The participation of Slovenia in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest first began at the twelfth edition of the

Junior Eurovision Song Contest The Junior Eurovision Song Contest (often shortened to JESC, Junior Eurovision or Junior EuroSong) is an international song competition which has been organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) annually since 2003. It is held in a diff ...

in which took place in Marsa,

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

Radiotelevizija Slovenija Radiotelevizija Slovenija ( en, Radio-Television of Slovenia) – usually abbreviated to RTV Slovenija (or simply RTV within Slovenia) – is Slovenia's national public broadcasting organization. Based in Ljubljana, it has regional broadcastin ...

(RTVSLO), a member organisation of the

European Broadcasting Union The European Broadcasting Union (EBU; french: Union européenne de radio-télévision, links=no, UER) is an alliance of Public broadcasting, public service media organisations whose countries are within the European Broadcasting Area or who ar ...

(EBU), were responsible for the selection process of their participation. Slovenia originally used an internal selection format for their participation at the 2014 contest. The first representative to participate for the nation at the 2014 contest was

Ula Ložar Ula Ložar (born 24 January 2002), sometimes known as simply Ula, is a Slovenian singer. She represented Slovenia with the song "Nisi sam (Your Light)" in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2014 in Malta. She participated in EMA 2019 with the ...

with the song "Nisi sam (Your Light)", which finished in twelfth place out of sixteen participating entries, achieving a score of twenty-nine points. Slovenia participated for a second time at the 2015 contest in

Sofia Sofia ( ; bg, София, Sofiya, ) is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain in the western parts of the country. The city is built west of the Iskar river, and ha ...

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...

. This time, RTVSLO organised a children's spin-off of their Eurovision national final ''EMA'' to select their entry.

Lina Kuduzović Lina Kuduzović (born 30 December 2002) is a Slovenian singer of Bosniak origin who won the first season of ''Slovenia's Got Talent'' in 2010 when she was seven years old, making her the youngest winner of any ''Got Talent'' show to that time. In ...

represented the nation with the song "Prva ljubezen". She finished in third place overall, achieving Slovenia's highest placing in both the adult and junior Eurovision Song Contest. Slovenia withdrew from the contest in 2016, citing that the decision was made based on changes to the contest rules by the EBU, although not specifying which rule changes influenced their decision to withdraw from the competition. Despite originally expressing an interest to return to the 2022 contest in

Yerevan Yerevan ( , , hy, Երևան , sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Y ...

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...

, the plans did not flourish and Slovenia is yet to return to the event.

History

Participation

On 27 July 2014, it was speculated that

(RTVSLO) was considering debuting in the

Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2014 The Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2014 was the 12th edition of the annual Junior Eurovision Song Contest, and took place, for the first time, in Malta. This was the third time that the contest was hosted by the winning country. Maltese nationa ...

, having never participated before since the inception of the contest in 2003. This was later confirmed, with RTVSLO officially announcing their debut at the 2014 contest in

Marsa, Malta Marsa ( mt, Il-Marsa) is a town in the South Eastern Region of Malta, with a population of 4,401 people as of March 2014. The name Marsa means " the harbour".

on 19 August 2014. On 16 September 2014, the broadcaster announced that they had internally selected

to represent the country, with her song "Nisi sam (Your Light)", presented to the public on 5 October 2014. Despite being a bookmaker's favourite, Slovenia finished in twelfth position out of sixteen with twenty-nine points. On 30 June 2015, RTVSLO confirmed that Slovenia would participate for a second time at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in

. It was later revealed by the broadcaster that they would organise a national final in order to select both their entrant and song for the 2015 contest. Mini EMA was a spin-off of RTVSLO's national final for the adult Eurovision Song Contest ''EMA''. The selection featured six performers over two semi-finals, with the final taking place on 4 October 2015.

was selected to represent the nation with "Prva ljubezen". At the contest, she finished in an impressive third place with 112 points. Slovenia placed third in public televoting and fourth with the professional juries. As of 2023, this remains Slovenia's highest placing in both the adult and junior Eurovision Song Contests.

Withdrawal

Despite the high placing in 2015, on 24 May 2016, RTVSLO withdrew from the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. The broadcaster cited dissatisfaction with rule changes introduced by the EBU, though not specifying the exact rule. The broadcaster did still screen the 2016 contest on TV SLO 2, with an audience of just 28,000, 105,000 less than the 2015 broadcast. RTVSLO did not return to the contest in 2017 and did not broadcast the event for the first time since 2013. The broadcaster also opted not to return to the contest in 2018. On 9 June 2019, RTVSLO confirmed that they would be skipping the contest again in 2019, stating that the cost of participation was too high for the time slot of the contest. Previously, during Slovenia's participation span, the contest was broadcast during prime time, but was moved to an earlier time slot by the European Broadcasting Union. The broadcaster went on to decline participation in both the 2020 contest in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

and the 2021 contest in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

Potential return

On 25 May 2022, RTVSLO confirmed that they were aiming to return to the

Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2022 The Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2022 was the 20th edition of the annual Junior Eurovision Song Contest. The contest took place in Yerevan, Armenia on 11 December 2022, following the country's victory at the with the song "" by Maléna (sin ...

. Marusa Kobal, head of Slovenia's Eurovision delegation, stated that the broadcaster had renewed interest in participating and that they would announce their final decision about potential participation in Armenia in due course. However, on 29 May 2022, the broadcaster announced that they had ruled out a return to the 2022 contest, due to the show not being provided in the broadcaster's Program-Production plan for 2022. In September 2022, Vanjo Vardjan, editor-in-chief of entertainment program at RTVSLO, reaffirmed that Slovenia’s absence from the contest was due to the amount of participating nations and the time slot of the event, meaning that the broadcaster was not confident the contest can achieve high viewing share. On 9 December 2022, the steering group of the EBU revealed that they were engaging in discussions surrounding potentially reverting the Junior Eurovision Song Contest back to a prime-time broadcast slot in the future. With this being one of RTVSLO’s main reasons for withdrawing, a further possibility of a Slovene return in future editions remained positive. However, on 26 May 2023, RTVSLO confirmed that Slovenia would not return to the 2023 contest in

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...

, yet again citing financial constraints given the scheduling of the contest on a Sunday afternoon.

Participation overview

Commentators and spokespersons

The Slovene broadcaster, RTV SLO, sent their own commentator to each contest in order to provide commentary in Slovene. Spokespersons were also chosen by the national broadcaster in order to announce the awarding points from Slovenia. The table below lists the details of each commentator and spokesperson since 2014.

Notes and references

Notes

References

{{Eurovision stub Countries in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest