JESC Rules
THE RULES OF THE JESC
JESC is produced by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) who also produces the Eurovision Song, Eurovision Dance and many other contests. The contest was first launched in 2003 after a success of Scandinavian contest in 2002, titled MGP Nordic, where Denmark, Norway and Sweden took part. EBU has liked the idea and launched international competition. However, in 2006 main Scandinavian broadcasters have left JESC going back to organization of separate MGP Nordic.
The rules of the JESC are as follows:
- Winning country is not given right to automatically host next edition of JESC. The hosting country for the next year is selected before the current edition to avoid extra pressure on kids.
- Maximum of 18 countries are allowed to take part in the JESC.
- In JESC each artist representing his country must be selected from the National Selection with televoting (exclusions are allowed with the special permit from Steering Group, for example Armenia 2007, Sweden 2009). The change of the song after the national selection is not allowed in JESC. It is recommended to organize national selections within 3 months prior to the contest.
- In JESC eligible artists are children who are either of the nationality of the participating country or have been resident in that country for at least two and a half years.
- The rule stating that children-performers also must not have previously released music commercially was active from 2003 to 2006 and was dropped in 2007 thus allowing already experienced children-singers and bands in the competition. However, there still is the rule in JESC which do not allow former international final participants (excluding backing dancer/singers) to enter JESC once again.
- Songs, taking part in JESC should be between 2.30 and 2.45 minutes long.
- Songs should be performed only in national language of the country; however they are permitted to have a few lines in a different language.
- At least one of the performers (if not being lead singers, should still appear on stage as backing dancers/singers/instrumentalists) aged 10 to 15 should take active part in process of writing and composing the contest entry. However, since 2008 the rules allow adults to officially help children in the process, provided that song rights still remain solely with children.
- Up to 8 participants were allowed on stage in JESC till 2008; however in 2008 the rule has been changed and now is same as at ESC- 6 person on stage.
- Prerecorded backing vocals are allowed in JESC.
- The child artists shall not wear clothing which is adult in expression, and they shall be fully dressed (e.g. no short dresses, etc.).
- Draw of order of performances is done in a different way from ESC; countries are divided by draw into groups, while exact running order inside these groups is determined by producers of the contest.
- Contest always takes place on Saturdays in November/ December at 20:15 CET. Junior Eurovision Broadcast runs on screens for approximately 2 hours 15mins.
- Since 2007 in JESC participating broadcasters are allowed not to broadcast contest live, but to transmit it with some delay in time they find more proper for kids-show broadcast.
- Since 2006 viewers are able to start voting from the beginning of the first entry presentation and end after second reprise of all entries.
- Since 2008 final score of the songs in each country of the participating Broadcasters which broadcast the contest live is calculated on both the results of the televoting and of the Back-up Jury’s votes on 50-50% basis.
- Starting from 2008, national juries have to include 6 persons, all of them music professionals older than16 years. Earlier, back-up juries were made of eight people –four of whom had to be under 16 years of age.
- Since 2005 every contestant in JESC has automatically been awarded 12 points to prevent the disappointment of children getting score or zero points.
- Since 2006 only English language is used by hosts of the show.
- National spokespersons are also kids.
- In 2003-2006 DVDs of the show have been produced. They have also included full previews. Every year CD of the contest is being produced, since 2006 being double with karaoke versions.
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