Prior to the 2018 contest, Belarus had participated in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest fifteen times since its first entry at the inaugural contest in. Belarus have taken part in every edition of the contest since 2003, and have won the contest twice: in with Ksenia Sitnik performing the song "My vmeste"; and again in with Alexey Zhigalkovich performing the entry "S druz'yami". The country previously hosted the contest in Minsk and will host for a second year in 2018. In 2017, Helena Meraai represented Belarus in Tbilisi, Georgia with the song "I Am the One". It ended in 5th place with 149 points.
The national final will take place on 31 August 2018 at the "600 Metrov" studio in Minsk. It will be mainly hosted by Olga Ryzhikova and 2014 Belarusian Eurovision contestantTeo, while Helena Meraai and Ruslan Aslanov will be hosts in the green room. Ten competing acts will participate in a televised production where the winner will be determined by a 50/50 combination of both telephone vote and the votes of a jury made up of music professionals. The members of the jury were Nataliya Tamelo, Tatyana Parhamovitch, Olga Salamakha, Evgeny Perlin, Aleks David, Igor Melnikov and Olga Vronskaya.
Artist and song information
Daniel Yastremski
Daniel Aleks Yastremski is an American-born Belarussian singer. He represented Belarus at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2018 with the song "Time", finishing eleventh. Daniel Yastremski was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA on 12 February 2004. He moved to Minsk as a small child and has been taking part in music lessons since he was six years old. Since then he has taken part in numerous competitions and represented Belarus at New Wave Junior in 2017.
Time
"Time" is a song by Belarussian singer Daniel Yastremski. It represented Belarus at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2018. The song placed 11th with 114 points.
At Junior Eurovision
During the opening ceremony and the running order draw which both took place on 19 November 2018, Belarus was drawn to perform eighth on 25 November 2018, following Azerbaijan and preceding Ireland.
Voting
The results of the 2018 Junior Eurovision Song Contest will be determined by national juries and an online audience vote. Every country will have a national jury that will consist of three music industry professionals and two kids aged between 10 and 15 who are citizens of the country they represent. This jury will be asked to judge each contestant based on: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the overall impression by the act. In addition, no member of a national jury could be related in any way to any of the competing acts in such a way that they cannot vote impartially and independently. The first phase of the online voting will start on 23 November 2018 when a recap of all the rehearsal performances will be shown on junioreurovision.tv before the viewers can vote. After this, voters will also have the option to watch longer one-minute clips from each participant’s rehearsal. This first round of voting will stop on Sunday, 25 November, at 15:59 CET. The second phase of the online voting will take place during the live show and will start right after the last performance and will be open for 15 minutes. International viewers can vote for a minimum of three countries and a maximum of five. They can also vote for their own country’s song. These votes will then be turned into points which will be determined by the percentage of votes received. For example, if a song receives 20% of the votes, thus it will receive 20% of the available points. The public vote will count for 50% of the final result, while the other 50% will come from the professional juries.
