On Sunday 20th November at Malta’s Mediterranean Conference Centre the winner of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2016 was Georgia. Georgia took the crown with ‘Mzeo’ sung by 10-year-old Mariam Mamadsashvili, written by Giga Kukhianidze with lyrics by Maka Davitala. This makes Georgia the most successful nation at Junior Eurovision with three victories after winning in 2008 with ‘Bzz…‘ and 2011 with ‘Candy Music‘.
Georgia collected 239 points on their way to victory. In second place just 7 points behind was Armenia and in third place was Italy on 209 points.
Voting was conducted by an professional and kids’ jury from each country as well as three expert Jury members: Mats Grimstad of Universal, Christer Bjorkman and Jedward.
The professional juries in each country gave top points to Georgia (144), Armenia (99) and The Netherlands (94).
The three expert jurors in the theatre then gave top points to Armenia (23), Italy (22) and Belarus (20). Georgia only scored twelve points from these three jurors.
Finally the kids juries in each country voted. They gave top scores to Armenia (110), Malta (105) and Russia (105). Georgia only finished in 6th place with the kids juries, scoring 83 points to make for a tense voting sequence. Analysis of the results will hit ESC Insight in the coming weeks.
Congratulations to Georgia, to Mariam and to Malta for hosting Junior Eurovision once more.
Ben, congratulations to you and everyone at ESC Insight for your informative and entertaining coverage of the event. Judging from the number of listener/reader comments to most of your articles/podcasts it sometimes felt as if this comprehensive coverage was being laid on just for me. I’m sure that wasn’t the case but the team’s efforts were much appreciated nonetheless.
No doubt there will be further detailed analysis when you arrive back in the UK and no doubt I’ll feel compelled to chip in with my own very much ‘non-expert’ observations.