A decade of Junior Eurovision
13 December 2019 at 16:06 CETWe are reaching the end of a momentous decade in Junior Eurovision history; the first that saw a Contest take place every year. Those 10 editions brought us a whopping 156 new songs.
This decade saw a total of 31 countries take part. 6 countries took part in all 10 shows: Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Russia, the Netherlands and Ukraine. Of those countries, Belarus and the Netherlands are the only 2 to take part in every Contest since Junior Eurovision's inception in 2003. 11 Eleven countries had their debut this decade: Albania, Azerbaijan and Israel in 2012, San Marino in 2013, Slovenia, Montenegro and Italy in 2014, Australia and Ireland in 2015, and Wales and Kazakhstan in 2018.
Spain returned to the Contest for one year, 2019, with Melani Garcia's Marte.
The Contest was won by 7 different countries this decade. Armenia, Italy, Russia and Ukraine all won once and Georgia, Malta and Poland managed to win twice. Poland is the first country who managed to win the Junior Eurovision Song Contest twice in a row. They did so at the end of the decade with 2018 and 2019 contestants Roksana Węgiel and Viki Gabor.
The Junior Eurovision Song Contest took place in 8 different cities this decade. Valletta and Minsk hosted the contest twice. The other editions took place in Yerevan, Amsterdam, Kyiv, Sofia, Tbilisi and Gliwice-Silesia. Which country gathered the most points in those cities? Let’s take a look at the top 5:
- Armenia: 1314
- Russia: 1172
- Georgia: 1153
- Belarus: 1056
- The Netherlands: 995
Armenia didn't only gather the most points; the country never placed outside of the top 10. In fact, they kicked off the decade with Vladimir Arzumanyan's win with his song Mama.