Today Italian public broadcaster Rai has just announced that Italy will compete in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2022 and this year’s contests will be broadcast on Rai’s main channel for the very first time.
Previously, the event was broadcast live on Rai Gulp, the Italian television channel aimed at children and teenagers. Now it will be shown on Rai 1 and Rai Play digital platform. This would also mean that Junior Eurovision will considerable increase the amount of viewers audience in Italy due to the bigger quantity of people who daily connect Rai 1 instead of Rai Gulp.
“We are satisfied with the work done over the years by Rai Ragazzi, Rai Yoyo and Rai Play Kids, but now is the time to introduce the general public to this event.”
Rai Gulp
Italy at Junior Eurovision
Italy participated for the first time in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in 2014, three years after their return to the Eurovision Senior Contest following an absence of 17 years. Since then, the country has participated every year except 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Italy has reached its best places in the competition with the victory of Vincenzo Cantiello on their debut in 2014 and a brillant third place in 2016 with Fiamma Boccia. In the rest of their participations, they have obtained two seventh places achieved in their last two appearances with Melissa and Marco in 2018 and in 2019 with Marta Viola. They have also earned 11th and 16th worst rankings in 2017 and 2015 respectively.
Last year, Italy was represented by Elisabetta Lizza and her song “Specchio (Mirror On The Wall)”. She finished 10th with 107 points.
About Junior eurovision 2022
The Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2022 will take place next Sunday 11 December in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. Following the victory of Maléna and her Qami Qami at the last festival in Paris (France), the Karen Demirchyan Complex will host the contest for the second time in its history, as it did in 2011
However, this edition is special as it marks the 20th anniversary of the children’s festival. To celebrate, public broadcaster ARMTV is preparing a big show where it hopes to have as many participating countries as possible fighting for the crystal microphone.