Cyprus has participated in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 10 times since debuting at the first contest in 2003. The country's best result was eighth place, which was achieved both at the 2004 and 2006 contests with Marios Tofi and the song "Oneira" and Luis Panagiotou and Christina Christofi and the song "Agoria koritsia" respectively. The national broadcaster Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC) has hosted the event for Cyprus once, in 2008 in Limassol.
History
The Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC) debuted Cyprus at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2003.[1] For its first entry, CyBC opened the submission period for artists and composers to submit their entries until 12 September 2003. From all 29 songs submitted to CyBC, Theodora Rafti was selected as the Cypriot entrant. Her entry "Mia efhi" was presented during the television program Ora Kyprou (Cypriot time) on 15 September. At the contest, the song was performed third in the running order and placed 14th out of the 16 entries, with 16 points.[2] For the 2004 contest, a ten-participant national final hosted by Nikos Bogiatzis was held on 7 September 2004. The winner was chosen by a 50/50 combination of votes from a professional jury and public televoting. Only the televoting results were revealed, which Marios Tofi and the song "Oneira" won, with Louis Panagiotis placing second and Rafail Georgiou & Anna Loizou placing in third. At the contest, Cyprus improved from the year prior, performing ninth in the running order and placing 8th out of the 18 entries.[3]
Despite hosting a ten-participant national final and selecting Rena Kiriakidi with the song "Tsirko", the nation was absent from the 2005 contest due to an "internal issue" with the selected song;[4] the country's late withdrawal; however, allowed the Cypriot public to still vote that year. Cyprus returned for the 2006 contest with the song "Agoria koritsia" performed by Luis Panagiotou and Christina Christofi. Similar to 2004, the entry had been selected by a national final. The eight-participant event took place on 30 September 2006 and the winner was chosen by a combination of votes from a professional jury (40%) and public televoting (60%). As there was a tie at the end of the voting with Sotiris Charalampous and "Prosefchi", the results of the televoting took precedence sending "Agoria koritsia" to Bucharest.[5] At the contest, the song was performed second in the running order and placed eighth out of the 15 participants.[6] The next year, a similar eight-participant national final was held, only that instead, the winner was chosen by a 50/50 combination of votes from a professional jury and public televoting. The final was held on 29 September 2007, and Yiorgos Ioannides was selected with the song "I mousiki dinei ftera".[7] At the contest, the song was performed fourth in the running order and placed 14th out of the 17 entries, garnering 29 points.[8]
Two more eight-participant national finals selected the Cypriot entries in 2008 and 2009. For the 2008 contest, which was hosted by CyBC in Limassol, Cyprus,[9] the final was held on 28 June 2008 and was hosted by Christiana Stavrou and Kiriakos Pastides. The winner was chosen by a combination of votes from a professional jury (40%) and public televoting (60%).[10] Elena Mannouri and Charis Savva represented the country with the song "Gioupi gia!", which was performed last (15th) at the contest and placed 10th with 46 points.[11] The entry for 2009 was Rafaella Kosta represented the country with the song "Thalassa, ilios, aeras, fotia". The final was held on 3 October 2009 and was hosted by Grigoriadis Christos and Mary Kanther. The winner was chosen by a 50/50 combination of votes from a professional jury (which included Christina Metaxa who represented Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009) and public televoting.[12] At the contest, the song was performed eighth on the night and placed 11th out of the 13 participants.[13]
George Michaelides representing Cyprus in the 2016 contest with the song "Dance Floor".
Cyprus did not participate in 2010 because of unspecified reasons. Although CyBC was in talks with the EBU to return to the contest in 2013, it subsequently did not. On 3 July 2014, CyBC announced its return to the competition after a four-year absence,[14] and its entry, Sophia Patsalides with the song "I pio omorfi mera", was selected internally by the broadcaster and announced on 21 July.[15][16] At the contest, Cyprus finished in ninth place out of 16 participating entries.[17] Although Cyprus did not participate in the 2015 contest for financial reasons, the nation returned for the 2016 contest, only to place in the bottom two at both events: second-to-last in 2016 with George Michaelides and the song "Dance Floor" in Valletta, Malta and last in the 2017 contest with Nicole Nicolaou and the song "I Wanna Be a Star" in Tbilisi, Georgia. The latter marked the country's worst result in the contest.[18] Both of these entries had been selected internally by the broadcaster.[19][20] The following year, on 11 June 2018, CyBC announced that they would not participate in the contest in the 2018 contest,[21] with no reasons of their withdrawal being published.
On 21 August 2024, CyBC announced it would return to the contest after a six-year absence, having internally selected Maria Pissarides to represent the country.[22][23] Pissarides was selected following an evaluation of a proposal made by the production company Chandal Entertainment Ltd, which also subsequently announced auditions to select dancers who would join the singer on stage, and the spokesperson for the Cypriot jury at the final.[24][25] The song, titled "Crystal Waters", written by Armin Gilani, 2014–entrant Patsalides and Pissarides herself, was presented to the public on 30 September during the breakfast television show Omorfi mera ("Beautiful day") on RIK 1;[26][27] a special listening session reserved for the press was previously held at the Event Hall of the CyBC Archive in Nicosia on 27 September.[28] Cyprus performed fifth at the contest, which was held on 16 November 2024 contest at the Caja Mágica in Madrid, Spain.[29] Pissarides' performance was staged by Layla Ellison,[30] and she was accompanied on stage by four dancers: Adriana Markich, Andriana Polemiti, Ciara Economopoulos and Danae Petrou.[31] At the end of voting, Pissarides brought Cyprus their best result since 2014, placing 13th with 60 points.[1]
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.[32] The Cypriot broadcaster, CyBC, sent their own commentator to each contest in order to provide commentary in the Greek language and English languages. Spokespersons were also chosen by the national broadcaster in order to announce the awarding points from Cyprus. The table below list the details of each commentator and spokesperson since 2003.
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