Italy was represented at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2024 with the song "", written by Alex Uhlmann, , and Pablo Meneguzzo, and performed by Simone Grande. The Italian participating broadcaster, (RAI), internally selected its entry for the contest.
Background
Prior to the 2024 contest, Italy had participated in the contest nine times since its first entry in the , winning the contest with its debut entry "" performed by Vincenzo Cantiello, marking its only win to this point. The nation opted not to take part in the contest in (due to the COVID-19 pandemic). In , which had previously been in charge of Italy's participation in the contestwas replaced within the structures of RAI by the flagship channel Rai 1, citing a new division of schedules and a desire for such events to reach a wider audience; this led to a large increase of viewers watching the show in Italy. In , Melissa and Ranya competed for Italy with the song "", which ended up in 11th place out of 16 entries with 81 points.
Before Junior Eurovision During the final of the second season of The Voice Kids in December 2023, host Antonella Clerici revealed that one of the show's twelve finalists would go on to represent Italy in the 2024 contest; this was misinterpreted by much of the local media as a confirmation of the show's winner, Simone Grande from Rozzano near Milan, being selected to represent the nation, which had not been at that point confirmed by RAI. On 10 September 2024, RAI announced that it had internally selected the Italian entrant for the contest and that they would be revealed on 19 September. Grande (who was, at the time of his selection, a twelve-year-old) was eventually announced as the entrant with the song "", which was written by Alex Uhlmann, and Pablo Meneguzzo and released on 27 September, alongside an accompanying music video.
At Junior Eurovision The Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2024 took place at the in Madrid, Spain on 16 November 2024. On 1 October 2024, during the heads of delegation meeting, Italy was drawn to open the event in position 1.
In Italy, the event was broadcast on Rai 2 and RaiPlay, with commentary provided by ; Rai Kids was responsible for the television production of the Italian broadcast.
Performance Grande's performance was staged by Claudio Santucci and choreographed by Manuela Saccardi, with the supervision of Laccio. RAI described the concept of the performance as "touching on the themes of the right to childhood, to play, to lightheartedness".
Voting
At the end of the show, Italy received 98 points, finishing in 9th place.
+ Points awarded to Italy Score Country 12 points 10 points 8 points 7 points 6 points 5 points 4 points 3 points 2 points 1 point Italy received 46 points from the online vote
+ Points awarded by Italy Score Country 12 points 10 points 8 points 7 points 6 points 5 points 4 points 3 points 2 points 1 point
Detailed voting results The following members comprised the Italian jury:https://junioreurovision.tv/event/madrid-2024/final/jury Edmondo Anselmi Iros Lorenzo Guiati Michele Mo Lucia Margherita Marino Marta Lucia Coda Zabetta
Detailed voting results from Italy Draw Country Juror A Juror B Juror C Juror D Juror E Rank Points 01 02 9 9 2 14 12 9 2 03 8 6 1 13 6 5 6 04 6 10 11 7 15 12 05 15 16 10 16 7 15 06 5 2 12 11 2 4 7 07 10 3 9 4 5 6 5 08 13 14 8 12 8 14 09 1 1 7 3 1 1 12 10 2 5 13 10 16 7 4 11 12 13 3 9 13 11 12 14 7 4 6 11 8 3 13 16 15 14 1 14 10 1 14 3 4 5 5 3 2 10 15 4 8 6 2 4 3 8 16 11 11 16 15 10 16 17 7 12 15 8 9 13
References