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.[2] 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..". Ukraine took 2nd place and Lithuania finished 3rd.[3] Bzikebi also became the first group act to win Junior Eurovision.

Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2008
Fun in the Sun
Dates
Final	22 November 2008
Host
Venue	Spyros Kyprianou Athletic Centre, Limassol, Cyprus
Presenter(s)	Alex Michael Sophia Paraskeva
Directed by	Klitos Klitou
Executive supervisor	Svante Stockselius
Executive producer	Munro Forbes
Host broadcaster	Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC)
Opening act	Dance act featuring Yiorgos Ioannides and Mariam Venizelou.
Interval act	Dima Bilan, Evridiki & Dimitris Korgialas
Reprise act	All participants performing "Hand in Hand"
Website	junioreurovision.tv/event/lemesos-2008
Participants
Number of entries	15
Debuting countries	None
Returning countries	None
Non-returning countries	Portugal  Sweden
Participation map      Participating countries     Countries that participated in the past but not in 2008
Vote
Voting system	Each country awards 1–8, 10, and 12 points to their 10 favourite songs.[1]
Nul points in final	All countries get 12 points from start
Winning song	Georgia "Bzz.."
2007 ← Junior Eurovision Song Contest → 2009

The theme of the event was "Fun in the Sun",[4] despite the fact that there were thunderstorms in Lemesos the day of the contest. The stage, which was designed by George Papadopoulos,[5] was nominated for the prestigious international "Live Design Excellence Awards".[6] 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.[7][8]

Location

Stockholm

Kyiv

Limassol

Locations of the bidding countries. The eliminated countries are marked in red. The chosen host country is marked in blue.

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[9] (Greek: Αθλητικό Κέντρο "Σπύρος Κυπριανού"), 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.[10]

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.[11] The full running order was announced on 14 October 2008.[12] 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.[13]

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.[14] Portugal, which had taken part twice since 2006 announced that it was no longer interested in the contest and withdrew along with Sweden, a founding country in 2003, which left because of other broadcasting plans during the time of the event.[15][16]^{[better source needed]} Portugal would return in 2017 after winning the adult contest for the first time that same year.[17]

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.[18]^{[better source needed]} Wales later debuted in the 2018 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.[19]^{[better source needed]} Poland had also considered participation but decided that it would not take part this year.[20] The 2008 contest was the first Junior Eurovision Song Contest to have no debuting countries.

Participants and results

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.[21]^{[better source needed]}

R/O	Country	Artist	Song	Language	Points	Place[22]
1	Romania	Mădălina and Andrada	"Salvați planeta!"	Romanian	58	9
2	Armenia	Monica	"Im ergi hnchyune" (Իմ երգի հնչյունը)	Armenian	59	8
3	Belarus	Dasha, Alina [ru] and Karina	"Serdtse Belarusi" (Сердце Беларуси)	Russian[lower-alpha 1]	86	6
4	Russia	Mihail Puntov [ru]	"Spit angel" (Спит ангел)	Russian	73	7
5	Greece	Niki Yiannouchu	"Kapoia nychta" (Καποια νύχτα)	Greek	19	14
6	Georgia	Bzikebi	"Bzz.."	None	154	1
7	Belgium	Oliver [nl]	"Shut Up"	Dutch	45	11
8	Bulgaria	Krastyana Krasteva	"Edna mechta" (Една мечта)	Bulgarian	15	15
9	Serbia	Maja Mazić [sr]	"Uvek kad u nebo pogledam" (Увек кaд у небо погледaм)	Serbian	37	12
10	Malta	Daniel Testa	"Junior Swing"	English	100	4
11	Netherlands	Marissa [nl]	"1 dag"	Dutch	27	13
12	Ukraine	Viktoria Petryk	"Matrosy" (Матроси)	Ukrainian	135	2
13	Lithuania	Eglė Jurgaitytė	"Laiminga diena"	Lithuanian	103	3
14	Macedonia	Bobi Andonov	"Prati mi SMS" (Прати ми СМС)	Macedonian	93	5
15	Cyprus	Elena Mannouri and Charis Savva	"Gioupi gia!" (Γιούπι για!)	Greek	46	10

Detailed voting results

Georgia and Macedonia awarded their points last due to technical problems.

12 points

Below is a summary of all 12 points received. All countries were given 12 points at the start of voting to ensure that no country finished with nul points.

N.	Contestant	Nation(s) giving 12 points
8	Georgia	Armenia,  Belgium,  Bulgaria,  Cyprus,  Lithuania,  Netherlands,  Russia,  Ukraine
3	Ukraine	Georgia,  Malta,  Romania
1	Lithuania	Serbia
	Russia	Belarus
	Cyprus	Greece
	Serbia	Macedonia

Spokespersons

Other countries

This section does not cite any sources. (May 2021)

For a country to be eligible for potential participation in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, it needs to be an active member of the EBU.

•  Azerbaijan – Azerbaijan was originally going to participate but withdrew on 15 October 2008, due to the lack of participants signed up for the national final.
•  Bosnia and Herzegovina – Bosnia and Herzegovina were also set to participate but later withdrew. Bosnia and Herzegovina also unsuccessfully attempted to participate in 2007.

Broadcasts

This section needs additional citations for verification. (May 2021)

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.

Broadcasters and commentators in participating countries

Country	Broadcaster(s)	Commentator(s)	Ref.
Armenia	Armenia 1	Gohar Gasparyan
Belarus	Belarus 1	Denis Kurian
Belgium	VRT	Kristien Maes and Ben Roelants
Bulgaria	BNT 1	Elena Rosberg and Georgi Kushvaliev
Cyprus	CyBC	Kyriakos Pastides
Georgia	GPB	Temo Kvirkvelia
Greece	ERT	Renia Tsitsibikou and George Amyras
Lithuania	LRT	Darius Užkuraitis
Macedonia	MTV 1	Ivona Bogoevska
Malta	TVM	Valerie Vella
Netherlands	AVRO	Sipke Jan Bousema
Romania	TVR	Ioana Isopescu and Alexandru Nagy
Russia	RTR	Olga Shelest
Serbia	RTS2	Duška Vučinić-Lučić
Ukraine	NTU	Timur Miroshnychenko

Broadcasters and commentators in non-participating countries

Country	Broadcaster(s)	Commentator(s)	Ref.
Australia	SBS (13 May 2009)	Unknown	[24]
Azerbaijan	İctimai TV	Unknown
Bosnia and Herzegovina	BHRT	Dejan Kukrić	[25][26]

Official album

Junior Eurovision Song Contest 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.[27]

See also

• Eurovision Song Contest 2008
• Eurovision Dance Contest 2008
• Eurovision Young Musicians 2008

Notes

References