2018

 

• Hosted in: Minsk, Belarus

• Won by: Poland – Anyone I want to be by Roksana Węgiel

The United Kingdom is back! Well, sort of. Although the other countries of the UK continue to ghost the contest, one of them seemed interested: Wales. This country of the United Kingdom, represented by their Welsh-language broadcaster S4C, has been interested in participating since all the way back in 2008. The only problem is that they’re not sovereign and had to rely on begging the UK, which of course they don’t. Despite this, they were given special entry this year, presumably because the organizers had enough of ex-Soviet domination. 

Besides that, Kazakhstan entered, making the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2018 the first Eurovision event to have 2 associate members of the EBU participate at one time. Also, for the first time since 2010 – which coincidentally also held at the Minsk Arena in Belarus – the show is not hosted by either the first or second place winners of the previous contests. The EBU had stopped giving out first refusals to the winning countries so that the contest could realistically continue with financially viable hosts (though, in subsequent years, the contest would continue to be held in last year’s winning country, as is now tradition, until 2024)

The Welsh entry, Perta by Manw Lili Robin, was an okay song, I wouldn’t be surprised for a “debutant entry” to sound like that, considering the United Kingdom (Wales included) have largely forgotten the history of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. According to the lyricist, the lyrics were written with a focus on sounding nice to non-Welsh speakers, with a repetitive chorus that was easy for viewers to sing along to. However, someone have told the audience that Wales is a part of the UK, and so juries were hesitant to vote them down. Wales received no points from the juries, but received 29 from online voting, the opposite of what you expect from the UK in adult Eurovision, but still finished dead last. The Welsh have seen better days.

Topping the jury vote is… what, Australia? Do you juries really want for the contest to go down under? Though, I’ll admit it, “Champion” by Jael is an inspirational and upbeat ballad, believing that the listener could be, or already is, a champion. Really hoped the United Kingdom listens to this one… ahem… Receiving 6 douze points from the juries, the most from anyone, everyone really thought Australia’s going to go away with the trophy, even during the online voting reveal, 53 points was enough for the Aussies to maintain their lead… until France’s 117 points overtook them. Even worse, Poland, the online vote winner, overtook France in the race, bumping Australia into 3rd and resulting in one of the biggest bottle jobs in Junior Eurovision history.

To be honest, both of these entries fare slightly better than Jael pretending to be Whitney Houston. France has a bubbly French-language bop full of Joie de vivre, cute staging, and umbrellas, basically stereotypical French. While Poland’s entry, “Anyone I want to be”, is a loud, defiant, Katy Perry‑meets‑Eurovision anthem of teen self-worth and pop dominance. No one really put their money on Poland when they finished 7th in the jury vote, but the online voters certainly and desperately want the Polish to win. They received 150,529 votes, a whopping 21,030 votes over France, equaling to a 19-point gap between first and second in the online voting. Though it’s probably because they were the last to perform, and theoretically, people remember the last entry performed more than the first so fair point. Poland therefore became only the fourth non-ex-Soviet country to win the contest since 2004, after the Netherlands (2009), Malta (2013, 2015), and Italy (2014)

Speaking of Italy, they sent a song that made Vincenzo Cantinello an afterthought. It started with Marco on a swing with the moon behind him, then joined by Melissa to sing Italy’s desperate attempt at winning Junior Eurovision, aka “What is love” (baby don’t hurt me). While the Italy got a respectable 5th place from the juries, they scraped 8th in online voting, dropping them to 7th overall. Another robbery, perhaps? 

It really seemed like ever since the introduction of a new online voting system last year, it seemed like the online voters have no taste in music like the juries. Portugal with no points from the juries? Nah, let’s give them 42 points, the 13th highest online vote score, bringing them up to 18th place. Better than going last, perhaps? Georgia in top 3 in jury voting? Heck no, give them the 14th highest score in online voting, bringing them down to 8th. Don’t get me started on Poland. Oh, Poland. Are we really trusting these kids bashing their computers to vote? Is it time to return to the grand old televote? Put an age restriction, perhaps?

Presentation and format

This is the first time since 2009 that the show was hosted by three people: Eugene Perlin, Zinaida Kupriyanovich and Helena Meraai, the latter handled green room interviews. We get to see more kids hosting the contest these days, with the latter previously represented her country last year, though never as energetic as you-know-who. The show returned to the Minsk Arena, host of 2010, the first time that a venue hosted multiple Junior Eurovision, but isn’t the first city – That honor goes to Kyiv, Ukraine.

The voting system from 2017 was obviously carried over to 2018. The EBU finally showed transparency by showing the detailed online voting results. However, because the points are converted based on proportional representation, not the standard Eurovision ladder, they only showed us the number of votes. Transparency at its finest!

The postcards consist of the participant wearing a VR headset and transporting themselves into doing various activities in Belarus. Roksana Węgiel gets to meet her imaginary friends to wander around Minsk. Saddest. Postcard. Ever.