Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2010

The Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2010 was the eighth edition of the annual Junior Eurovision Song Contest and took place in Minsk, Belarus. It was held on 20 November 2010. The contest was won by Vladimir Arzumanyan from Armenia with the song "Mama." This gave Armenia its first Junior Eurovision victory and its first victory in any Eurovision contest.

Location
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) invited broadcasters to bid for the rights to host the contest. In June 2009, Belarussian broadcaster National State Television and Radio Company of the Republic of Belarus (BRTC) was announced as the host broadcaster, being chosen in a dispute with Malta and Russia bids. As the previous edition was held in Kyiv, there were real possibilities that this edition would be held in Malta, moving the contest from Eastern Europe,as originally the EBU had proposed rotation between the continent's regions what could favor Malta, it was Belarus's bid who featuring Eurovision Song Contest 2009 winner Alexander Rybak prevailed in the end.

Under construction between 2008-9 period, the 15,000-spectator Minsk-Arena hosted the event. Belarus has twice previously won the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, which is, according to EBU Executive Supervisor Svante Stockselius, "one of Belarus' most popular television shows."

Participating countries
Despite originally estimating the number of participants to be between 20 and 25, on 28 July 2010 it was announced 14 countries would compete in the contest, with Moldova making its début and Latvia and Lithuania returning. Cyprus and Romania withdrew from the contest.

Sweden returned to the contest through Sveriges Television (SVT) after TV4 withdrew. The EBU's coordinator of the contest, Svante Stockselius, labelled SVT's return to the contest as a big achievement in terms of negotiations with possible participants and expressed hope that other Scandinavian broadcasters may also return to the show. Also, a special documentary "Kids of Eurovision" was filmed by BTRC about them.

Prior to the event, a digital compilation album featuring all the songs from the 2010 contest, along with karaoke versions, was put together by the European Broadcasting Union and released by Universal Music Group on 19 November 2010.

Visual design
The theme art for the contest was revealed on 8 April 2010, consisting of multi-coloured circles, symbolising "different people, cultures and countries," that form the shape of wings, that symbolise "freedom, ease of flying, creative inspiration and rising above." On 8 September, the mascots of the show were presented, being a bear and a wisent.

The stage, designed by Swedish stage designer Ulf Mårtensson, was unveiled on 15 July 2010, featuring five constructions in the shapes of wings. The hosts were also involved with each performance on their own dedicated section of the stage.

Theme art was also incorporated in the promotional billboards and posters featuring 11 "faces of Junior Eurovision" selected through casting procedure. Results of castings were revealed on 20 July 2010 and the 11 chosen ones were Belarus TV personalities Denis Kourian, Olga Barabanschikova, Irina Kazantseva, Andrey Bibikov, former JESC entrants Alexey Zhigalkovich, Ksenia Sitnik, Yuriy Demidovich, Alina Molosh, Daria Nadina as well as non-professionals Yulia Brazhinskaya and Ilya Ilmursky.

Presenters
On 6 September 2010, it was announced that Denis Kourian and Leila Ismailava would host the eighth edition of the contest.

Contest overview
The event took place on 20 November 2010 at 21:15 MSK (20:15 CET). Fourteen countries participated, with the running order published on 14 October 2010. All the countries competing were eligible to vote with the jury and televote. Armenia won with 120 points, with Russia, Serbia, Georgia, and Belarus completing the top five. Latvia, Sweden, Macedonia, Malta, and Ukraine occupied the bottom five positions.

The show was opened with "Hello, Eurovision" performed by former Belarusian winners Ksenia Sitnik and Alexey Zhigalkovich. The interval acts included "Europe's Skies" performed by Alexander Rybak, all participants and Dmitry Koldun performing the specially-commissioned UNICEF song "A Day Without War", and all winners of Junior Eurovision Song Contest at the time: Dino Jelusić, María Isabel, Ksenia Sitnik, The Tolmachevy Twins, Alexey Zhigalkovich, Bzikebi and Ralf Mackenbach, who performed a remixed medley of their winning entries and later presented the trophy to the winner at the end of the show.

Detailed voting results
Each country gave their votes through a 50% jury and 50% televoting system, which decided their top ten songs using the points 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1.

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.

Spokespersons
The order in which votes were cast during the 2010 contest along with the spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country.


 * 1)  – Bernadras Garbaciauskas
 * 2)  – Paula Paraschiv
 * 3)  – Bram
 * 4)  – Maja Mazić
 * 5)  – Elizabeth Arfush
 * 6)  – Robin Ridell
 * 7)  – Philip Mazurov
 * 8)  – Ralfs Eilands
 * 9)  – Laura Omloop
 * 10)  – Nadia Sargsyan
 * 11)  – Francesca Zarb
 * 12)  – Anastasiya Butyugina
 * 13)  – Giorgi Toradze
 * 14)  – Sara Markoska

Broadcasts
Each national broadcaster also sent a commentator to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language. Details of the commentators and the broadcasting station for which they represented are also included in the table below.