16 countries will participate in Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2014 in Malta – EBU confirmed this information during today’s meeting of Heads of Delegations. This will be this third largest contest in the history of Junior Eurovision, with the same number of participants as in 2003 (the very first contest) and 2005.

The biggest Junior Eurovision was held in Norway in 2004 with 18 participants. It is worth to mention that this year, thanks to Vladislav Yakovlev’s successful negotiations, we’ll see three debuting and four returning countries, which is the biggest increase in the history of this contest. Unfortunately, three countries which took part last year decided not to be #together with others. Moldova, Azerbaijan and Macedonia withdrew from the contest.

Here are the participants of JESC 2004:

• Armenia (ARMTV) with Betty and “People of the sun”
• Belarus (BTRC) with Nadezhda Misyakova and “Sokol”
• Bulgaria (BNT) with Krisia, Hasan & Ibrahim and “Planetata na detsata”
• Croatia (HRT)
• Cyprus (CyBC) with Sophia Patsalides and “I pio omorfi mera”
• Georgia (GBP) with Lizi Pop and “Happy Day”
• Italy (RAI) with Vincenzo Cantiello
• Malta (PBS) with Federica Falzon and “Diamonds”
• Montenegro (RTCG) with Masa and Lejla with “Budi dijete na jedan dan”
• The Netherlands (AVRO TROS) with Julia and “Around”
• Russia (RTR) with Alisa Kozhikina and “Dreamer”
• San Marino (SMRTV) with The Peppermints and “Breaking my heart”
• Serbia (RTS)
• Slovenia (RTV SLO) with Ula Lozar
• Sweden (SVT) with Julia Kedhammar and “Du ar inte ensam”
• Ukraine (NTU) with Sympho-Nick and “Pryyde vesna”

During today’s meeting in Malta, the EBU accepted requests from several broadcasters not to publish songs at JuniorEurovision.tv before the official premiere on the national televisions, like for example, the Slovenian entry will be presented 5th October on RTV SLO.

The stage was also presented today. In case you missed it, you can check it out here.

The Opening Party will take place in Verdala Palace on the 9th of November. Rehearsals will start on Monday 10th November, and one day later all participants will start recording the common song “#together”. For the first time, the Press Centre will be located outside the main venue. This year journalists will gather in big tent (900m2) with easy access to the area. 16 cameras will operate during the broadcast of Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2014.

The running order will be done by a draw – Malta will select their running order by a random draw, and the first and the last countries to perform will be selected by a random draw. The remaining 13 countries will be drawing either first or second half, and then the production team will allocate them their running order number, in order to create a better flow of the show.

It was also decided that the voting system will not be the same as in the adult Eurovision, and the songs will not be ranked from first to last, but both the national juries and televoting will each award points to 10 songs (1-8, 10 and 12). The winner of this combined vote will then get 12 points, the second placed 10, third 8 points, and so on until 1 point – the same voting system we had in Eurovision until 2013.

There are only 46 days left, until we’re all #together in Malta for Junior Eurovision 2014!