Rumours and counter rumours are flying about who will bid to host the 2020 Junior Eurovision song contest, but currently Poland are the only country to have confirmed a bid, with unconfirmed reports that Spain and Kazakhstan are also considering putting in bids.

A good argument can be made as to why Poland should be allowed to host again:

1: They want to!
2: Poland is convenient for most European’s who would like to travel to see the show in person
3: They have (very) recent experience of hosting the show and therefore the expertise to host again
4: (Although not EBU policy for JESC) They won the 2019 contest and should have first refusal

There are however, a few very good reasons why; this observer believes, allowing Poland to host again under the current voting system could (and I stress could) be very bad for Junior Eurovision in the short term.

Looking at some of this years viewing figures we see:

Poland – 5.5M average 7.7M peak – up from from 2.2M and 2.6M in 2018
Spain – 1.5 Million
France 979,000
Netherlands 252,000
Italy Average  302,000
Portugal 350,000
Russia had the largest audience since 2011 – with viewing figures between 5% and 7% share in larger cities over 100,000, but no total numbers are available.

(Figures from eurovoix.com)

What clearly stands out here is that Poland had by far the largest viewing audience with hosting and their win last year contributing to a dramatic spike in interest in the contest in the country..

Putting aside the fact that both Roksana Wiegel and Viki Gabor would most likely have scored very well and each was a well deserved winner, with a voting system that allows viewers to vote for their own country, the more people you have watching, the more potential voters you have and the voting odds are heavily stacked in favour of the country with the most viewers.

As in sport, hosting or winning an event naturally increases interest, so if the voting system is to remain the same, trying to increase the interest level in other countries; to try and level up the playing field, should really be the EBU’s priority.

The alternative is, we risk ending up in a situation where until Poland decides to send a Turkey (real or literal), or the Polish people get bored of winning, the prospect of Polish winners for the next 5+ years is not beyond the realms of possibility and smaller countries with lower viewing figures who have no chance of reaching near the top of the leader board will not be able to justify the cost of participation and we could see many withdrawing.

So, the ball is most definitely in the EBU’s court and they have a very difficult decision to make. Do they choose another country to host? or this commentators preferred choice, allow Poland to host again (with Roy Van de Merwe favouring  a different city such as the Capital Warsaw) but change the voting system?

How they amend the voting system is a discussion I may explore in another post but for now, with the current voting system the question remains, should Poland be allowed to host again in 2020?