Ukraine participated in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2018 in Minsk, Belarus with the song "Say Love" performed by Darina Krasnovetska. Their entrant was selected through a national selection, organized by the Ukrainian broadcaster UA:PBC.
Prior to the 2018 Contest, Ukraine had participated in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest twelve times since its debut in 2006.[1] Ukraine have never missed a contest since their debut appearance,[2] having won the contest once in 2012 with the song "Nebo", performed by Anastasiya Petryk.[3] The Ukrainian capital Kyiv has hosted the contest twice, at the Palace of Sports in 2009,[4] and the Palace "Ukraine" in 2013.[5]
Ukraine initially withdrew from the contest on 2 July 2018 due to financial difficulties,[6] but were ultimately added to the list of participating countries on 2 August 2018, setting a record of 20 participating countries.[7]
Before Junior Eurovision
National final
An online public vote took place from 28 August 2018 to 3 September 2018 for users to vote for their favourite entries via UA:PBC's official website junioreurovision.ua. The winner was ultimately selected through the votes of jury members made up of music professionals, taking the results of the online voting into consideration. "Say Love" performed by Darina Krasnovetska was announced as the winner of the national final on 10 September 2018.[8] The jury panel that selected the winner consisted of: Maria Burmaka (singer, jury chairperson), Taras Topolia (lead singer of Antytila), Oleksandra Koltsova (singer and member of the Managing Board at UA:PBC), Sofia Kutsenko (singer, Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2014 participant as part of Sympho-Nick) and Laud (singer and composer, Vidbir 2018 finalist).[8]
Darina Krasnovetska (born 7 May 2007) is a Ukrainian child singer. She represented Ukraine at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2018 with the song "Say Love", finishing fourth.
Say Love
"Say Love" is a song by Ukrainian child singer Darina Krasnovetska. It represented Ukraine at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2018.
At Junior Eurovision
During the opening ceremony and the running order draw which both took place on 19 November 2018, Ukraine was drawn to perform first on 25 November 2018, preceding Portugal.
Voting
The same voting system that was introduced in the 2017 edition was used, where the results were determined by 50% online voting and 50% jury voting. Every country had a national jury that consisted of three music industry professionals and two children aged between 10 and 15 who were citizens of the country they represented. The rankings of those jurors were combined to make an overall top ten.[9]
The online voting consisted of two phases. The first phase of the online voting began on 23 November 2018 when a recap of all the rehearsal performances was shown on the contest's website Junioreurovision.tv before the viewers could vote. After this, voters also had the option to watch longer one-minute clips from each participant's rehearsal. This first round of voting ended on 25 November at 15:59 CET. The second phase of the online voting took place during the live show and began right after the last performance and was open for 15 minutes. International viewers were able vote for a minimum of three and a maximum of five songs.[10] They were also able to vote for their own country's song. These votes were then turned into points which were determined by the percentage of votes received. For example, if a song received 10% of the votes, it received 10% of the available points.
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