Ukraine in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2024

Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2024
Country	Ukraine
National selection
Selection process	Natsvidbir na Dytiache Yevrobachennia – 2024
Selection date(s)	22 September 2024
Selected artist(s)	Artem Kotenko
Selected song	"Hear Me Now"
Selected songwriter(s)	Svitlana Tarabarova
Ukraine in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest
◄2023 • 2024

Ukraine took part in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2024 in Madrid, Spain, with the song "Hear Me Now" performed by Artem Kotenko. The Ukrainian broadcaster Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine (Suspilne) selected its entry, originally titled "Dim", through the national final Natsvidbir na Dytiache Yevrobachennia – 2024.

Prior to the 2024 contest, Ukraine had participated in the contest eighteen times, without ever missing an edition since its debut appearance in 2006.^[1] The country came second in 2008 with the song "Matrosy" performed by Viktoria Petryk, which remained its best result until 2012, when Anastasiya Petryk – who happens to be Viktoria's younger sister – represented the country with the song "Nebo" and won the contest.^[2] Ukraine has hosted the event twice, both times in its capital city, Kyiv: at the Palace of Sports in 2009  – the same venue that previously hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 2005 – and at the Palace "Ukraine" in 2013.^[3][4] In 2023, Anastasia Dymyd competed for Ukraine with the song "Kvitka", which ended up in 5th place out of 16 entries with 128 points.^[5]

Natsvidbir na Dytiache Yevrobachennia – 2024 is the national final format developed by Suspilne in order to select Ukraine's entry for the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2024. The competition consists of a final held on 22 September 2024, hosted by Anna Trincher, Anna Tulieva and Timur Miroshnychenko.^[6] The show was broadcast on Suspilne Kultura, as well as on Suspilne's online platforms.^[7] The slogan for the competition was "Mrii smilyvo!" ("Dream boldly!").^[8]

The selection of the competing entries for the national final took place over three stages. In the first stage, artists could apply for the competition through an online submission form. For the second year in a row, Svitlana Tarabarova was the music producer of the event, who was in charge of reviewing the received submissions and selecting a longlist of 15 participants, announced on 24 July 2024.^[9][10] In the second stage, longlisted artists were assessed by a three-member expert council consisting of Michelle Andrade, Tayanna and Yevhen Khmara alongside competition producers Tarabarova, Yevhen Kot [uk] and Yevhen Triplov [uk] at an event labeled as the "star school",^[11][12] with ten acts, announced on 2 September 2024, proceeding to the top ten stage of the competition,^[13] and eventually six acts, announced on 8 September, directly qualifying for the final.^[14][15] The third stage consisted of Tarabarova and Triplov – the head songwriters of the competition – writing and assigning six original songs for the finalists; no original song submitted by a competing artist made the final.^[16][17] The six selected artists took part in a final on 22 September 2024, where the winner was determined by a 50/50 combination of jury and public votes – the latter being cast through the Diia application over two phases of voting.^[7][18]

The preparations for the final were documented via the show Shchodennyky Dytiachoho Yevrobachennia ("Junior Eurovision Diaries"), consisting of six broadcasts hosted by Miroshnychenko and Tulieva and aired weekly on Suspilne Kultura between 16 August and 22 September 2024.^[19][18]

The submission process for interested artists aged between nine and fourteen was open between 5 June and 3 July 2024.^[20] All submissions required participants to enter covers of two songs and a separate introduction video; however, artists were also allowed to submit original songs for consideration. Precedence was not given to complete submissions, with Suspilne also reserving the right to replace a song submitted by an eventual finalist with a new entry of its choice if such a case occurs.^[21] At the closing of the submission process, 309 applications had been received, with roughly 19% of them also including an original song.^[22] The songs were released on the official Eurovision Ukraine YouTube channel on 16 September.^[23]

The final took place on 22 September 2024. The members of the jury were Andrii Hutsuliak (Ukrainian representative in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 as part of Tvorchi), Roxolana [uk] (singer-songwriter, finalist of Vidbir 2022) and Vitalii Drozdov [uk] (radio producer, general producer of TAVR Media Radio Holding). In addition to the competing entries, the guest performers included Roxolana with "Ne stii pid viknom", Tvorchi with "Dubidu", Anastasia Dymyd and the Ukrainian Radio Symphony Orchestra with "Kvitka", Anna Trincher with "Ochi", and Jerry Heil with "#AllEyesOnKids", after which the finalists performed a rendition of the common song, "Pure and Beautiful", alongside Tarabarova.^[24]

Zlata Ivaniv and Artem Kotenko were tied at 11 points each at the end of the show but, after receiving the highest score from the public, Kotenko was declared the winner.^[25][26]

The Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2024 took place at Caja Mágica in Madrid, Spain on 16 November 2024. Ukraine performed 14th, following San Marino and preceding Portugal.^[27]

The same voting system that was introduced in the 2017 edition will be used, where the results will be determined by 50% online voting and 50% jury voting. Every country has a national jury that consists of three music industry professionals and two children aged between 10 and 15 who are citizens of the country they represent. The rankings of those jurors are combined to make an overall top ten.^[28]

The online voting consists of two phases. The first phase of the online voting will begin on 15 November 2024 when a recap of all the rehearsal performances is shown on the contest's website Junioreurovision.tv before the viewers can vote. After this, voters will also have the option to watch longer one-minute clips from each participant's rehearsal. This first round of voting will end on 16 November at 17:59 CET. The second phase of the online voting will take place during the live show and begin right after the last performance and will be open for 15 minutes. International viewers will be able vote for three songs.^[29] They will also be able to vote for their own country's song. These votes will then be turned into points which will be determined by the percentage of votes received. For example, if a song receives 10% of the votes, it will receive 10% of the available points.