2004

• Hosted in: Lillehammer, Norway

• Won by: Spain - Antes muerta que sencilla by Maria Isabel

• UK entry: The best is yet to come by Cory Spedding

While the inaugural edition was successful, the JESC had a rough follow-up in 2004. Originally planned to be held in Manchester by ITV (why not have British commercial broadcasters have all of the Eurovision fun?), ITV plc announced they withdrew from hosting, arguing about the budget the EBU have sent to them, a mere €1,500,000. While the EBU gave them 900,000 more, ultimately the contest fled from the United Kingdom. The contest would never take place in that country since. Croatia stepped in after their country’s victory the previous year, hoping to establish a well-known tradition seen in the adult contest, before they too withdrew after, and this is hilarious, their broadcaster forgot where in Croatia the contest was held. Ultimately the contest stayed Nordic – with Lillehammer taking over, giving out Olympic vibes – just without the snow.

Because we’re literally in an Olympic venue, the organizers decided to host a “parade of nations” prior to the show, which the adult contest has no problem implementing this less than a decade later.

There were a mix of some silly entries. Who can’t forget "Hoe? (Doen Ze Dat!?)" by the Netherlands’ Klaartje & Nicky about how adults do weird things? What about A moody, reflective chanson française-style ballad that is the French entry? Actually most of the entries are a ballad. Latvia isn’t, and they happily licked the wooden spoon this year, despite tying with Poland with 3 points. However, regardless of who's taking it, this tally made this the lowest scoring Junior Eurovision entry of all time.

The contest also saw the appearance of Switzerland. Despite having as much as 4 languages to play with they are only limited to Italian due to the sole involvement of SRG SSR's Italian department, RSI, though it still broadcast on the network's other language channels. It scored only four points, 1 less than Latvia and Poland, and, as it turns out, the home of the EBU, the inaugural winner and original host of the ESC would never participate since.

The UK did absolutely nothing to compensate with the fact that they lost hosting rights and will never get back again. Cory Spedding with her song “The best is yet to come”, and before you panic, it doesn’t any have any relation to the Frank Sinatra song of the similar name, in fact, it is an even blander piano ballad. Though still it finished second, 31 points behind the winner. And for anyone wondering, the third-place holder is also an emotional pop song, being “Hej Mali” by Nika Turkovic.

Actually the top three from last year’s is the same as this year. They only switched seats. Spain is the winner here, seeing that ballads are cool, but upbeat flamenco-pop is better. Maria Isabel takes the win home that night with a team of people holding hand fans. Where are we anyway?

With the top three, well, getting a top three this year, will we see a rotation between those three? Is the United Kingdom next? Though, as it turns out, two of them blundered. One of them, really hard.

Presentation and format

As aforementioned, the show was held at an Olympic venue, being Hakons Hall purpose-built for the Winter Olympics almost 11 years earlier. Hence why the presenters, Nadia Hasnaoui and Stian Barsnes-Simonsen, who also hosted Norway’s national selection, the Melodi Grand Prix, entered the stage on skis.

Simonsen here never take the contest seriously and everyone got a cackle, alongside the fact that the Spanish spokesperson is literally a puppet (after further speculation, the puppet turned out to be Lucho, a character from Los Lunnis, which had just graced Spanish TV a year ago), and a literal big hand was given to the newly-appointed Svante Stockselius as the contest’s scrutineer, who wishes that every country would receive 12 points – don’t worry, your wish will be granted… next year. Due to the presence of France, the points are read out again in French, much like in the adult contest. The UK spokesperson is unfortunately not a puppet, but rather Charlie Allan.

The postcards feature the contestants doing their own work, ending with them introducing themselves and their song in their country’s language (though in later years they present themselves in English). This would continue, with the exception of three occasions, until 2018. Cory here put an umbrella on a pineapple in a middle of an art exhibition.

Broadcasts of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in the UK was moved to ITV2 with a delayed, shortened broadcast of the full thing being shown on ITV1 the following day. There’s now a single commentator: Matt Brown.

Writer's note: If you're wondering what those black boxes are in the screenshots, these are supposed to be DOGs, since the most high-quality screenshots available are those taken from Dutch TV. I would rather have those in to be honest rather than just cover it up.