Junior Eurovision Rewatch Series

Junior Eurovision 2022 is around the corner (read: less than 4 months away) and having watched Eurovision for the past 13 years, I decided to go back and watch the junior editions of the contest. All 19 of them (this year is number 20).

I discovered Junior Eurovision in October 2009, about a month before it aired and 5 months after Eurovision ended. The concept is the same as the adult version: A country sends an act to sing a song on a stage for 3 minutes (2 min 45 sec on JESC) and they exchange points on a scoreboard and one country is declared the winner. They cannot vote for their own country.

But as the name is “Junior Eurovision Song Contest”, it’s about children between the ages of 9 and 14 (as of 2022) singing their own songs in front of a live audience. It airs on a Sunday afternoon or early evening depending on where it’s being held (Armenia is hosting this year, so early evening for them), which translates to a late Sunday morning my time.

As of today, I am already on Junior Eurovision 2006, which I will be watching later on today. I have already watched the first three editions from 2003 to 2005 and so far, they are okay in terms of quality (maybe it’s because of the folks who uploaded the contests. The main channel has the ones from 2010 on, but I may have to use a VPN for three of them). Having said that, not a lot of people know about this contest, but that doesn’t mean the young singers can’t transfer over to the adult version because, ahem, some have.

If you’re just finding out about the biggest global musical event and want a bit more, I think you should check out Junior Eurovision, because these kids are talented and I think that they will go on to do bigger and better things, maybe even take part in the adult edition beyond reaching the age of 16. With that, I’m going to watch the remaining editions every Saturday until this year’s contest on December 11.