Think Eurovision couldn’t get any more colourful? Try adding K-pop and Bollywood to the mix.
After three decades’ worth of Eurovision broadcasts around Australia, Australian network SBS announced on Monday it has signed an exclusive option with the European Broadcasting Union to develop a version of the contest for the Asia Pacific region: Eurovision Asia.
SBS said Eurovision Asia would bring together up to 20 competing countries in the Asia Pacific region, with an inaugural event hosted by Australia in 2017, before moving to other competitors.
Blink TV, which has produced SBS’s Eurovision broadcasts since 2009, said Eurovision Asia could reach a potential audience of more than a billion, compared with the 200 million viewers Eurovision claims to reach each year.
With the contest only in the optioning stage of its development, SBS were not able to confirm which countries would be participating, or whether Australia would move to Eurovision Asia after winning a “wildcard” entry to compete in Eurovision for the first time in 2015. That year’s grand final, which saw Australia’s competitor Guy Sebastian rank fifth, was watched by 592,000 domestic viewers, up on 476,000 from the 2014 competition, at which Australia’s Jessica Mauboy performed.
X Factor winner Dami Im, a Korean-Australian singer, is set to represent Australia at the 2016 Eurovision song contest. She released her competing song, Sound of Silence, earlier this month.
China broadcast Eurovision for the first time in 2015. A spokesperson for Hunan Television, Ying Lei, said China would be interested in getting its own wildcard entry in the European event. “That’s the question we ask,” she said. “Whether we can follow [Australia] in China, at least have a special performer on the stage and then join the big family and join the show.”
Sietse Bakker, Eurovision’s event supervisor, confirmed in May 2015 that there had been “increasing interest” from China.
“If that interest grows, who knows?” he said. “In a couple of years we would have a world song contest.”
But in June the European Broadcasting Union tweeted that there were “no plans for China to take part right now”.
