It’s all change at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest.
Back in April the EBU announced a series of rule changes, including an earlier start time, as well as a lowering the age bracket. Now the EBU, alongside the Maltese broadcaster TVM, have revealed still more adjustments, as well as revealing the artwork for the contest in November. They made the announcements during the recent JESC press conference at Eurovision 2016 in Stockholm.
The biggest change to the competition is the elimination of the televote. Moving forward voting will consist of a 50/50 split between a professional jury and a kids jury. In recent years the program has experienced a significant decrease in the number of viewers casting votes, so they’ve decided just to skip that step altogether.
The voting presentation will also change. The points total from the adult juries will appear on the scoreboard first, before child representatives from all competing nations come onto the stage and award the points from their kid’s jury.
Destiny at Eurovision 2016
Jon Ola Sand said that these changes are to make the contest more suitable for a younger audience, with the hope of drawing more countries into the fold. The executive producer of the contest, Anton Attard, also explained his ambitious plan to host the contest in several locations in Valletta.
He also revealed the artwork for this year’s show, which appears to be two sets of feathers in a vibrant mix of colours, with a night-sky blue for a background. The feathers or swirls wrap around one another, which works well with this year’s motto, embrace.
What do you think of these new changes? Do you like the logo for this year’s contest? Let us know in the comments box below
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Photo: Anna Velikova (EBU)
Jon Ola Sand CANCELED. He’d better resign and let someone more sensible in charge before this idiotic idea gets to the Eurovision.
Stupid decision, the contest will become more irrelevant now.
No televote? Why watch if you can’t vote?
“Lol let me just sit here and let juries vote for me”
I don’t agree, the televoting is very important because people feel involved in the Contest.
Petur Novakov, MTD, oooops, and other negative people being banned from Wiwibloggs in 10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1.
5 [brutal] hours later…
Audiences going up in 10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1…Boom!
#KeepJuniorEurovisionAlive
Hey EBU!
Do you have something in you, or how is your period going?
The televote saved my favorite Ukraine last year from ending up 13th!
Very interesting. First off, I think it’s great that the kid’s jury gets more weight in the final outcome. As for removing the televote, well, I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, with the JESC songs getting more mature in recent years, it could be that many viewers and voters are adult ESC fans. Thus, it wouldn’t surprise me if the majority of televotes came from adults in recent years. With the old voting system, that would mean adults were very much in charge of the contest’s outcome. However, I’m not sure I agree with completely removing the… Read more »
Why is this the fault of Malta? Fans hating on small countries. Sounds like they are really fans.
The televote is the weapon of the diaspora, the jures the weapon of corruption and political preferences. Let’s leave them both. There’s no perfect system.
Eurodrama has begun and Albania hasn’t even picked their entry yet!
And the hate is strong with this comment section. 😮
I believe more countries will eventually lead to more voters so we’ll wait a few years to see if I got it right!
We all know with this system of voting , who wili win this year Malta,Australia, Netherlands or Sweden if they come back. And that countries wili be winner in 2017,2018… no chance for win for Russia .
Well, at least it won’t be as political, but I’m sad the show is now not as democratic.
People can vote a president of the country and a goverment, but they are not considered capable to choose a song that they are supposed to like. +++++++ For the last ten years, whatever rubbish Russia sent to the ESC got into top 10 (once – 11th when it was a complete joke by Peter Nalitch), televoting only helps neighbours, diasporas and bloc-voting schemes. Juries are at least somewhat less biased (but still bloc-voting exists) I wish the contest will go back to the 90s scheme: live orchestra, countries singing in their official language (at least partly) and professional jury… Read more »
More Mediterranean Bank commercials!! lol
Watch Russia win JESC this year…..or a 3-peat for Malta!!
MTD or just cancel this edition, I love past editions, but as I said, this is at a bottom level. The only thing that could make this show more boring is to do as my last comment in this article(which was sarcastic) said
Can this contest just die already?
Wow! 🙁 You can’t be serious. I really loved Junior Eurovision and now it is getting more worse due to all the rules… Eliminating the televote??? Really? Great! -_- Vlad has to return now
I’ve got a new idea, why not remove the jury and the kids jury too. Who will vote then, you ask. The answer is no one. Let Junior eurovision just be a TV-program where your country shows your musical kids culture. No one will get overpowered by winning and no one will get sad about being last.
step by step.. next year Eurovision, good luck #RIPeurovision
LMAO. I told you all. The EBU has no faith in you (and rightly so!) The one thing I hope is changed for both Eurovisions though- juries vote for the live show, not one of the rehearsals. Its kind of a turn off to know that half the contest (or in this case, the entire contest) is decided before the show begins- even if we don’t know what that decision is. But…but… who wants to watch when they cant have an effect on the outcome? Because its entertaining? I haven’t been able to vote ever cause I live in the… Read more »
Fikri, Malta is even worse than Sweden.
Keep Junior Eurovision alive! 🙂
They wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t a logical decision. + no more eastern european overthrow in votes, attracting more countries into the mix. I mean, lets be honest, this is a KIDS show and its no place for politics and corruption to be happening.
“They were counting fewer votes every year…”
Aaah! So THAT’s why they presented us that kid in the Show… Advertising..
WHAAAAAT ?!!?!?
The juries proved that are totally unreliable and biasd over the last few years… Both on ESC and JESC…. and now they are removing the televote entirely.
I mean which country wants her song to be judged 100% by juries and 0% by the viewers. I mean, THIS is the magic of the show…like it or not. WHICH SONG the people will like the most….not which song the “professional” jury will like the most 🙁 I predict that many countries will withdraw after these news and this will be the dead of JESC 🙁
They should kill off this farce of a contest. It cheapens the brand.
malta is the new sweden.
Is this changes is idea of new Executive supervisor and new executive producer because they change Vladislav who are supervisor and bring back popularity of contest. Jon Ola and new producer try so hard to ruin Junior Eurovison like they ruin Eurovision from 2013 with so many changes draw by producer, new rules of voting….
People can vote a president of the country and a goverment, but
they are not considered capable to choose a song that they are
supposed to like.
When I thought it couldn’t get any worse… RIP JESC 2016×1000 And will it be the same political jury as in adult ESC? I can see Russia and Armenia withdraw. Hope my country(Sweden) I love past editions though, especially 2003, 2004 and 2005, everything was better back then. In my world, there is a diagram in which “good-level” every JESC is from 1-10. 2003 was at 9,5, 2004 was easily better, 2005 was very slightly worse than 2003, and since then, JESC has turned slightly worse every year, until 2014, when Vlad turned it in a level like just slightly… Read more »
Instead of televote we wili have 5 kids who will seat with 5 members of profesional juries in every countries . And how tv station wili decide members of kids juries.
They specifically kill the ESC?
#RIPeurovision
Did any of you even watch eurovision before televoting began in 1998 ?? It was juries for 40 years .. It worked and the juries worked on Saturday night .. Time to cancel the televotes when diaspora like polish, Lithuanians and Russians take advantage of it ..
And have juries which are properly screened and moderated ..
Only jury votes for eurovision ..
What the fuck? They think people are gonna watch this if they can’t even vote? They’re really doing everything they possibly can to kill this contest.
LOL!
Audiences going down in 3, 2, 1…
Who thought this would be a good idea? Watching a tv contest without you having any voice in it… It is just crazy