Kazakhstan: Khabar Agency confirms to hold Junior Eurovision 2018 national selection
Not many days after EBU’s release of the official list of participants for Junior Eurovision 2018, that included the country of Kazakhastan, the Head of Khabar Agency confirmed that the broadcaster will hold a national selection to determine the country’s representative for Junior Eurovision 2018 in Minsk,Belarus.
Khabar Agency has been broadcasting the Eurovision Song Contest live to the audience in Kazakhstan since 2010. Khabar has been an associate member of the European Broadcasting Agency since January 2016. Therefore is the entity which is responsible to organize Kazakhastan’s participation in JESC 2018 next November in Minsk , Belarus
Specifically, speaking at a press conference in Astana a couple of days before, the Chairman of Khabar Agency, Alan Azhibayev, outlined the narrow time limits they have, since they learned about the participation just lately, on 25th of July. Commenting on these tight time limits he stated that Kazakhstan will not violate the rules and will conduct a national selection explaining further more:
Most European countries are doing a very fruitful work in advance, on July 25 we learned that we will get to Junior Eurovision, we do not have much time to take important steps to select the winner who will go to Minsk.
And he went further on by giving indications on how the Agency is thinking to plan the whole process:
We consider all the talented children who live in our country.It can not be said that it will be Danelia Tuleshova who will go, we have many other stars, most importantly, that the audience will determine who will go there to represent Kazakhstan at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. We need to do this very quickly, to find a child who will just come and win.
Director of the “Khabar” TV channel Yerlan Igisinov added that the selection of the participant’s song will be primarily evaluated.
“This song contest is not a contest of vocal data or dance abilities.There are certain rules that this song should not be performed before, the song must be in the national language, perhaps with the inclusion of English, it should be in the Euro-pop style, should not exceed three minutes.We have many criteria, and the songs should be good “
However, the national final for Kazakhstan must be held before October 8, when the EBU deadline expires for national selections to determine the representatives. It will be interesting following this country’s process being a newcomer in one of the Eurovision events.
On 26 November 2017, Danelia Tuleshova and six other young Kazakhstanis performed for the first time in the framework of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in Tbilisi, Georgia. However the performances were not in the competing part of the contest.
source: informburo.kz
