The Croatian broadcaster HRT and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) confirmed that the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2004 will take place in Croatia! Earlier, the second edition of the junior contest was scheduled to take place in Manchester, United Kingdom.

On 13th May, the first signs of problems became clear, as reliable sources mentioned that there were plans to move the contest from Manchester to another location. So far, it was generally accepted that this location switch would take place within the UK borders, but now EBU and broadcaster HRT came to an agreement.

Svante Stockselius of the EBU said to esctoday.com that there were two main reasons to move away from Manchester to Croatia: “First of all, there was a schedule problem at ITV, secondly they wanted to have more budget. As this would mean that the participating countries had to pay more, the EBU and ITV decided together that this was not an option. After consulting other member broadcasters, we were very happy to see the Croatian broadcaster HRT doing an offer”, Stockselius said.

Croatia won the first edition of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, last year in Copenhagen, thanks to Dino and his song Ti si moja prva ljubav (You are my one and only). The aim was to decide the host country on forehand to avoid the pressure on the participating kids. The 2005 organisation has already been awarded to Belgium.

“It is correct that the organisation of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2004 is offered to HRT (…) our general management accepted the offer a few days ago and we are preparing the production team for this project. The official press information about the project will be released when that preparation finished”, HRT's head of PR wrote in an email to our colleagues of Oikotimes.com.