The EBU will investigate Croatian broadcaster HRT's decision not to broadcast the Junior Eurovision Song Contest on a national channel. HRT reneged on its promise to the EBU to broadcast the 2006 Junior Eurovision Song Contest live on a national station and thus broke the rules of competition. The show was live only on Satelite channel HRT Plus, leaving many Croatians unable to see the show or to watch on Bosnian or Serbian stations.
Speaking exclusively to esctoday.com immediately after the show, Svante Stockselius told esctoday.com:
"This is a violation of the rules and we will have to see what happened and what is to be done".
esctoday.com asked if there could be a punishment for breaking this rule and was told:
"The steering committee of theEurovision Song Contest will look at this matter, but there is a clear violation of the rules and apenalty or punishment of some kind is possible, yes".
esctoday.com then asked whether these penalties could apply at the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest in Helsinki, or whether it would only apply to the Junior Eurovision Contest. Mr. Stockselius explained:
"No the two competitions are completely separate, any punishment would only apply to the Junior competition".
"No the two competitions are completely separate, any punishment would only apply to the Junior competition".
It also remains to be confirmed whether or not enough people were able to watch the show fo rthe televote to be valid, or whether the Croatian vote came from the back-up jury.
esctoday.com will investigate this matter further with our partner-site www.eurovision-croatia.com, who raised the alarm bells earlier thisweek. esctoday.com immediately contacted HRT and were told on Tuesday by the international relations department thatHRT would broadcast the show live on their main channel!
