Serbia
←  Serbia and Montenegro
Member station	Radio Television of Serbia(RTS)
National selection events	Internal selection[show] National Final[show]
Participation summary
Appearances	8
First appearance	2006
Best result	3rd: 2007, 2010
Worst result	Last: 2016
External links
Serbia’s page at rts.rs
Serbia’s page at Eurovision.tv

The participation of Serbia in the Junior Eurovision Song Contestfirst began in Bucharest, Romania at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2006, having previously participated in 2005 as part of Serbia and Montenegro. Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) a member organisation of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) are responsible for the selection process of their entrants. Serbia used the national selection format broadcasting a show entitled “Izbor za dečju pesmu Evrovizije” (Serbian Cyrillic: Избор за дечију песму Евровизије) for their participation at the contests between 2006 and 2010.

In 2007 they were represented by Nevena Božović, who went onto to represent Serbia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 as part of her band, Moje 3. Serbia’s best result came in 2007 and 2010 when they finished in third place at both contests. There have only been three absences from the Junior Contest in 2011, 2012, and 2013. Serbia returned to the competition in 2014 represented by Emilija Đonin, who was selected internally by the national broadcaster RTS, a selection mechanism that they continued to use in 2015 when their most recent participation at a Junior Contest was with the song “Lenina pesma” (Serbian Cyrillic: Ленина песма), performed by Lena Stamenković. As of Junior Eurovision 2016, Serbia have awarded the most points to Russia, and received the most points from Macedonia.

History[edit]

Nevena with her group Moje 3performing at the Eurovision Song Contest 2013

Lena Stamenković performing at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2015.

Prior to the Montenegrin independence referendum in 2006 which culminated into the dissolution of Serbia and Montenegro,^[1] both nations use to compete at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest and Eurovision Song Contest as Serbia and Montenegro.^[2]Serbia were the first of the two nations to compete at a Junior Contest, making their debut at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2006.^[3] While it was at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2014 when Montenegro would make their debut as an independent nation.^[4] Neustrašivi učitelji stranih jezika went on to being Serbia’s first participant in 2006 as an independent nation with the song “Učimo strane jezike” (Serbian Cyrillic: Учимо стране језике).^[3]

Serbia continued to participate at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2007, in which they had selected Nevena Božović to represent Serbia with the song “Piši mi” (Serbian Cyrillic: Пиши ми). Božović also became the first Junior Eurovision participant to take part in the senior Eurovision Song Contest as part of the group Moje 3, performing the song “Ljubav je svuda” (Serbian Cyrillic: Љубав је свуда),^[5] which achieved forty-six points and failing to qualify to the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 after finishing in 11th place.^[6]

The nation continued to participate at every Junior Contest until 2010, which would be their last appearance at that present time,^[3]following the broadcaster’s announcement on 5 June 2011 that Serbia would withdraw from the 2011 contest.^[7] On 25 July 2014, Serbia announced its return to the 2014 contest, after a three-year absence.^[8] Serbia selected their 2014 entry through an internal selection for the first time in their history. On 1 October 2014 it was revealed that Emilija Đonin would represent Serbia in the contest with the song “Svet u mojim očima“.^[9]

On 4 May 2015, it was announced on a Eurovision news website that Serbia’s national broadcaster, RTS, had not started any planning in regards to their participation at the 2015 contest, and that such decision would be taken after the Eurovision Song Contest 2015. On 20 August 2015, Serbia confirmed its participation.^[10] RTS announced on 21 September 2015, that they had internally selected Lena Stamenković with the song “Lenina pesma” (Serbian Cyrillic: Ленина песма) to represent them at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2015,^[11] which took place at the Arena Armeec, in the Bulgarian capital Sofia, on 21 November 2015.^[12] On 14 September 2016, Serbia confirmed its participation in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2016 in Valletta, Malta.^[13]

Participation[edit]

Table key

 1st place   2nd place   3rd place   Last place

Notes

1.^ Contains phrases in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese.

Broadcasts and voting[edit]

Commentators and spokespersons[edit]

The contests are broadcast online worldwide through the official Junior Eurovision Song Contest website junioreurovision.tv and YouTube. In 2015, the online broadcasts featured commentary in English by junioreurovision.tv editor Luke Fisher and 2011 Bulgarian Junior Eurovision Song Contest entrant Ivan Ivanov.^[14] The Serbian broadcaster, RTS, sent their own commentators to each contest in order to provide commentary in the Serbian language. Spokespersons were also chosen by the national broadcaster in order to announce the awarding points from Serbia. The table below list the details of each commentator and spokesperson since 2006.

Voting history[edit]

The tables below shows Serbia’s top-five voting history rankings up until their most recent participation in 2016 and takes into account the new voting system which allows the adult and kids juries each to award a set of points, introduced by the European Broadcasting Union from the 2016 contest onwards.^[15]

Most points given Rank Points Country 1 76  Russia 2 56  Armenia 3 43  Georgia 4 42  Macedonia 5 36  Belarus

Most points received Rank Points Country 1 70  Macedonia 2 31  Russia 3 29  Sweden 4 28  Ukraine 5 27  Netherlands