Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2006

The Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2006 was the fourth edition of the annual Junior Eurovision Song Contest for young singers aged 8 to 15. On 2 December 2006, the contest was broadcast live from Bucharest, Romania making it the second time the contest had been held in a capital city. It was organised by the Romanian national broadcaster, Romanian Television (TVR), in co-operation with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

The show was broadcast live in the competing countries, as well as Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Australian television channel Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) that acquired the rights for broadcasting the show, which was broadcast on 1 January 2007. This was Serbia's first participation in a Eurovision event as an independent nation. The contest was won by The Tolmachevy Twins from with the song "Vesenniy Jazz".

Bidding phase and host selection
On 5 October 2005, it was confirmed that TVR had won the rights of hosting the contest over AVRO of the Netherlands (who would later be announced as the host broadcaster of the next contest). Croatia also expressed an interest in hosting this contest.

Venue
Polyvalent Hall from Bucharest (Sala Polivalentă din București) is a multi-purpose hall in Bucharest, Romania, located in the Tineretului Park. It is used for concerts, indoor sports such as tennis, gymnastics, dance, handball, volleyball, basketball, weightlifting, combat sports and professional wrestling. The hall was opened in 1974 but has since been renovated. It has a maximum seating capacity of 12,000 for concerts and 6,000 for handball.

Participating countries
On 16 May 2006, the EBU released the official list of participants with 15 competing countries. Originally 16 countries had initially signed up for the contest but one unspecified country later dropped out. Portugal, Serbia (for the first time as an independent country after the participation in 2005 contest as part of Serbia and Montenegro) and Ukraine made their debut, while Cyprus returned after a one-year absence.

Two broadcasters withdrew from the contest: Radio télévision belge de la communauté française (RTBF) of the French-speaking Wallonia in Belgium left the contest this year, after co-hosting the previous edition with Flemish broadcaster Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroep (VRT), claimed that continuing with the contest was not in their interests financially. Belgium continued to be represented at the contest by Flemish broadcaster VRT. Subsequently also Sveriges Television (SVT) of Sweden decided to withdraw from the contest for focusing on organisation of the MGP Nordic in Stockholm; the country continued to be represented at the contest by commercial broadcaster TV4.

Prior to the event, a compilation album featuring all the songs from the 2006 contest, along with karaoke versions, was put together by the European Broadcasting Union and released by Universal Music Group in November 2006.

Presenters
The presenters in charge of conducting the event were Andreea Marin and Ioana Ivan, who also appeared in the green room. Marin has been a presenter at the host broadcaster since 1994 and achieved national fame as the host of Surprize, Surprize, the Romanian version of British light entertainment show Surprise Surprise, on TVR1. Marin has twice appeared on the Eurovision Song Contest, reading out the Romanian televote results in and. Ivan is an actress and television personality and the first child presenter of the event.

Contest overview
The event took place on 2 December 2006 at 21:15 EET (20:15 CET). Fifteen countries participated, with the running order published on October 2006. All the countries competing were eligible to vote by televote. Russia won with 154 points, with Belarus, Sweden, Spain, and Serbia, completing the top five. Malta, the Netherlands, Greece, Portugal, and Macedonia occupied the bottom five positions.

The show was opened by various circus style dancers and performers including fifteen children, champions from the Romanian Gymnastics Federation, plus characters from the Bucharest State Circus and an on-stage appearance by Mihai Trăistariu, dressed as Count Dracula and was followed by the traditional flag parade introducing the 15 participating countries. The interval act included a performance by last year's winner Ksenia Sitnik, a "fight" between street dance and traditional Romanian dance in addition to a remix of songs by the last three Romanian participants at the contest.

Spokespersons

 * 1)  – Joana Galo Costa
 * 2)  – George Ioannidies
 * 3)  – Tess Gaerthe
 * 4)  – Andrea Nastase
 * 5)  – Assol
 * 6)  – Lucía
 * 7)  – Milica Stanišić
 * 8)  – Jack Curtis
 * 9)  – Denis Dimoski
 * 10)  – Amy Diamond
 * 11)  – Alexandros Chountas
 * 12)  – Liza Anton-Baychuk
 * 13)  – Sander Cliquet
 * 14)  – Lorena Jelusić
 * 15)  – Roman Kerimov

12 points
Below is a summary of all 12 points received. All countries were given 12 points at the start of voting to ensure that no country finished with nul points.

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.


 * – Armenian broadcaster AMPTV were negotiating with the EBU to debut. However, plans never came to fruition and they debuted a year later.
 * – Danish broadcaster DR, along with all Scandinavian broadcasters (NRK and SVT), decided to withdraw from the contest for various reasons, one being that the content put too much pressure on the participating children. Instead they staged a solely Scandinavian contest called MGP Nordic in Stockholm, as they did in 2002.
 * – Latvian broadcaster LTV decided to withdraw from the contest due to financial reasons.
 * – Monégasque broadcaster TMC, who is in charge of the country's participation in the Eurovision Song Contest, had stated an interest to take part in the contest. Monaco did not appear on the list of participants published by the EBU on 16 May 2006.
 * – Following the dissolution of Serbia and Montenegro, which had previously taken part in the 2005 contest, the EBU gave to the Montenegrin broadcaster, Radio Televizija Crne Gore (RTCG), extra time to decide whether or not to participate, but they finally declined the invitation.
 * – Norwegian broadcaster NRK decided to withdraw from the contest for various reasons, one being that focusing on participation in the MGP Nordic.
 * – British broadcaster ITV decided to withdraw from the contest due to low ratings in the last three editions.