GEORGIA WAS the big winner of the sixth Junior Eurovision Song Contest, which took place in Limassol on Saturday.
The winning song ‘Bzz’ by musical trio Bzikebi got 154 points, stealing the show with their buzzing song about the sound of wasps. Despite some complaints on transportation and organisation, the CyBC got the thumbs up for the JESC production, its first grand-scale project.
“The 2008 JESC is over and the city of Limassol can be proud that Europe enjoyed the best Junior Eurovision since its launch in 2003. Despite the huge problems with the organisation, the TV outcome was simply superb,” commented oikotimes.com, a Greece-based Eurovision blog.
Winning Bzikebi is made up of three ten-year-olds Giorgi Shiolashvil, Mariam Kikuashvili and Mariam Tutulish Vili who appeared on stage dressed as wasps to perform their song ‘Bzz’. The trio also impressed the audience after the results came out, when they performed extracts from all the songs played at the contest, in their original languages.
Ukraine came second with 135 points and Lithuania came third with 103 points. Cyprus with ‘Yioupi Yia’ came tenth with 46 points. The voting was determined 50 per cent by televoting and 50 per cent by jury committees in each participating country. All net profits from the televoting will be donated to UNICEF, although the amount of proceeds has not been announced yet.
Critics argued that the voting resembled the adult Eurovision Song Contest voting trends, where neighbouring countries usually vote for each other. Cyprus got top points from Greece and gave seven back; Belarus gave their 12 points to Russia, FYROM gave top points to Serbia and Armenia gave 12 to Georgia.
There were, however, still some surprises such as the 12 points Georgia got from Russia and the five points Greece gave to FYROM.
The CyBC reported that 57 per cent of television viewers in Cyprus tuned in to watch the JESC live on Saturday evening. The contest was broadcasted live in 14 of the 15 participating countries, as well as in Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina. The recorded show will be rebroadcast in the Ukraine and Australia. It is estimated that 20 million viewers around the world watched the contest live.
The feedback for the CyBC’s organisation of the contest was generally positive and international press commented well on the professionalism of the two presenters, Sophia Paraskeva and Alex Michael. This year’s contest introduced a number of innovations such as the use of a spider camera and an underwater plunge cam. It was also the first live show in High Definition with 5.1 Dolby Surround to be aired by the CyBC.
Organisers were roundly criticised for the inability to fill the stadium on the night of the contest. The CyBC had announced that tickets had sold out days before the event, but some seats at Spyros Kyprianou Stadium were empty on the night. Some participants also complained about the transportation system in Cyprus (or absence thereof) and the lack of logistics in transporting participants from hotels to the stadium.
