Junior Eurovision Song Contest

Although a small nation with a small language and so scant prospects of producing TV concepts with international appeal, Denmark has none the less managed to create something new and powerful with Junior Eurovision Song Contest (JESC) - something to capture the audience unlike the vast array of shows featuring forgettable people in pointless situations. The idea of televising a song contest with children first began in 2000 as a spin-off from a children's show on DR TV, but already the next year it was launched on Danish TV as an independent show called "mgp 2001" - and became an instant success! It was only natural that the show would spawn, first, a Nordic version in 2002 and then, in 2003, the international version. This was not just a European "box" placed on top of the Danish show; all 16 entrants to the JESC 2003 had organized their own national contests thereby establishing a new TV tradition which hopefully will continue and develop in the future. An international children's song contest is about showing that children are competent, possessed of sufficient energy, willpower and skills to lift a show on this scale. Bear in mind that the youngest entrant was only eight years old, and by no means the worst. Unlike the ESC for grown-ups, where entrants may deliver songs written by just about anyone else than themselves, entrants to the JESC have to perform songs which are clearly their own. This JESC rule has added new zest to an institution lately considered somewhat sclerotic, and in a few years the Junior ESC may conceivably have supplanted the grown-up version as the preferred song contest.