Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2004

The Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2004 was the second edition of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, held on 20 November 2004 at Håkons Hall in Lillehammer, Norway, and presented by Stian Barsnes Simonsen and Nadia Hasnaoui. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK). It was broadcast in twenty countries and viewed by 100 million people. Broadcasters from eighteen countries participated, with France and Switzerland participating for the first time.

The winner was Spain with the song "Antes muerta que sencilla" by 9-year-old María Isabel from her debut album ¡No me toques las palmas que me conozco! which was released before the contest. Dino Jelusić, who won the 2003 contest for Croatia, presented the award to María Isabel. Since then, she has entered the charts in not only Spain but France, Italy, Scandinavia, Latin America and has gone on to release further albums in her home country.

Greece, who came ninth received more sets of twelve points than the United Kingdom, who came second. France, who came sixth, were voted by all the other countries that took part, which is more than the number of countries that voted for Romania, who came fourth and Croatia, who came third. Incidentally, the same three countries occupied the top three places as last year, just in a different order. These three countries were Spain, the United Kingdom, and Croatia.

The origins of the contest date back to 2000 when Danmarks Radio held a song contest for Danish children that year and the following year. The idea was extended to a Scandinavian song competition in 2002, known as MGP Nordic, with Denmark, Norway and Sweden as participants. In November 2002, the EBU picked up the idea for a song contest featuring children and opened the competition to all EBU member broadcasters making it a pan-European event. The working title of the programme was "Eurovision Song Contest for Children", branded with the name of the EBU's already long-running and popular song competition, the Eurovision Song Contest. Denmark was asked to host the first programme that took place the following year after their experience with their own contests and the MGP Nordic.

Norway was the third country of choice for this contest as the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) had, in May 2003, originally chosen broadcaster ITV of the United Kingdom to host the event. Shortly after the first contest in Copenhagen, it was confirmed that the next edition would be held in Manchester on 20 November 2004. However, ITV pulled out in May 2004 due to finance and scheduling problems. In August 2004, it was revealed that Granada Television, who would have co-produced the show with Carlton Television, had decided to pull out of the deal claiming the allocated budget of €1,500,000 was too small. The EBU offered funding of €900,000 to produce the event, but the ITV company said it would have cost almost €2,500,000 so asked them to find a new host broadcaster. It is also thought that another factor to their decision was the previous years' audience ratings for ITV which were below the expected amount.

The venue was therefore moved to Croatia, the winning country of 2003, but the Croatian broadcaster HRT reportedly forgot that the prospective venue for the event was already booked for the period the Junior Eurovision Song Contest was to take place. It was at this point that in June 2004, with five months remaining until the event would be held, that Norwegian broadcaster NRK offered to organise the next contest. Hosting duties were confirmed by the broadcaster itself a few days later, adding that the competition would take place at Håkons Hall in Lillehammer on the same date as originally planned.

Håkons Hall, sometimes anglicized as Håkon Hall and Haakons Hall, is an arena located at Stampesletta in Lillehammer, Norway, built for the 1994 Winter Olympics. With a spectator capacity of 11,500 people, it is the largest handball and ice hockey venue in the country.

Håkons Hall is regularly used for handball and ice hockey tournaments, concerts, exhibitions, conferences and banquets. The venue is owned by Lillehammer Municipality via the subsidiary Lillehammer Olympiapark, which owns all the Olympic venues in Lillehammer. The Norwegian Olympic Museum is located in the arena, which is located next to the smaller Kristins Hall. The hall was opened on 1 February 1993 having cost 238 million Norwegian krone (NOK).^{[citation needed]}