Eurovision Asia

Eurovision Asia on hold? Organisers and EBU “still early in the development process”

The Eurovision Asia organisers gave ESCXTRA.com an official update on the contest

Almost one year ago, the EBU revealed the exciting news that the Eurovision Song Contest was coming to Asia! Yes, on August 18th, 2017, the Eurovision Asia Song Contest was born. In January, the Ministry of Information and Communications in Kazakhstan suggested that the first contest was due to take place in October 2018. However, with October now just three months away, we’ve contacted the EBU for an update on the Eurovision Asia Song Contest.


Official statement from Eurovision Asia

Earlier this week, ESCXTRA.com contacted the EBU for an update on the Eurovision Asia Song Contest. The EBU passed our message on to the Eurovision Asia organising team who provided us with a statement. We thank them for their swift reply to our query. The official statement is as follows:

Work on bringing the Eurovision Song Contest to Asia is still ongoing and EBU are working closely with the organisers to help them bring it to fruition. It’s still early in the development process but once the team are at the point they are able to talk about timings we will be sure to make an announcement.

“Early in the development process”

Indeed, the statement tells us that the first edition of the Eurovision Asia Song Contest is certainly not on the horizon any time soon. The contest is still “early in the development process” and work to bring Eurovision to Asia is “still ongoing”. The EBU is continuing to work closely with the Eurovision Asia team. Unfortunately, it seems that the first contest is still far away as the team are unable to make any announcement regarding a timescale.

An initial flurry of interest

Following the announcement of the contest, a flurry of broadcasters confirmed interest in competing. These included broadcasters from Kazakhstan, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Therefore, these joined Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and South Korea. Indeed, these six nations had all been touted as possible steering group members or hosts of the contest.
The excitement around the reveal lead us to list ten acts who we think should represent their nations at the first Eurovision Asia Song Contest! However, it looks like we will have to wait a while more for any of these acts to take to a Eurovision stage. We also conducted a poll to discover which nation you think should host the first contest. Australia received the highest share of the vote (18%) with the Philippines the second most popular choice (14%).


When do you think we’ll witness the first edition of the Eurovision Asia Song Contest? Do you think the interest is there? Let us know in the comments below and via our social media channels @ESCXTRA!

2 Comments

  1. They had 1 year time to set the Eurovision-Asia-Song Contest up and they are still in the \”early developement progress\” ? What the hack did they do during that whole year? We have still no host /hostcity ……and \”only 12\” entries. I think, the EASC is dead before it started. Let New Zealand perform at the ESC (like Australia) – that would be good.

  2. Seriously? 🙁 There\’s so many talented recording artists across the Asia-Pacific. In fact, I was hoping for EXILE to represent Japan (I swear, Atsushi and Takahiro are amazing!) and Bella Paige to represent Australia (IF the minimum age is 16). 🙁

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