Junior EuroMusic Song Contest 16

The Junior EuroMusic Song Contest 16 was the sixteenth edition of the Junior EuroMusic Song Contest. The Netherlands hosted this edition in Amsterdam. It was the fourth time that The Netherlands hosted this contest.

Sofia Rol gave Ukraine its third victory in the contest with her song. The national juries placed the Ukrainian entry at a third place while Ukraine finished at the first place in the online voting. Malta was ranked at the second place. Greece completed the third place. Debuting country Spain won the jury vote, while they ranked overall at the sixth place. Ireland finished at fourth place, their best result so far. Besides Ireland, Denmark as well, who finished 8th, finished at their best place so far..

17 countries took part in this edition. The same as in the previous edition and a record. Spain decided to debut in this edition. Italy returned to the contest. Cyprus and Russia decided to withdraw from the competition. The Russian broadcaster was excluded from participating in future editions by the EBU due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Germany, Iceland, Latvia and Norway showed some interests to take part in this edition but didn't apply.

Location
Different as in the adult version, the previous winners isn't automatically the next hosting country. Instead there was a selection to select a host country. For this edition, the EBU internnaly selected the Dutch broadcastser as host.

After long negotiations between the EBU and the shortlisted broadcasters (Armenia, Belgium, Greece and Netherlands), the EBU made a decision and selected Amsterdam as host city. The RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre, with a capacity of 12.900.

Number of participants
For the first edition, the EBU announced that they invited some countries to participate in the contest. For the next edition, countries could sign in, with a maximum of 15 countries from the second edition until the thirteenth edition. This was increased to 18 countries in the fourteenth edition.

Running order
There are specific rules about how a country gets his running order.

From the first edition until the thirteenth, the countries were divided in to groups (first- and second half). This happened fully random. Afterwords, a team will create a running order. Since the fourteenth edition, only the first, last place and the spot of the host country have been drawn.

Song
Each country sends one song to the contest. There was a change in the rules for this edition. The song has to be for more than 50% in official languages of the country. The song also can't be longer than five minutes.

Voting rules
After that all the participating countries have sang their song, each single country awards a set of points. The professional jury of each country awards a set of 12, 10, 8-1 points to 10 songs. Viewers around the world vote for 3 songs, and their votes are distributed proportionally. The votes of the jury and the audience make up 50% of all votes.

The country who gets the most amount of points wins the contest. If two or more countries receive the same number of points, the country who received the most points from the online voting will be ranked higher. In case that is the same, the country that received points from the most nations, will be ranked higher. If that is also the same, then the country with most of the 12 points will finish at a higher place, when the countries received from the same amount of countries this highest mark, the nation with the most of 10 points, ... will be ranked higher.

12 points
Below is a summary of all 12 points received:

Debuting countries

 * Spain.jpg Spain - When the EBU published the official list of participating countries, it was clear that Spain would take part in this edition. Due some rumours, the Spanish broadcaster was already interested to debut in the fifth edition.

Returning countries

 * Italy.jpg Italy - When the EBU published the official list of participating countries, it was clear that Italy would take part in this edition.

Withdrawing countries

 * Cyprus.jpg Cyprus - Due financial problems, the broadcaster decided to withdraw.
 * Russia.jpg Russia - The country was excluded from participating in future editions by the EBU due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.