Ukraine in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2020

UA:PBC launched their selection process on 5 August 2020, accepting submissions until 25 August 2020. All applications that complied with the rules were uploaded on YouTube and the candidate that had received the most likes on the platform advanced automatically to the next stage of the program. The final shortlist was announced on 28 August 2020 with an online vote due to open a week later on 5 September 2020 to decide the winning entry alongside a professional jury.

The submissions accepted by UA:PBC were revealed online and users had until 27 August 2020 to vote for their favourite entries by giving a like. The entry with the most likes directly advanced to the national final. A selection panel then reviewed the remaining submissions and selected ten entries to compete in the national final: eight original songs and two cover songs.[10] On 18 August 2020, Maksym Tkachuk was disqualified from the competition as it was discovered that he had performed in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea after its annexation as part of a competition allegedly organised by the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry, breaching the Section 3.4. on the national selection's rules.[11] On 28 August 2020, the eleven selected competing acts were announced on Instagram.[12]

The eleven competing entries will be published online on 5 September 2020 and the winner will be selected through the combination of both public online vote and the votes of jury members made up of music professionals.[13] Eight jury members each awarded one vote to their favourite entry and each member had an equal stake in the final result. For the online vote, users will be able to vote for their favourite entries from 5 September 2020 to 8 September 2020 via UA:PBC's official website junior.eurovision.ua, and the results had a weighting equal to the votes of a single jury member.[14]

Originally, the winner was to be revealed on 12 September 2020. However, UA:PBC confirmed through its official Instagram account that Oleksandr Balabanov will represent Ukraine at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2020. He received 5 points in total from the jurors, with Daniela Shapochnikova winning the online voting.[15]

The jury members were as follows:[19]

• Jamala – winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2016
• Alina Pash – singer, rapper
• Taras Topolya – lead vocalist of Antytila
• Ruslana Khazipova – member of Dakh Daughters
• Dmytro Shurov – lead vocalist of Pianoboy
• Larysa Klyuyevska – music editor at UA:Radio Promin
• Timur Miroshnychenko – television presenter, Junior Eurovision commentator for Ukraine
• Lyubov Morozova – music critic, host at UA:Kultura

Oleksandr Balabanov (Ukrainian: Олександр Балабанов; born 5 July 2006)[20] is a Ukrainian singer. He represented Ukraine at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2020 with the song "Vidkryvai".[21]

"Vidkryvai (Open Up)" (Ukrainian: Відкривай)[2] is a song by Ukrainian singer Oleksandr Balabanov. It represented Ukraine at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2020.

The same voting system that was introduced in the 2017 edition was used, where the results were determined by 50% online voting and 50% jury voting.[23] Every country had a national jury that consisted of three music industry professionals and two children aged between 10 and 15 who were citizens of the country they represented. The rankings of those jurors were combined to make an overall top ten.[24]

The online voting consisted of two phases. The first phase of the online voting began on 27 November 2020 when a recap of all the rehearsal performances was shown on the contest's website Junioreurovision.tv before the viewers could vote. After this, voters also had the option to watch longer one-minute clips from each participant's rehearsal. This first round of voting ended on Sunday 29 November at 15:59 CET. The second phase of the online voting took place during the live show and began right after the last performance and was open for 15 minutes. International viewers were able vote for three songs.[25] They were also able to vote for their own country's song. These votes were then turned into points which were determined by the percentage of votes received. For example, if a song received 20% of the votes, it received 20% of the available points.

Ukraine received 106 points; 52 from the juries and 54 from online voting, reaching 7th place.

Points awarded to Ukraine[26] Score Country 12 points 10 points  Poland  Russia 8 points  Spain 7 points  France  Georgia 6 points 5 points 4 points  Germany 3 points  Serbia 2 points  Netherlands 1 point  Kazakhstan Ukraine received 54 points from the online vote

Points awarded by Ukraine[26] Score Country 12 points  Georgia 10 points  France 8 points  Spain 7 points  Kazakhstan 6 points  Belarus 5 points  Netherlands 4 points  Malta 3 points  Russia 2 points  Germany 1 point  Serbia