The 14th edition of the annual Junior Eurovision Song Contest will take place this afternoon (16:00 CET) in Valletta, Malta. Representatives aged 10-14 from 17 different countries will take the stage, try win the juries’ heart and take the trophy home.

The 2016 Junior Eurovision Song Contest takes place in the Malta after Malta’s win in last year’s contest with the song Not my soul by Destiny Chukunyere. The contest will be held in the Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valletta, which usually hosts the country’s Eurovision national selections. This year’s theme is Embrace.

The show will be hosted by Ben Camille, who hosted the Maltese national selection this year and was the spokeperson during the voting in Stockholm, and Valerie Vella. Destiny herself along with Poli Genova (Bulgarian representative for Eurovision 2011 and 2016 and host of JESC 2015) as well as Jedward (Ireland 2011 and 2012) will perform during the interval act.

HOW TO WATCH?

The show will be broadcasted in all participating countries (along with Slovenia and Germany) by the participating broadcasters. An online webstream (available worldwide) is provided by EBU on JuniorEurovision.tv’s official YouTube.

THE PARTICIPANTS

A total of 17 countries will take part with Montenegro, San Marino and Slovenia withdrawing from the contest and Cyprus, Israel and Poland coming back after breaks of one, four and eleven years respectively.

1. Ireland: Zena Donnelly – Bríce ar bhríce
2. Armenia: Anahit & Mary – Tarber
3. Albania: Klesta Qehaja – Besoj
4. Russia: The Water of Life Project – Water of life
5. Malta: Christina Magrin – Parachute
6. Bulgaria: Lidia Ganeva – Magical day
7. FYR Macedonia: Martija Stanojković – Love will lead our way
8. Poland: Olivia Wieczorek – Nie zapomnij
9. Belarus: Alexander Minyonok – Muzyka moikh pobed
10. Ukraine: Sofia Rol – Planet craves for love
11. Italy: Fiamma Boccia – Cara mamma – Dear mom
12. Serbia: Dunja Jeličić – U la la la
13. Israel: Shir & Tim – Follow my heart
14. Australia: Alexa Curtis – We are
15. The Netherlands: Kisses – Kisses and dancin’
16. Cyprus: George Michaelides – Dance floor
17. Georgia: Mariam Mamadashvili – Mzeo

VOTING

This year’s contest see another major change other than moving the broadcast time from the usual Saturday night to Sunday afternoon, which was done in order to put it in a more children-suitable time slot: the winner will be decided by 100% jury voting, hence no televoting will be used.

Instead of televoting, each country will have a jury made of five adults and a jury made of five children (replacing the ‘televoting’). While calling each country, their jury votes will be announced, and the cumulated scores of the Kids Jury in all countries will be then added together – just like in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.

In addition, three expert judges will vote in the contest, each having the voting weight of a jury (1-8, 10, 12 points):

• Mads Grimstad, Universal Music (Denmark)
• Christer Björkman, Executive Producer of Melodifestivalen and Eurovision 2016 (Sweden)
• Jedward, Irish representatives in Eurovision 2011 and 2012 (Ireland)

Let the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2016 begin!