The United Kingdom will not participate in this year’s Junior Eurovision Song Contest, ending a two-year stint in the competition.
The UK returned to the contest under broadcaster BBC in 2022, after an absence dating back to 2005.
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- The United Kingdom will not participate in this year’s Junior Eurovision Song Contest, ending a two-year stint that began in 2022 under the BBC after a 17-year absence
- The BBC spokesperson did not provide a specific reason for the withdrawal, stating only that difficult decisions had to be made. The Euro Trip has contacted the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) for further comments on the UK’s exit
- Freya Skye and girl group STAND UNIQU3 achieved notable success in the past two years, with Skye placing fifth and winning the public vote in 2022, and STAND UNIQU3 securing fourth place overall in 2023
A spokesperson for the BBC told The Euro Trip: “We sometimes have to make difficult decisions and the BBC will not participate in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest this year.
“We would like to thank the artists and creative teams who represented the UK for the last two years.”
The BBC did not give an exact reason for its withdrawal.
A spokesperson for the Junior Eurovision Song Contest told The Euro Trip: “The full list of participating broadcasters in this year’s Junior Eurovision Song Contest will be published in due course.
“We’ve nothing further to add about any individual broadcaster at this time.”
Freya Skye placed fifth at Junior Eurovision on the UK’s return in 2022, winning the public vote ahead of Spain and that year’s winner France. 700,000 viewers watched the broadcast on BBC one and CBBC.
Girl group STAND UNIQU3 followed up Skye’s success 12 months later in Nice by going one better and bagging fourth place overall.
In 2022, Lee Smithurst, Executive Producer of the BBC’s Junior Eurovision coverage and Head of Delegation, told The Euro Trip he hoped the country’s return wouldn’t be a flash in the pan.
“Absolutely it’s a long-term plan.
“Everyone is keen.
“Obviously this year the time frame was quite short, but I hope in the future that we can build on this and do a [televised] final where there’s audition shows and lots of kids can enter because they have a lot of shows on CBBC like that.”
The UK first competed in Junior Eurovision at the contest’s inaugural event in 2003 with commercial broadcaster ITV organising the country’s participation. Tom Morley placed third that year before Cory Spedding finished as runner-up 12 months later.
After its third consecutive participation in the contest, ITV withdrew.
The UK’s return in 2022 was organised by the BBC after the success of Sam Ryder at the Eurovision Song Contest.
“I was asked by Rachel Ashdown (Lead Commissioner for the BBC’s Eurovision output) and Susie Lamb (Managing Director of BBC Studios) about it a couple of weeks after we came back from Turin,” Smithurst told The Euro Trip in 2022.
“The EBU have asked the BBC if they’d consider coming back, but our results in the adult Eurovision hadn’t been that good until we got to Sam Ryder.
“So the priority was to start changing that narrative and getting better results before it [Junior Eurovision] could even be considered.”
This year’s Junior Eurovision Song Contest will take place without the United Kingdom in Madrid, Spain.
French broadcaster France Télévisions decided not to host the contest again having hosted two of the last three editions. Spanish broadcaster RTVE stepped up having finished second behind France in the contest last year.
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