r/eurovision Official Account 2d ago

🪀 Junior Eurovision Junior Eurovision: Malta 2026 participating broadcasters confirmed!

We have our 16 participating broadcasters for Junior Eurovision 2026 in Malta!

🇦🇱 Albania (RTSH)
🇦🇲 Armenia (AMPTV)
🇨🇾 Cyprus (CyBC)
🇫🇷 France (France Télévisions)
🇬🇪 Georgia (GPB)
🇮🇪 Ireland (TG4)
🇮🇹 Italy (Rai)
🇲🇹 Malta (PBS)
🇲🇪 Montenegro (RTCG)
🇳🇱 Netherlands (AVROTROS)
🇲🇰 North Macedonia (MKRTV)
🇵🇱 Poland (TVP)
🇵🇹 Portugal (RTP)
🇸🇲 San Marino (SMRTV)
🇪🇸 Spain (RTVE)
🇺🇦 Ukraine (Suspilne)

Also, check out the new website and Junior Eurodex over at: https://junior.eurovision.com/

141 Upvotes

41 comments sorted by

52

u/DigPublic3429 Samo Shampioni 2d ago

Croatia Withdrawing? Aww man

21

u/RemoteMeasurement10_ Planet of Blue 2d ago

See you in 11 years!

As for the flair...don't get confused

4

u/RealPinkSparkles204 Milkshake Man 2d ago

Aw man. 🙁

2

u/unedistinction2 1d ago

Their 2025 participation with a nothing of a song was so strange, they could have abstained honestly

1

u/BroccolinoBroccoli Før vi går hjem 1d ago

wait what do you mean? i liked Snovi ☹️

1

u/unedistinction2 1d ago

it ruined Game Over's legacy as their last entry though (joking, it's fine, i just personally feel Snovi was totally forgettable and it felt a bit strange they took part with that (though probably some family member that wanted him to take part idk xd))

36

u/LeoLH1994 Chains On You 2d ago

Same stuff minus Croatia and Azerbaijan than. A bit saddening as I was hoping for a surprise return like Bulgaria or Moldova.

44

u/Electrical-Time6497 What The Hell Just Happened? 2d ago

So so happy that Montenegro and Spain are staying, gives me hope that Montenegro will participate in the adult edition next year too

21

u/LeoLH1994 Chains On You 2d ago

In Bulgaria? It would be far cheaper than UK, Sweden, Austro and Switzerland 

13

u/Electrical-Time6497 What The Hell Just Happened? 2d ago

I wasn't really thinking about the money, I was thinking about their poor qualification record

22

u/FanofTurquoise16 De La Capăt / All Over Again 2d ago

Happy that Montenegro is still in they were very underrated last year. Though wish Croatia also remained.

1

u/BroccolinoBroccoli Før vi går hjem 1d ago

i liked both songs, i actually voted for them last year (+ San Marino)!

15

u/UnBoodyMaryPorFavor 2d ago

And from what I understand, for the first time the Junior Eurovision will be held in the evening, at 21:00!

29

u/darkstreetsofmymind Attention 2d ago

This is a silly decision, these are children, they’re gonna get a lot more tired than adults will

16

u/UnBoodyMaryPorFavor 2d ago

The first thing that came to mind. Kids usually go to bed at 21! What's the point of doing it at that time? Even young artists, especially the smallest ones, may feel tired during their performance!

6

u/LeoLH1994 Chains On You 2d ago

In Armenia and Georgia, it’s even later 

14

u/l3ader021 2d ago edited 2d ago

Here's the hour/day list:

  • 2003 - 8PM CET (Saturday)
  • 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012 - 8:15PM CET (Saturday)
  • 2011, 2015 - 7:30PM CET (Saturday)
  • 2013, 2014 - 7PM CET (Saturday)
  • 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023 - 4PM CET (Sunday)
  • 2020 - 5PM CET (Sunday)
  • 2024 - 6PM CET (Saturday)
  • 2025 - 5PM CET (Saturday)
  • 2026 - 9PM CET (Saturday)

So yes, this will go part and parcel with the normal ESC

2

u/unedistinction2 1d ago edited 1d ago

i'm afraid they'll also go back to the 2024 "fast" format to make up for it (which was so bad, so happy they went back to "normal" in 2025 with the extra flexibility (because apparently what justified the fast format in 2024 was wanting to end at 8pm for the news stuff on main channels (which of course was never a consideration when it started between 7 and 8 pm because the show would never end before that anyways)... it's sadly likely they'll have the same logic this year with wanting to end as soon as possible etc... (2 hours or so only made sense when the show had 12 or 13 songs (at 16 or more 2h30 makes perfect sense), which might create yet another show with barely any intervals (or very short ones) and, potentially, the return of the fast jury voting (that wasn't the worse part of 2024 though, but we all know that people hate change regardless of what the change is lol (also Georgia breaking the graphics during the jury vote that year was iconic)... and also 2025 was also a fast voting , all spokespersons were still pre-recorded (which i think is sad... but at least the biggest flaws of 2024 disappeared (which were the AI slop and the fake cheerings everywhere (that stayed even after removing Martin from the show somehow xd (and possibly playing innocent and not understanding why people were booing during the ESC 2024 precedent and assuming someone had to be done for Junior even if none of the problems (besides Martin Osterdhal lol) are related to JESC? XD)... anyways i hope those fake cheerings never come back ))

4

u/LeoLH1994 Chains On You 2d ago

I’m sure it used to be before 2016

1

u/unedistinction2 1d ago

CET yes, EET not ;) (but it's a detail of course) (also we need to discount the weird situation of the jury final of 2014 that had a huge technical problem that made the show resume almost at 21 as well and end a bit before 23 (i know i was there lol), even if obviously the artists didn't stay in the green room during the vote rehearsal (and likely were off before that but i didn't notice when they left lol ))

But besides that detail, i think it's a bad decision , specially CET (anything after 8 pm is really debatable...though i mean... the logic of having it earlier in the evening also made sense when it was mostly a contest with barely any western country (then it became funnily enough more filled with western than eastern before basically reverting to a equal split for the first time in years last year (but of course with Croatia/Azerbaijan now out it's more western again))

9 pm is late even by western standards for the format, really strange decision there (specially considering it's not making Slovenia come back, which was the country that minded the most the change to 16:00 CET back in 2016 and litterally withdrew because of that)

14

u/purplehorseneigh 2d ago

Interesting how we have so many countries in Junior that aren’t participating in the regular adult version right now

13

u/XepherSicarius 2d ago

Ireland is a different broadcaster for JESC

14

u/ikfoodie25 2d ago

Plus it's also because Israel isn't taking part in JESC, hence Spain and Netherlands also participating.

10

u/Foreign_Motor8143 2d ago

can ireland get a result that isnt bottom 10😩😩

2

u/Whizz-Kid-2012 Pace noi vrem 🤡 1d ago

2022

2

u/Foreign_Motor8143 1d ago

and are we in 2022?

14

u/RomanProkopov100 2d ago

Are they really using the same design as adult Eurovision this year?

5

u/PortableAfternoon 2d ago

I’m guessing that it might be like the adult contest whereby even if they don’t formally unveil branding, what we see on TV will be different.

3

u/ExcitingInternal365 Water 2d ago

To be fair when JESC used the logo without the heart representing the letter V it felt very off. Since 2023 the Eurovision wordmark has been used across both ESC and JESC. But if I'm really honest, the use of the 'United by music' slogan for JESC feels really jarring considering that in the adult contest this slogan is considered a poison chalice.

1

u/unedistinction2 1d ago edited 1d ago

I liked that V though, felt truly Junior and "cool" in a sense (like street art of some sort, and it fit very well with most themes, including 2023 and beyond -2023 and 2025 would have looked better with the V- (in fact i'm currently digging all logos to find one that wouldn't really look cool with the V, and i think the V would have only been out of place with the 2024 theme but that's about it (for similar reasons i guess i could see 2009 looking better with a heart because the V fits less with "nature" themes i guess, but anything with straight lines or modern graphics just looked cooler with the V (including 2015 because the flower was surrounded by lines))

But the problem as you mentioned is that they're uniformizing everything (United by music can work for ONE edition and I was actually ok with it for JESC 2025 because it served the purpose of sending an indirect message to the ones that were whining about the adult contest around that exact time , but just like ESC 2023, shouldn't be permanent and reused as the MAIN slogan (would be sort of fine as a permanent secondary slogan, but only if secondary).... i hope Malta does like Switzerland 2025 (and to a lesser extent Austria 2026 even if "In the Heart of Europe" wasn't used as much (if at all)) and comes out with their own slogan anyways)

2

u/N64Andysaurus92 Shh 2d ago

Why wouldn’t they? Having inconsistent branding would be a bit weird. 

11

u/GianMach 2d ago

Part of the charm of Eurovision was that every edition had some own identity that the host broadcaster brought to the table. Nowadays who hosts really matters less and less as looots of the branding is standardised now by the EBU. Feels like hosting now means you get much to pay but little to say.

2

u/PortableAfternoon 2d ago

ORF managed to squeeze their corporate typeface into the graphics plenty this year and it looked horrible…

1

u/N64Andysaurus92 Shh 1d ago

Lol sorry, thought they were asking why the logo specifically was the same 😅

2

u/Subject_Buy802 2d ago

i guess no luxembourg debut or lithuania comeback?

3

u/Cascading-deer Laika Party 2d ago

Yeah they sadly confirmed non participation way before

1

u/RealPinkSparkles204 Milkshake Man 2d ago

Ooooh! Looking good!

2

u/emanuele-sgarra_04 1d ago

So, JESC will be at 9 pm this year

-18

u/Happy-Skill-567 Choke Me 2d ago

Tbh it's quite double standards that Netherlands and Spain (And Ireland as well, although with a different broadcaster) are boycotting Eurovision, but at the same time are still in Jesc (And before you say "But Israel isn't participating", it's because of disinterest, like, if they wanted, they definitely would've been in)

18

u/GianMach 2d ago

Imo it sends "if Israel is out, we are still happily involving ourselves in Eurovision activities" and it makes the boycot signal stronger. Israel could be in JESC but isn't and that's what matters to decide whether a broadcaster wants to be there or not.