Welcome to the last ESC Insight Newsletter before the final of Junior Eurovision on Saturday night. You can read the Newsletter in full through this link and can you also subscribe on this link. Subscribers can enter a prize draw next week – read how in this week’s Newsletter.
We’re catching up with all the highlights from the Press Centre in one power-packed edition going through the best things from the plethora of community websites here on the ground in Sofia. Further to that Robertson’s Reflection this week talks about the battle of age in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. Will our winner be one of the decidedly teen flavoured entries or will we instead be cheering the victory of the very kiddie-influenced performances? And what Saturday’s result ultimately mean for the future of Junior Eurovision?
In Junior Eurovision the East/West split in the contest is more than just the voting that happens, but also in terms of the style of acts on stage. I would mention that one reason might be that the direct translation of the Bulgarian title for this competition is ‘Children’s Eurovision’ and this is common across Eastern Europe. However this divide isn’t just a throwaway remark about language but it stems to a culture. Junior Eurovision under Vladislav Yakovlev’s leadership has been creating a teen feel to the Contest which Malta’s hosting really kicked off, but some of the Junior Eurovision strongholds like Armenia still send entries best described as childish. Who can blame them when more than 50% of their entries have placed in the top three.
Remember all to tune into the ESC Insight team on the radio through the live Saturday night broadcast. Newsletter coverage will begin again fortnightly starting from Monday’s edition.