# North Macedonia in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2023

North Macedonia participated in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2023 in Nice, France. Macedonian broadcaster Macedonian Radio Television (MRT) was responsible for the country's participation in the contest, and selected Tamara Grujeska as the Macedonian entrant.
Grujeska performed sixth in the running order, following the entry from the United Kingdom and preceding the entry from Estonia. North Macedonia finished in twelfth position with 76 points.

## Background

Prior to the 2023 contest, North Macedonia had participated in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest sixteen times, under the provisional reference of "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", since its debut at the inaugural contest in 2003. North Macedonia were absent twice from the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in 2012 and 2014. They have never won the contest, with their best results being at the 2007 and 2008, represented by the duo Rosica Kulakova and Dimitar Stojmenovski, and Bobi Andonov respectively, achieving fifth place. In the 2022 contest, Lara, Jovan and Irina represented the country with the song "Životot e pred mene" and placed 14th with a total of 54 points.

## Before Junior Eurovision
### Internal selection

An audition round was held on 11 May 2023 at the MRT Studios in Skopje. On 16 May 2023, it was revealed that 12 year-old Tamara Grujeska had been selected as Macedonian entrant by the committee. Her entry, "Kaži mi, kaži mi koj", was released on 16 October 2023.

## At Junior Eurovision

The Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2023 took place at Palais Nikaïa in Nice, France on 26 November 2023. The event was broadcast live on MRT 1 with commentary by Eli Tanaskovska.
Tamara Grujeska and the Macedonian delegation also participated in the Opening Ceremony for the contest, which was held in Hotel Negresco in Nice on 20 November 2023, during which the running order was also determined. North Macedonia was drawn by the show producers to perform in position 6, following the entry from the United Kingdom and preceding the entry from Estonia.

### Voting

The same voting system that was introduced in the 2017 edition was used, where the results were determined by 50% online voting and 50% jury voting. Every country had a national jury that consisted of three music industry professionals and two children aged between 10 and 15 who were citizens of the country they represented. The rankings of those jurors were combined to make an overall top ten.
The online voting consisted of two phases. The first phase of the online voting began on 24 November 2023 when a recap of all the rehearsal performances was shown on the contest's website Junioreurovision.tv before the viewers could vote. After this, voters also had the option to watch longer one-minute clips from each participant's rehearsal. This first round of voting ended on Sunday 26 November at 15:59 CET. The second phase of the online voting took place during the live show and began right after the last performance and was open for 15 minutes. International viewers were able vote for three songs. They were also able to vote for their own country's song. These votes were then turned into points which were determined by the percentage of votes received. For example, if a song received 10% of the votes, it received 10% of the available points.
North Macedonia received 37 points from the professional juries, placing in tenth position. The country placed fifteenth in the online vote, with 39 points. Overall, North Macedonia finished in twelfth place with 76 points.
The top twelve point score of the Macedonian jury vote was awarded to Armenia.

#### Detailed voting results

Each nation's jury consisted of five members: three adult music industry professionals and two children, who are citizens of the country they represent. This jury judged each entry 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 was permitted to be related in any way to any of the competing acts in such a way that they cannot vote impartially and independently. The individual rankings of each jury member were released shortly after the contest.