Konnichiwa, Japan! Ni hao, China! And xinh chao, Vietnam! The Eurovision Asia Song Contest — the long-anticipated spinoff of Eurovision — is finally happening.
On Friday organisers behind the event unveiled their official web site — EurovisionAsia.tv — along with a slick promo video that melds footage from Eurovision (fans will recognise Jamala, Måns Zelmerlöw and Sanja Vucic, among others) with imagery from Asia. This is some fusion cuisine that we are ready to devour!
“We are taking the biggest live televised music show – Eurovision – to the biggest music audience in the world,” organisers write on their web site. “Countries from the Asia-Pacific region will be able to compete in their own version of the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time.”
“Each country will showcase their songwriting and performing talent to Asia and the world and compete to be crowned the winner of the first ever Eurovision Asia Song Contest.”
A blue and purple caption explains that the “Eurovision Asia Song Contest will closely resemble the Eurovision Song Contest”.
Up to 20 countries will compete in an annual grand final.
Among them, we expect to see the likes of Japan, the second biggest music market in the world after the United States, and South Korea, which has exported its unique brand of pop music, affectionately dubbed K-pop, all over the world. Australia, Vietnam, Thailand — we are ready to feel your sound!
Why isn’t “Eurovision Asia” just “Asiavision”?
In the aftermath of the reveal, Eurovision fans have been asking an understandable question: Why not just call it “Asiavision”?
The problem is that The Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union — the region’s equivalent to the European Broadcasting Union — runs a news service called Asiavision.
It’s a well-established entity — launched in 1984 — that operates in more than 30 countries, supplying news to networks including CCTV in China, ABS-CBN in the Philippines and VTV in Vietnam.
Me upon learning that #EurovisionAsia is actually happening. #KPOP — make my body move! ?? pic.twitter.com/06YWeb3R2E
— William Lee Adams (@willyleeadams) August 18, 2017
Who is organising Eurovision Asia?
Australia’s Blink TV — a comedy, entertainment and music production company — is one of the key stakeholders behind the competition.
It has produced a variety of acclaimed programming, from quiz shows to long-form comedy series, and has worked with media brands including the UK’s Channel 4, Sweden’s SVT and Denmark’s DR. Kylie Minogue, Robbie Williams, Tina Arena — they’ve all worked creatively with Blink.
But you guys will know the outfit best for their work at Eurovision, which has resulted in three Top 10 finishes in as many tries, including a jury win for Dami Im back in 2016. They recently produced the Eurovision Top 40 Songs special for SBS Australia.
“Our big vision is to bring the Eurovision brand to Asia, with the support of SBS and the EBU,” Blink TV’s Paul Clarke said over the summer, after securing major investment from Roadshow Films. “Roadshow has a strong track record of successfully releasing entertainment projects through Northern Asia.”
You may recognise Paul from the Eurovision green room, where he sat alongside the likes of Dami Im.
Eurovision Asia Song Contest
In March 2016 SBS and the EBU announced a joint-deal to establish an Asiavision Song Contest in 2017 with the first contest being held in Australia. Asiavision is still just a tentative name.
SBS has also been in talks with broadcasters in China, South Korea and Japan. The talks revealed a series of obstacles, including political tensions between the region’s three big music markets. Chinese law actually prohibits the broadcast or streaming of South Korean pop music and entertainment. That bold move came in response to South Korea’s deployment of THAAD — the United States’ Terminal High Altitude Area Defence missile system.
The host city and country for the event have not yet been decided, despite earlier plans for Australia to host the inaugural edition. China was subsequently revealed as the host of the first edition, though it seems plans have changed. Clarke revealed in an interview that he was in talks with Hong Kong, Sydney and Singapore to host the show.
Are you excited about the Eurovision Asia Song Contest? Any acts or countries you’re dying to see compete? Let us know in the comments box below!
I thought OUR SONG would be the Eurovision of Asia. Until this news props up. Herregud! I dont like the name of the contest Eurovision Asia that even includes the non-Asian in the contest. Here we go again! I defy Australia and those Asian countries (i.e. Azerbaijan) participating the Eurovison every year. Now? Eurovison Asia which includes the Oceanian countries? Hello?
Australia
South Korea
Japan
Malaysia
Indonesia
Singapore
Brunei
New Zealand
Thailand
Philippines
Sri Lanka
India
Bangladesh
Turkey
Macau
China
Vietnam
HongKong
Afghanistan
Kazakhstan
I think definite participants in the first edition will be:
Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam
Possible entrants:
Cambodia, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Laos, Lebanon, Mongolia, Nepal, Qatar, Russia (largest country in Asia), Sri Lanka, Turkey (seems to have left Eurovision for good now), UAE
Whether Hong Kong and Taiwan/Chinese Taipei will enter separately is debatable.
Just checked Iraq, Lebanon, UAE are not members of the ABU. So maybe Afghanistan, Myanmar and Pakistan instead?
Macau?
Bangladesh ftw.
I am so excited for this. It is great that we will be able to hear many different artists from Asia competing. I wish them all well and good luck.
Shouldn’t it be called something like Pacifasiavision
…
ok maybe not
Doesn’t it sound ridiculous for asians to have a ‘eurovision’ in title? Were there better suggestions that didn’t make it, except of taken asiavision?
Quite excited to see how this will happen.
With all the talk about Middle East participating in the contest it has me thinking that this will be good for the Middle East! I predict that if some of those countries participate it will open up the Middle East to many new things and new ideas! I could be wrong but I think it could be incredible if they participated 🙂
Now I’m just waiting for Afrovision and Amerivision (North and South + Island countries) to happen!!
Their is going to be an African song contest in November 2017! 🙂 this edition will be hosted in Accra-Ghana! It will have the exact same format as ESC 🙂 it is called AfriMusic Song contest 🙂
That is so cool!! I didn’t know that so thanks for telling me! 🙂 🙂
Huge Chinese, Indian and Filipino diaspora so….
…So either of those country will be like Poland come voting time!? Haha
Ok, I have to say I haven’t thought about it!!
How can they broadcast it live with all these time zones?
Thanks @Robyn for pointing that out.
Been following ESC for ages now and I can’t wait to see this. I hope my home county Philippines will join. Philippines has abundance of great singers and there’s no doubt Filipino artists can sing live come competition night! ?
Its a song contest though not just singing 😉
? Lol of course I know that but in the end of the day, who perfoms and sings the song well tend to do better than just spectacles, lightlings, productions, fireworks etc.
@Robyn
If this contest were to materialise, there is no way that the Middle East, South or even Central Asia would be allowed to participate- especially as the first group can make the case for ESC participation. It seems like it would be just be for East/South East Asian countries. Otherwise the political chaos of having these countries participate would make Ukraine and Russia look like Greece and Cyprus.
I feel like it’ll be broadcast live when it’s 8-9PM in the Singapore time zone as 90% of the participants will live there. I can’t see the Arab countries participating: too conservative. Televoting is ESSENTIAL, otherwise the contest will never take off. The public wants to be involved.
It’ll likely just be everything East of and including India.
Yeah I wonder how this is gonna work with the timezone differences. Asia is just so big and vast there’s Middle East, South-East, Eastern mainland and Oceania(AUS & NZ). I hope the nearby Pacific Island countries will compete as well like Fiji, Samoa and New Guinea so I can hear some tropical inspired music.
I don’t care about women rights, because women have a voice, I care about the voiceless, the animal rights. Does China still has the Yulin Festival? Please search at least for 5 seconds.
Kasia Mos is that you?
No, is it funny?
Maybe it’s Isabell Oestrebus
This is for the voiceless??
Are you Cassandra?
I hope the Arab countries stay out of this considering how backward they are socially. Also, I hope there will be a televote.
xenophobia has no place in eurovision too. i hope you stay out.
though i think it’s weird, many of these countries are anti lgbt
Lol south korea is gonna smash the other countries so hard.
Just wait and see until Bangladesh wipes the floor with everyone else.
Lol south korea is smash the other countries so hard.
I hope Australia will host it first. They’ve been watching Eurovision for decades now so they know what makes it a great show. No offense to South Korea but their ABU TV Festival was boring..! would rather watch a Kpop music program honestly.
Hoping for Eurovision America (and I mean America the whole continent, not just the U.S. and Canada)
That would be interesting!
There was one! OTI Festival. It’s gone though (oh, and the U.S. won twice). I kinda just want one where the American states participate.
If Asiavision were to happen,this competition would be better suited for Turkey and Lebanon. Turkey in EASC won’t have to worry about automatic qualifying big a Big 5, at least for the first year. As for Lebanon, their artists will get a chance to shine without Israel in the competition.
The whole logistical nightmare of this is so ambitious that it makes me wonder about BlinkTV and how they will handle it. Do they really have the capabilities?
I think maybe we are imagining this on a par with the modern day Eurovision, and perhaps those expectations are a bit unrealistic.
Hope Australia will be kicked out and stick to where it really belongs – Asia Pacific region
ikr? what’s gonna happen to them?
Without Australia the comp won’t happen.
Hmm since some of these countrirs censor a lot of contents and so on we are bound for a contest where signs of diversity, lgbt, feminine freedom and so on will be lacking :/
Probably won’t happen, although the Asia Pacific region is better than elsewhere on the continent. But that’s another reason why I hope Australia gets to continue with ESC.
I’m not confident that those Middle-Eastern countries will participate. Maybe Turkey and Lebanon, but other countries like UAE and Qatar won’t show the whole contest to the public (at least not “everything”).
I think you’re mistaken in that. Qatar and uae are a bit like azerbaijan and would probably throw in much efforts to win so they can show off their countries.
Frisian – well, Qatar stole the 2022 World Cup through bribery and Azerbaijan are known cheaters at the Eurovision, so I guess the real competition is “who has the most money”? Sad.
well, I just did a small research on Wikipedia about women’s rights and I have to disagree.
However, I do believe that they will make efforts to win just like Azerbaijan did (2009-2013).
Belarus is not? We are always in the soul in Asia. We can sing for the islands of Papua.)
I’m already curious to what a country like mongolia would send.
I’ve been really into Mongolian pop music. They have an extremely interesting and also diverse pop scene. “Sarnaas zuugdsen ohin” by Kiwi is probably my favorite song ever from Mongolia. 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clSSAeJUqeQ
I hope this doesn’t kick Australia out of the regular Eurovision Song Contest. I’m also hoping that the minimum age for the Asian version is 16 like the regular Eurovision. Not only that, but do you know that Japanese group EXILE? One of their members, Atsushi Sat?, is currently on vacation in North America, trying to find ways for EXILE to become known worldwide. Atsushi’s one the front singers of EXILE, along with Takahiro Tasaki. Atsushi is set to return to EXILE in January 2018, so this would give him and his duet buddy Takahiro to record their entry in… Read more »
I meant: “This would give him and his duet buddy Takahiro time to record their entry.”
I don’t think my country is gonna compete ‘cuz China is in this.
If China has problems with so many countries then they’ll probably have to stay out unless they find a compromise.
Oh, sorry!
I also want to mention the situation in the middle east, to which many of you refer in the comments. There’s even more tension in the region, some countries are at war there.
If it’s Eurovision Asia it can’t be only the East part of Asia and Australia? You can’t have only China, Japan, Thailand and some other countries of the region.
It’s so exciting! I’d love to watch artists from Asia, the music they have there, discover singers! It will be a whole different and unique thing! However, I’m sceptical and I have some questions: 1) Will Australia participate to Eurovision or go to Eurovision in Asia? Obviously it can’t be in both contests. It may not be in Asia, but it’s close to Asia, it’s near the region. 2) Is a contest like this possible? I don’t know how it is going to work in terms of the relationship among the countries. For example “Chinese law actually prohibits the broadcast… Read more »
1. Yes, it’s Australia’s idea.
2. Well, If Armenia and Azerbaijan managed, I believe China and South Korea can participate since the relationship between these two are far more positive.
I think this “Asianvision” won’t be like Eurovision. There won’t be much interaction between the participants before the contest. Also, the competition will probably be much tougher (If the idea works, ofc).
Politics could also get much more involved, like with the ongoing “South China Sea situation”.
Well. Looking forward to see how this evolves. But how do they define Asia? With the Middle East too?
They classify it as members of the ABU. So there are 42 countries who are invited; this includes countries in the Middle East such as Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.
Hope, that Australia will continue to compete in ESC, In either way, gonna miss them so much
If it takes of Australia will only do the Asia pacific, but for now we will support both.
Can somebody tell me if India will participate?? And if there will be a language rule applied??
Half of the Asians don’t speak English anyway….and India doesn’t have a great English music scene
I don’t really like this Idea… It’s like a copy of the Eurovision Song Contest, especially when it is called “Eurovision Asia”. I would hate it , if this all became a world contest…
Over 60 years of tradition must stay like ist is … Thats my oppinion.
You realize that nothing about the Eurovision will change?
No one is forcing you to watch the Asian version. Keep in mind that the Eurovision that you followed for 60 years is still there for you. It’s not going to change or stop.
I never thought this would see the light of day. But I’m very pleased to be proved wrong
Hopefully this will get Australia out of Eurovision
HOPEFULLY!!!!!
why do you hate australian’s so much…
Russia is only partly in Asia…
Sorry, I meant it as a reply to Rectangle
I feel so alive! Thank you to all the people who actually made this happen!
Y E S ugh finally!!!!!!! ik this is like the first time I’ve ever been happy about australia on this site I am so ready, so hyped, so here for this one of the best things about eurovision is that the national selection processes introduce you to a lot of cool but mostly unknown artists that would be nearly impossible to find otherwise (like alva, gabi toth, panivalkova, liis lemsalu, amina sewali, daniel levi etc. etc.) … now imagine a japanese, hk, singaporean, or even a saudi national final and all of the hidden talent there oh my lordddd I… Read more »
here is the link for afrimusic btw it actually looks very legit
https://www.ceprsvpsolutions.com/contact-us
okay i did some sleuthing and it looks excitinggggg like artists from 13 countries have already registered, there are pretty big celebrities like Ameyaw Debrah behind it, and the production company (Vertical Limit) that’s in charge of the South African Music Awards and the African Fashion International is going to be involved somehow
Read on wikipedia (reliable?) that Singapore is hosting the contest this year. So,there you have it. 🙂
Leave China out, they are thorn in everyone’s side.the fact that they don’t even have a venue yet is problematic, blink TV does not have the money for this and without the money it won’t happen. It will not work because unlike Europe political tensions in this part of the world are worse, can you imagine China not winning and losing to Japan etc.. World War 3 would happen, also the music is is not transportable. I will believe it when I see it.
Honestly, I think people are getting so caught up with the semantics of the name. ‘Eurovision’ does indeed have the prefix ‘Euro’ coming from ‘Europe’, but I feel that the term ‘Eurovision’ has transcended its etymological meaning and now has a significance of its own. To me, ‘Eurovision’ doesn’t mean ‘European Vision’, but rather ‘international song contest of wonder, joy, and occasionally sass’.
Well…actually “Eurovision” doesn’t even refer to the song contest exclusively – it was/is the broadcast network that carried the show to the whole continent, and there is much more to it than just the annual Eurovision Song Contest. If you were watching the recent World Athletic Championships from London, you would have seen the Eurovision logo all along the trackside, for example.
If this Asia contest is carried by the Eurovision network, then the title makes sense.
It’d be great to see all of them competing. Asia is such a diverse continent musically, I think it’d be great to see them.
Can Azerbaijan be moved to this new contest too, please?
I’d like to see them mess with China, North Korea in the same way as they cheated their way to victory in Europe.
Actually the fact that Blink TV rather than SBS are the Australian stakeholders suggests that Australia can continue with esc!
Hm, they’ll probably be competing in both contests – which makes it all the more ridiculous.
When the talk about an Asiavision Song Contest started, it was speculated that the winning country would receive a guest slot in the ESC, so maybe this will be Australia’s qualifying ticket from now on.
What’s so bad about that? Don’t some Eastern European countries do ESC and Turkivision too?
My hope is only one… make TVRI great again
Oh dear, we don’t know if we ever gonna see that day. TVRI never updated their program since the 70s lol BUT, no worries. RCTI, Metro TV, MNCTV are also full members of the Asia-Pasific Broadcasting union..So i hope one of them would wanna go forward and send a participant!
Loved seeing Iveta in the promo clips. Ughhh I wish she opens the Asiavision with Lovewave.
So, first of all: They are certainly not going with the brand name “Asiavision” ? I have to admit that I’ve kind of already gotten used to it already :/ Honestly, it would be a much more suitable name than EUROvision Asia.
Second: I believe we can all agree that South Korea will pretty much be Asia’s Sweden in this competition. Considering the incredible success and fame K-Pop idols experience all over Asia, I see no chance for the rest of the acts to keep up with them (if South Korea decides to go with K-Pop idols, of course).
Does this mean that Australia will no longer participate in Eurovision?