Finland: Will Not Debut In Junior Eurovision This Year

Finland will not be debuting in this year’s Junior Eurovision Song Contest in Tbilisi, Georgia.

YLE have revealed to eurovoix.com that Finland will not be debuting in this year’s Junior Eurovision Song Contest. This follows the news that their Nordic neighbours in both Sweden and Denmark also won’t be returning to the 2017 contest. Finland first took part in the adult Eurovision Song Contest in 1961, and has taken part a total of 51 times. They have won the contest once to date, in 2006 with Lordi and their song “Hard Rock Hallelujah”. In 2007 they hosted the contest in the capital city Helsinki. Their most recent entry in the Eurovision Song Contest was Norma John with the song “Blackbird”. They came in 12th in the semi-final in Kyiv, Ukraine this year, and just missed out on qualification.

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The 15th edition of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest later this year in Tbilisi, Georgia. The contest is to be held at the Tbilisi Sports Palace on November 26. It is the first time that the three-time winners of the contest have hosted Junior Eurovision.

Changes have been made to the rules of this years contest. The amount of a song that can be performed in English has been increased to 40% of the lyrics. While the number of voices on the backing track has been increased from five to six singers.

To date the following countries have confirmed their participation in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2017:

• Belarus
• Bulgaria
• Cyprus
• Georgia –  Host nation
• Ireland
• Malta
• The Netherlands
• Russia

The following countries participated in the 2016 contest but are yet to publicly confirm participation:

• Albania
• Armenia
• Australia
• Israel
• Italy
• FYR Macedonia
• Poland
• Serbia
• Ukraine

Some countries have also stated that they won’t be returning to this year’s contest. This includes Denmark, Latvia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Source: YLE