Junior Eurovision

Song Contest
2004

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The Junior Eurovision Song Contest

2004 was the second edition of the
annual Junior Eurovision Song Contest
for young singers aged 8 to 15. It was
held on 20 November 2004, in Håkons
Hall, Lillehammer, Norway and lasted 2
hours and 15 minutes. It was presented
by Stian Barsnes Simonsen and Nadia
Hasnaoui, broadcast in 20 countries and
viewed by 100 million people. Eighteen
countries participated, France and
Switzerland participated for the first
time.
 Junior Eurovision Song Contest
2004

Dates

Final 20 November 2004

Host

Venue Håkons Hall,

Lillehammer, Norway

Presenter(s) Stian Barsnes Simonsen

Nadia Hasnaoui

Directed by Gitte Calmeyer

Executive supervisor Svante Stockselius

Executive producer Ivar Ragne Jensen
Host broadcaster Norwegian Broadcasting
Corporation (NRK)

Opening act Flag parade introducing

the 18 participating
countries

Interval act Westlife performing

"Ain't That a Kick in the
Head?"

Website junioreurovision.tv
/event/lillehammer-
2004

Participants

Number of entries 18
Debuting countries  France
  Switzerland
Non-returning countries None

Participation map

     Participating countries

Vote

Voting system Each country awards

1–8, 10, and 12 points to
their 10 favourite songs
Nul points None
Winning song  Spain
"Antes muerta que
sencilla"

The contest was won by 9-year-old

María Isabel from Spain with her song
Antes muerta que sencilla (Better
Dead Than Plain). Dino Jelusić, who won
the 2003 contest for Croatia, presented
the award to María. Since then, María
Isabel has entered the charts in not
only Spain but France, Italy,
Scandinavia, Latin America and
released a second album. Greece, who
came ninth received more sets of
twelve points than the United Kingdom,
who came second. France, who came
sixth, were voted by all the other
countries that took part, which is more
than the number of countries that
voted for Romania, who came fourth
and Croatia, who came third.

Incidentally, the same three countries

occupied the top three places as last
year, just in a different order. These
three countries were Spain, the United
Kingdom, and Croatia.

Origins and history

The origins of the contest date back to
2000 when Danmarks Radio held a
song contest for Danish children that
year and the following year.[1][2] The
idea was extended to a Scandinavian
song festival in 2002, MGP Nordic, with
Denmark, Norway and Sweden as
participants.[3][4] The EBU picked up the
idea for a song contest featuring
children and opened the competition to
all EBU member broadcasters making
it a pan-European event. The working
title of the programme was "Eurovision
Song Contest for Children",[5] branded
with the name of the EBU's already
popular song competition, the
Eurovision Song Contest. Denmark was
asked to host the first programme
after their experience with their own
contests and the MGP Nordic.

Location
 Lillehammer

Manchester

Zagreb

Locations of the bidding countries. Countries

which withdrew from hosting are marked in red.

The chosen host country is marked in blue.

Host city selection E…

Norway was the third country of choice

for this contest as the European
Broadcasting Union (EBU) had originally
chosen ITV of the United Kingdom to
host the event in Manchester.
However, ITV pulled out in May 2004
due to finance and scheduling
problems.[6] It is also thought that
another factor to their decision was the
previous years' audience ratings for ITV
which were below the expected
amount.[7]

The venue was therefore moved to

Croatia, the winning country of 2003,[8]
but the Croatian broadcaster HRT
reportedly forgot that the prospective
venue for the event was already
booked for the period the Junior
Eurovision Song Contest was to take
place.[9] It was at this point, with five
months remaining until the event would
be held, that Norwegian broadcaster
NRK offered to organise the next
contest.

Venue E…

Håkons Hall, Lillehammer. Venue of the 2004

Junior Eurovision Song Contest.
Håkons Hall, sometimes anglicized as
Håkon Hall and Haakons Hall, is an
arena located at Stampesletta in
Lillehammer, Norway, built for the 1994
Winter Olympics. With a spectator
capacity of 11,500 people, it is the
largest handball and ice hockey venue
in the country.

Håkons Hall is regularly used for

handball and ice hockey tournaments,
concerts, exhibitions, conferences and
banquets. The venue is owned by
Lillehammer Municipality via the
subsidiary Lillehammer Olympiapark,
which owns all the Olympic venues in
Lillehammer. The Norwegian Olympic
Museum is located in the arena, which
is located next to the smaller Kristins
Hall. The hall was opened on 1
February 1993 having cost 238 million
Norwegian krone (NOK).

Format

Visual design E…

On 2 September 2004, host

broadcaster NRK presented the official
logo of the contest.[10] The theme of the
show was later confirmed as bright
Nordic winter nights, sparkling stars
and snow crystals, set in a hip-hop
atmosphere.[11]

Presenters E…

On 23 September 2004, it was

announced that Nadia Hasnaoui and
Stian Barsnes Simonsen would host the
contest. The hosting couple also led the
final of national qualifying rounds to the
competition, Melodi Grand Prix Junior
2004 on 12 June.[12]

Running order E…

The draw for the running order of the

contest was held on 14 October, with
Greece drawn to open the contest for a
second time and Romania drawn to
close.[13]

Voting E…
All countries used televoting to decide
on their top ten. In normal Eurovision
fashion, each country's favourite song
was given 12 points, their second
favourite 10, and their third to tenth
favourites were given 8–1 points.

Opening and interval acts E…

On television, the show opened with

the usual EBU ident and fanfare,
followed by a placard of a starry night
sky with suspensful music and the
NRK logo in the middle of the card. The
"JESC singing girl" would then zoom into
the screen on a snowboard with the
JESC 2004 logo on the bottom, and
trailing behind the board would be
stars. The singing girl would then hover
towards a rotating disco ball, and as
the camera would move closer, the
words "JUNIOR EUROVISION SONG
CONTEST - LILLEHAMMER 2004" would
also start rotating. During this time, a
person would start rapping the word
"JESC" over and over again, then the
placard would give way to a ceiling
shot of the arena.
After the flag parade, the hosts, Stian
and Nadia were to land on the stage
from a snowboard. Stian landed on the
left hand side of the stage, but when
Nadia came through, she 'accidentally'
crash-landed behind the stage. She
emerged a few minutes later in
comedic style coughing, but no bodily
injuries were seen. Nonetheless, when
she came out, the audience continued
cheering and the show proceeded like
it was supposed to.
The camera angle would then switch,
this time to a camera positioned in the
audience of the arena, where all the
participants would walk through in a
first ever Eurovision-related flag
parade. In future editions, the flag
parade would occur on the stage of the
arena.

During a ten-minute break for

televoting,[14] boy band Westlife
performed "Ain't That a Kick in the
Head?" live on stage as the interval
act.[15]
Participating countries
Originally twenty countries had applied
to take part but Germany and Israel
later pulled out.[16] There were also
reports that Ireland had planned to
enter the programme.[17] Israel, Ireland
and Germany would later debut in the
contest in 2012, 2015 and 2020
respectively.

This was the last contest that Poland

and France took part in before their
withdrawal in 2005. They would miss
the contest for 12 and 14 years until
2016 and 2018 respectively, when they
announced their return.[18]

Results E…
Draw Country Artist Song Language Place Points

"O palios mou eaftos" (Ο

01  Greece Secret Band Greek 9 48
παλιός μου εαυτός)

02  Malta Young Talent Team "Power of a Song" English 12 14

03   Klaartje & Nicky "Hij is een kei" Dutch 11 27

 Netherlands

04   Demis Mirarchi "Birichino" Italian 16 4

  Switzerland

05    Norway @lek "En stjerne skal jeg bli" Norwegian 13 12

06    France Thomas Pontier "Si on voulait bien" French 6 78

07   Martina Siljanovska "Zabava" (Забава) Macedonian 7 64

 Macedonia

08    Poland KWADro "Łap życie" Polish 17 3

09   Cyprus Marios Tofi "Onira" (Όνειρα) Greek 8 61

"Spiavajcie so mnoj"
10   Belarus Egor Volchek Belarusian 14 9
(Спявайце со мной)

11    Croatia Nika Turković "Hej mali" Croatian 3 126

Mārtiņš Tālbergs and C-

12    Latvia "Balts vai melns" Latvian 17 3
Stones Juniors

13    United Cory Spedding "The Best Is Yet to Come" English 2 140

Kingdom

14    Denmark Cool Kids "Pigen er min" Danish 5 116

"Antes muerta que

15    Spain María Isabel Spanish 1 171
sencilla"

16    Sweden Limelights "Varför jag?" Swedish 15 8

17    Belgium Free Spirits "Accroche-toi" French 10 37

18    Romania Noni Răzvan Ene "Îți mulțumesc" Romanian 4 123

Scoreboard
 R

Switzerlands
Netherlands
Total score

Macedonia
Norway
Greece

France

Poland
Greece 48 Malta
12 1 2 1 3
Contestants

Malta 14 2 3

Netherlands 27 3 3 1 1

Switzerland 4 4

Norway 12

France 78 6 1 5 6 2 2 4

Macedonia 64 6 6 5 5 4 5

Poland 3 2

Cyprus 61 12 8 3 1 6
 Belarus 9 1 3

Croatia 126 4 8 8 10 8 12 7

Latvia 3 2 1

United
140 5 10 12 7 6 6 5 10
Kingdom

Denmark 116 7 5 7 3 12 5 8 8

Spain 171 10 7 10 12 8 12 10 12

Sweden 8 4

Belgium 37 3 4 4 7 4 2

Romania 123 8 2 10 7 10 7 6

12 points E…
Below is a summary of the maximum
12 points each country awarded to
another:

N. Contestant Voting nation

8 Spain Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, France, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland

3 Romania Belarus, Latvia, Spain

Croatia Macedonia, United Kingdom

2
Greece Cyprus, Malta

Cyprus Greece

1 Denmark Norway

United Kingdom Netherlands

International broadcasts
and voting

Voting and spokespersons E…

 Belgium – Alexander Schönfelder

  Belarus – Darya
 Cyprus – Stella María Koukkidi
 Croatia – Buga
 Denmark – Anne Gadegaard (Danish
representative in the 2003 contest)

 France – Gabrielle
 Greece – Kalli Georgelli (Greek
representative in the 2005 contest as part of
the duo Alexandros and Kalli)

 Latvia – Sabine Berezina

 Macedonia – Filip
 Malta – Thea Saliba (Maltese
representative in the 2005 contest)
  Netherlands – Danny Hoekstra
 Norway – Ida
 Poland – Jadwiga Jaskulski
 Romania – Emy
 Spain – Lucho
 Sweden – Vännerna Queenie
 
  Switzerland – Gaia Bertoncini
 
 United Kingdom – Charlie Allan
 
Commentators E…

Participating countries E…

 Belarus – Denis Kurian (BTRC)

 
  Belgium – Dutch: Ilse Van Hoecke
 
and Marcel Vanthilt (VRT TV1), French:
Jean-Louis Lahaye (RTBF La Deux)
 Croatia – TBC (HRT)
 
 Cyprus – TBC (CyBC)
 
 Denmark – Nicolai Molbech (DR1)
 
 France – Elsa Fayer and Bruno Berberes
 
(France 3)
 Greece – TBC (ERT)
 
 Latvia – Kārlis Streips (LTV1)[19]
 
 Malta – Valerie Vella (PBS)
 
 Macedonia – Milanka Rašik (MTV 1)
 
  Netherlands – Angela Groothuizen
 
(Nederland 1)
 Norway – Jonna Støme (NRK1)
 
 Poland – Artur Orzech (TVP1)
 
 Romania – Ioana Isopecu and
 
Alexandru Nagy (TVR1)
 Spain – Fernando Argenta (TVE1)
 
 Sweden – Pekka Heino (SVT1)
 
  Switzerland – German: Roman
 
Kilchsperger (SF2), French: Marie-
Thérèse Porchet (TSR 2), Italian:
Claudio Lazzarino and Daniele Rauseo
(TSI 1)
  United Kingdom – Matt Brown (ITV2)[20]
 
Non-participating countries E…

 Australia – No commentator (SBS TV,

 
delayed)
 Estonia – Unknown (ETV, delayed)[21]
 
Other countries
For a country to be eligible for potential
participation in the Junior Eurovision
Song Contest, it needs to be an active
member of the EBU. It is currently
unknown whether the EBU issue
invitations of participation to all 56
active members like they do for the
Eurovision Song Contest.

 Germany – After failing to debut

last year, German broadcaster
Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) said
they would debut at this year's
contest. However, plans never came to
fruition and they ended up pulling out
before the contest.[16]
 Ireland – Irish television was
reported to have received an invitation
to participate in the 2004 contest and
were among the 20 countries expected
 to take part in Manchester. However, in
the end Ireland did not debut and
would stay out of the spotlight until
2015.[17]
 Israel – The Israeli Broadcasting
Authority (IBA) initially planned to
debut at this year's contest but the
debut never happened. Israel and the
IBA would not debut until 2012.[17]

Official album
 Junior Eurovision Song Contest:
Lillehammer 2004

Compilation album by Junior Eurovision

Song Contest

Released November 2004

Genre Pop
Length 43:51
Label Universal

Junior Eurovision Song Contest chronology

JESC: Junior JESC: Hasselt

Copenhagen Eurovision Song 2005
2003 Contest: (2005)
(2003) Lillehammer
2004
(2004)

Junior Eurovision Song Contest:

Lillehammer 2004, is a compilation
album put together by the European
Broadcasting Union, and was released
by Universal Music Group on
November 2004. The album features
all the songs from the 2004 contest.[22]

See also
Eurovision Song Contest 2004
Eurovision Young Musicians 2004

References
1. "IMDB: Børne1'erens melodi grand prix
2000" . IMDb. 1 May 2000. Retrieved
3 May 2008.
2. "IMDB: de unges melodi grand prix
2001" . IMDb. 1 May 2001. Retrieved
3 May 2008.
3. "IMDB: MGP Nordic 2002" . IMDb. 1
December 2002. Retrieved 3 May 2008.
4. "MGP Nordic 2002" . esconnet.dk (in
Danish). 27 April 2002. Archived from
the original on 25 October 2007.
Retrieved 3 May 2008.
5. "First EBU press release on JESC
2003" . European Broadcasting Union.
22 November 2002. Archived from the
original on 5 September 2006.
Retrieved 3 May 2008.
6. " 'Junior contest not to take place in
Manchester.' " . Retrieved 20 July 2020.
7. Cozens, Claire (17 November 2003).
"JESC UK ratings" . The Guardian.
London. Retrieved 3 May 2008.
8. "Junior 2004 in Croatia! (update)" . 5
September 2004. Archived from the
original on 5 September 2004.
Retrieved 26 June 2019.
9. "Junior contest moves to Norway" . 16
November 2004. Archived from the
original on 16 November 2004.
Retrieved 26 June 2019.
10. "NRK revealed Junior 2004 logo" .
ESCToday.com. 2 September 2004.
Retrieved 30 March 2020.
11. "Junior theme: 'bright Nordic winter
nights' " . ESCToday.com. 14 October
2004. Retrieved 30 March 2020.
12. "Nadia and Stian to host Junior 2004" .
ESCToday.com. 23 September 2004.
Retrieved 30 March 2020.
13. "Junior: this is the running order…" .
ESCToday.com. 14 October 2004.
Retrieved 30 March 2020.
14. "Tonight in Lillehammer: 10 minutes
televoting" . ESCToday.com. 20
November 2004. Retrieved 30 March
2020.
15. "Boyband Westlife to perform at Junior
2004" . ESCToday.com. 3 November
2004. Retrieved 30 March 2020.
16. " 'Germany withdraws from Junior
Eurovision Song Contest' " . Archived
from the original on 28 June 2008.
17. "Information on Irish plans to
participate" . Archived from the
original on 16 November 2004.
Retrieved 26 June 2019.
18. Granger, Anthony (3 July 2016). "Poland
returns to the Junior Eurovision Song
Contest" . Eurovoix.
19. "Š
odien Lillehammerē notiek otrais
Eirovīzijas bērnu dziesmu konkursa
fināls" . delfi.tv. 20 November 2004.
Retrieved 29 July 2018.
20. "Junior Eurovision Song Contest" .
UKGameshows. Retrieved 12 August
2012.
21. "Laste Eurovisiooni lauluvõistluse võit
läks Hispaaniasse" . Eesti Päevaleht.
22 November 2004. Retrieved 2 June
2020.
 22. "Various - Junior Eurovision Song
Contest Lillehammer '04" . Discogs.
Retrieved 20 July 2020.

External links

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