Mud off the sequins and top off on the pyrotechnics: The Eurovision Tune Contest is coming to Asia.
The organizers of Eurovision, the glitzy singing contest that attracts Tremendous Bowl-like viewership yearly in Europe and past, stated Tuesday that they’d maintain the first-ever Eurovision Tune Contest Asia in Bangkok on Nov. 14.
Music trade heavyweight South Korea is among the many 10 international locations that will likely be competing, alongside Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, the Philippines, Vietnam and the host nation, Thailand. Organizers stated extra international locations are anticipated to affix within the coming months.
The principles of the brand new competitors have but to be introduced. Within the Eurovision Tune Contest, a broadcaster in every nation selects an artist to carry out an authentic music, not than three minutes, to carry out reside onstage. Performers whose careers have taken off after they carried out in Eurovision embrace ABBA, Céline Dion and Olivia Newton-John.
“As we mark the seventieth anniversary of the Eurovision Tune Contest, it feels particularly significant to open this subsequent chapter with Asia, a area wealthy in tradition, creativity and expertise,” Martin Inexperienced, the director of the Eurovision Tune Contest, stated in a information launch saying the brand new occasion.
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Austria wins the Eurovision Tune Contest grand finale
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Lately, Eurovision has been a scorching spot of controversy as geopolitical conflicts overshadow the singing, with Russia being kicked out of the competition after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Israel dealing with calls to be barred from the competition and a boycott over its warfare in Gaza. Armenia and Azerbaijan each competed within the contest whereas they have been locked in a decadeslong dispute over the area of Nagorno-Karabakh.
And whereas regional powers China and Japan aren’t participating to this point, there may be potential for geopolitics to return up within the Asian contest, a lot because it does in its European counterpart. Thailand and Cambodia have a border dispute wherein tensions have flared lately, and a number of other international locations have competing territorial claims within the South China Sea.
The concept for an Asian version of Eurovision has been floating round since at the least 2008, nevertheless it has by no means managed to get off the bottom. Organizers stated the occasion might draw a viewers of greater than 600 million folks, greater than triple the 166 million who tuned in to the latest Eurovision, in response to viewing figures from the European Broadcasting Union, which organizes the competition. However beginning a brand new tv custom might be difficult at a time when extra media is being consumed digitally than ever earlier than.
Final yr, Russia tried a revival of a Soviet various to Eurovision, the Intervision Tune Contest. It’s not clear how many individuals watched Vietnam’s Duc Phuc win that contest, however organizers say they are going to maintain a 2026 version of Intervision in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in September.
Eurovision has tried to develop past its core contest earlier than. In 2022, the American Tune Contest aired on NBC with all 50 states and a number of other U.S. territories competing, nevertheless it was not renewed for the next yr. Its winner, AleXa, a Ok-pop singer from Oklahoma, went on to compete within the choice course of to be the Swedish entry at this yr’s Eurovision, although she finally didn’t make the minimize.
