Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2004

The Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2004 was the second edition of the annual Junior Eurovision Song Contest for young singers aged eight to fifteen. 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 twenty countries and viewed by 100 million people. Eighteen countries participated, and  participated for the first time.

The contest was won by 9-year-old María Isabel who represented with her song "Antes muerta que sencilla" (Better Dead Than Plain) from her debut album ¡No me toques las palmas que me conozco! which was released before the contest. Dino Jelusić, who won the 2003 contest for, presented the award to María. Since then, Isabel has entered the charts in not only Spain but France, Italy, Scandinavia, Latin America and has gone on to release further albums in her home country.

, who came ninth received more sets of twelve points than the, who came second. , who came sixth, were voted by all the other countries that took part, which is more than the number of countries that voted for, who came fourth and , 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. The idea was extended to a Scandinavian song competition in 2002, known as MGP Nordic, with Denmark, Norway and Sweden as participants. In November 2002, 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", branded with the name of the EBU's already long-running and popular song competition, the Eurovision Song Contest. Denmark was asked to host the first programme that took place the following year after their experience with their own contests and the MGP Nordic.

Host city selection
Norway was the third country of choice for this contest as the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) had, in May 2003, originally chosen broadcaster ITV of the United Kingdom to host the event. Shortly after the first contest in Copenhagen, it was confirmed that the next edition would be held in Manchester on 20 November 2004. However, ITV pulled out in May 2004 due to finance and scheduling problems. In August 2004, it was revealed that Granada Television, who would have co-produced the show with Carlton Television, had decided to pull out of the deal claiming the allocated budget of €1,500,000 was too small. The EBU offered funding of €900,000 to produce the event, but the ITV company said it would have cost almost €2,500,000 so asked them to find a new host broadcaster. It is also thought that another factor to their decision was the previous years' audience ratings for ITV which were below the expected amount.

The venue was therefore moved to Croatia, the winning country of 2003, 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. It was at this point that in June 2004, with five months remaining until the event would be held, that Norwegian broadcaster NRK offered to organise the next contest. Hosting duties were confirmed by the broadcaster itself a few days later, adding that the competition would take place at Håkons Hall in Lillehammer on the same date as originally planned.

Venue
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).

Participating countries
The EBU released the initial list of participants with 20 competing countries. France and Switzerland made their debut in the contest. Although initially confirmed as a participating countries, both and  ended up pulling out before the contest. There were also early reports that had planned to enter in the contest, but did not appear on the final list of participants.

Prior to the event, a compilation album featuring all the songs from the 2004 contest, along with karaoke versions, was put together by the European Broadcasting Union and released by Universal Music Group in November 2004.

Visual design
On 2 September 2004, host broadcaster NRK presented the official logo of the contest. The theme of the show was later confirmed as bright Nordic winter nights, sparkling stars and snow crystals, set in a hip-hop atmosphere.

Presenters
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.

Voting
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.

Contest overview
The event took place on 20 November 2004 at 20:15 CET. Eighteen countries participated, with the running order published on 14 October 2004. All the countries competing were eligible to vote by televote. Spain won with 171 points, with the United Kingdom, Croatia, Romania, Denmark, completing the top five. Belarus, Sweden, Switzerland, Latvia, and Poland, both of whom came last, occupied the bottom five positions.

The show was opened by the flag parade showing all participating countries. The interval act included Irish boy band Westlife performed "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?" live on stage.

Spokespersons

 * 1)  – Kalli Georgelli
 * 2)  – Thea Saliba
 * 3)  – Danny Hoekstra
 * 4)  – Alessia Milani
 * 5)  – Ida Ursin-Holm
 * 6)  – Gabrielle
 * 7)  – Filip
 * 8)  – Jadwiga Jaskulski
 * 9)  – Stella María Koukkidi
 * 10)  – Darya
 * 11)  – Buga
 * 12)  – Sabīne Berezina
 * 13)  – Charlie Allan
 * 14)  – Anne Gadegaard
 * 15)  – Lucho
 * 16)  – Queenie Marksdotter
 * 17)  – Alexander Schönfelder
 * 18)  – Emy

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

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.


 * – After failing to participate in the previous year, German broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) was announced as a debutant at the 2004 contest. However, the country later ended up pulling out before the contest. No reason for the withdrawal was given. Germany would only debut sixteen years later at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2020.
 * – 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 Lillehammer. However, in the end Ireland did not debut and would stay out of the competition until.
 * – 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.

Official album
Junior Eurovision Song Contest Lillehammer '04, is a compilation album put together by the European Broadcasting Union, and was released by Universal Music Group in November 2004. The album features all the songs from the 2004 contest.