United Kingdom in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest
The participation of the United Kingdom in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest first began at the inaugural Junior Eurovision Song Contest in which took place in Copenhagen, Denmark. ITV, a member organisation of the United Kingdom Independent Broadcasting and the European Broadcasting Union, were responsible for the selection process of their participation. The United Kingdom used a national selection format, broadcasting a show entitled "Junior Eurovision Song Contest: The British Final", for their participation at the contests. The first representative to participate for the nation at the 2003 contest was Tom Morley with the song "My Song For The World", which finished in third place out of sixteen participating entries, achieving a score of one hundred and eighteen points. United Kingdom withdrew from competing in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in 2006, and have yet to return to the contest.
History
The United Kingdom are one of the sixteen countries to have made their debut at the inaugural Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2003, which took place on 15 November 2003 at the Forum in Copenhagen, Denmark. Child-singer, Tom Morley, was the first participant to represent the United Kingdom with the song "My Song For The World", which finished in third place out of sixteen participating entries, achieving a score of one hundred and eighteen points. Morley and Cory Spedding sang both for the peace in the world and Joni Fuller described her feelings. The country's best result at the contest was placing second in 2004 with the song "The Best is Yet to Come". The remaining British entrant finished in fourteenth position in 2005.In 2003, the contest was broadcast live on the main channel ITV, relegating it to digital channel ITV2 for the next two years due to poor viewing figures, before their complete withdrawal in. A delayed broadcast was aired on the main channel in 2004 and 2005. The inaugural contest, broadcast live on ITV1, averaged 5 million viewers. 1.9m watched the 2004 contest on delay on ITV1. In 2005, the contest was watched by 700,000 viewers on ITV1, with 171,000 watching live on ITV2.
The contest originally should have been organised by Carlton Television for ITV in Manchester. ITV then announced in May 2004 that due to financial and scheduling reasons, the contest would not take place in the United Kingdom after all. It is also thought that another factor to their decision was the previous years' audience ratings for ITV which were below the expected amount. In July 2020, it was reported that BBC were considering participation in the upcoming contest in Warsaw.
Welsh debut
The Welsh broadcaster Sianel Pedwar Cymru had shown interest in participating for the UK in, hoping to share the Welsh language with a wider audience. Before the digital switchover, the contest would therefore be a bilingual broadcast that would be broadcast in Wales on analogue, and on S4C Digidol in the rest of the UK. In the end, S4C chose not to broadcast the contest. S4C announced on 9 May 2018 that they would debut at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2018 to be held in Minsk, Belarus.Possible Scottish debut
On 29 June 2019, the Scottish broadcaster BBC Alba confirmed that Scotland would not debut in the 2019 Junior Eurovision Song Contest, as they would compete in Eurovision Choir 2019 instead. However, the broadcaster did confirm that talks had taken place that could enable participation for the country in 2020.However, in April 2020, BBC Alba announced that they will not debut at the contest in Poland.
Radio broadcast
On 21 November 2013, it was revealed that Edinburgh-based 98.8 Castle FM would broadcast the contest live to listeners in Scotland. The broadcasting rights had been offered by the EBU to its members, however when no-one in the UK took up the offer, Castle FM – previously known as Leith FM – moved in. The commentators were Ewan Spence and Luke Fisher.It was announced on 16 October 2014 that the contest would be broadcast on a radio station across the United Kingdom. Five local radio stations broadcast the contest, one in England and Wales, and three in Scotland. Cotswold FM, Fun Kids, Oystermouth Radio, Radio Six International and Shore Radio transmitted the contest live with commentary again provided by Ewan Spence.
On 9 November 2016, Radio Six International announced that they would broadcast the contest live. Ewan Spence, Lisa-Jayne Lewis, Sharleen Wright and Ben Robertson provided the commentary for the radio stations Radio Six International, Fun Kids and 103 The Eye.
Participation
| Year | Artist | Song | Language | Place | Points |
| Tom Morley | "My Song for the World" | English | 3 | 118 | |
| Cory Spedding | "The Best is Yet to Come" | English | 2 | 140 | |
| Joni Fuller | "How Does It Feel?" | English | 14 | 28 |