgarian model, where the state broadcaster and a private broadcaster are working together for Junior Eurovision.
He concluded the video by saying that an announcement with the final list of participants is expected around mid-September.
Such a development will surely raise some eyebrows amongst Eurovision fans. It has been a well established rule that to participate in any of the Eurovision contests, a country needs to have a channel which is a member of the European Broadcasting Union. If this exception is created, and sustained for the Junior Eurovision Song Contest – is there perhaps a possibility of this exception being applied for the Eurovision Song Contest? That could greatly expand the number of participating countries. To see some of the potential countries and networks that could participate, click here.
Will the 60th Edition prove to be one with lots of change in the format? None of us have the answer, so we just have to #AskVlad. So here it goes!
@JuniorESCPress Is there also a possibility of non-EBU countries being allowed for the Eurovision in Austria? 🙂 #AskVlad
— Noel Zarb (@nojilzarb) August 29, 2014
While we’re at it, what are your thoughts about the possibility of non-EBU member networks joining the Eurovision fray? Does it make sense? Send us your comments below!
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Picture: EBU/JuniorEurovision.tv
It should be more specific, maybe you could tweet “Non-EBU members within EBU coverage” so the question is on point. Just saying though.
And btw Vlad looks cute (I know it’s out of topic, but…)
I think the tweet that you have sent seems like a weird tweet. Everyone knows the answer. Because if it is, that means China could participate, even Zimbabwe could participate in ESC….
I’m not sure if Vlad meant countries who are not part of the EBU. I’m sure Vlad just meant countries whose sole and only member of the EBU does not wish to participate, therefore commercial broadcasters, who do not own EBU membership, are showing potential interest.