Australia is set to miss the Junior Eurovision Song Contest for the second straight year in a row due to ongoing travel restrictions.
It’s a global event where Australia has previously enjoyed success. But the ongoing COVID travel bubble is now forcing Australia to again miss out on competing at Junior Eurovision.
The decision comes after Australia was forced to compete ‘virtually’ in the adult version of Eurovision earlier this year. The performance by Montaigne failed to qualify for the semi-finals, with the remote location considered a key factor for the poor scores.
TV Blackbox was alerted to the decision by Eurovision fan Ford Carter. SBS confirmed the decision to withdraw from this year’s Junior Eurovision with a spokesperson telling this website:
“Due to the current travel restrictions, Australia will not be competing in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2021.”
It also appears likely fans of the event will need to look online for coverage of the event, with the network spokesperson conceding:
“SBS will not broadcast the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in 2021.”
SBS is the Australian rights holder for all events associated with Eurovision, although it has previously opted to offset costs by sub-licencing the Junior Eurovision franchise to the ABC.
Junior Eurovision was broadcast on the teen-focused ABC ME channel from 2017-2019. However, both ABC and SBS opted not to screen the event in 2020 after Australia was forced to withdraw due to COVID travel restrictions.
Australia last participated in Junior Eurovision in 2019 when Jordan Anthony finishing in eighth position. Australian contestant Isabella Clarke finished 3rd in 2017, while Jael Wena also finished third in 2018.
While Australia is out of Junior Eurovision, SBS has recently confirmed it will soon commence the search for its next Eurovision contestant with the Australia Decides event to be held on the Gold Coast in February 2022.
Why are we part of the Eurovision Song Contest anyway? A region over 14,000K away from here which has virtually no cultural relevance to Australia any longer.
Hi Kryztof – I understand what you’re saying, however in the context of Eurovision it’s not a logical argument. It just is.
I’m not sure I follow. Could the USA join in if they wanted to?
Yes, if they wanted to pay the monies.
This argument is terrible. Australia has more cultural similarities with EU than Georgia or Azerbaijan (which are competing in Eurovision too) .SBS was working on local version of Eurovision (Asia-Oceania) but it didn’t work from cultural and other reasons. So its look like Australia is closer to Europe. Australia was invited to join contest.USA its going to have own America Song Contest ( USA states competing against each others)….
I wasn’t really “arguing”, I didn’t understand the geography of it as much as anything, like why we compete in something that takes place on the other side of the world that is Eurocentric, even in its name (I suppose “World Vision” is already taken!) Of the 52 countries that have participated in the E.S.C. to date, Australia is the only country not in Europe! I didn’t know that we had tried we had tried to start a similar thing here, which would have made more sense and I know that the Poms are #1 in the top 10 migrant groups in Oz, but 6 out of the remaining 9 are from Asia with more than twice as many coming here from India and China than the UK.